His words were truthful. Genuine. But the smallest shred of something lingered in them. Sadness, was it? No. Pity? Jernal had almost certainly died. His only source of human companionship for the last year. It was easy to hate the Southern soldier, but hard to deny the sanity he helped the captain keep during that time.
Then there was Mimir. Kazuaki experienced a great relief that he was no longer bound to the creature. Did gods even have souls? He had no earthly clue. But Kazuaki the man, who entered into the bargain with Mimir, was dead.
Only Kazuaki, God of Salvation, existed now.
Terrible as his experience with the lesser god had been, he caught glimpses of redemption in the creature. Even decency, at times. A part of Mimir truly adored Kazuaki and Jernal. But his genuine adoration often drowned beneath the lesser god’s mutual hatred.
Kazuaki wondered what Mimir would do now. It was almost a tragedy that the god who craved adoration so much, would end up with none. Hated by both gods and men, Mimir doomed himself to another lifetime of solitude. Would Jernal be enough to supply the lesser god with his fix? He didn’t know.
It didn’t matter, Kazuaki thought. It was behind him. For the ridiculous, microscopic part of him that pitied Jernal and Mimir, he ended on their fates being just.
Tragic, yes. But just.
Bartholomew shifted in his chair. He cupped his chin in his hand, his expression showing his discomfort. “It is my greatest sorrow that I have thrust you right back into a similar position as you were before, Captain.” He’d wrestled with the integrity of his decision since he first birthed the idea to resurrect Kazuaki months ago. Ultimately, and uncharacteristically, emotion won over logic. “I know you wish to die one day.”
The captain saw the guilt in his comrade’s face. He banished it quickly. “Gods can die, Bartholomew.” He knew because he’d killed them.
“Yes. That is true.” Bartholomew nodded, relaxing enough from Kazuaki’s clemency to sit back in his chair. He brought both of his index fingers together in front of his face and pressed them against his lips. “Bermuda has slaughtered many, in fact, since you’ve been ... absent.”
Her name pulled his attention to the forefront. Kazuaki could not disguise his body’s eagerness to hear that spoken word. “Has she?”
Bartholomew confirmed his previous statement. “On a dark hunt for vengeance, I’m afraid. We all took you for dead.” He tapped his fingers against his lips, his demeanor adopting a sadness. “You know how the quartermaster struggles with accepting such things.”
The thought of her in pain gutted him. It was everything Kazuaki wanted to avoid by not becoming romantically involved with Bermuda before. But it was far too late for ‘should haves’. He gazed upon Bartholomew, unable to quell his impatience. He’d wanted to ask since he first appeared in Seacaster, but it took a moment for his mind to catch up with all that had happened. “Where is she now?”
Bartholomew cleared his throat, glancing around for his pile of letters. “The last letter I received from Rennington indicated they were heading to Northwestern. Gods have taken over everything there. She was trying to find Mimir.” He gave up looking for the letters, shifting his gaze over to Kazuaki. “She was trying to find you.”
Kazuaki’s eye glazed over. He tried not to picture her internal torment over the last year. He’d seen enough of it when she struggled to recover from Ty Aldon’s death.
With a sigh, Bartholomew shrugged. “But that was weeks ago,” he said, scratching at his cheek. “I’ve heard nothing since.”
The door to the room swung open. Kal pressed his back into it to open it further, as his hands were full with the silver serving tray. He spun around and smiled at both men, setting the contents of his hands down on a nearby table. “I have tea,” he said, turning to Kazuaki with a tilted head and a curious nuance. “Do gods drink tea?”
Kazuaki flicked his eye to the tea, then back to Kal. “I think they prefer alcohol.”
His words earned him a chuckle. Kal straightened his posture, smiling. “I’ll see what I can do.” Just as he was about to turn away, he stopped himself. “Oh! I almost forgot.” Rifling through the interior breast pocket of his vest, he removed a sealed letter and handed it to Bartholomew. “Postman delivered this in the morning hours, but ... in the chaos of resurrecting gods, I didn’t want to burden you with anything that might have diluted your focus.” He offered a charming grin as he held it out. “It’s from Mr. Platts.”
Bartholomew reached out and accepted the letter, returning the ambassador’s flirtatious smile. “Thank you, Kal.” He watched as his lover left the room to fetch the captain his booze. When he’d vanished from eyesight, the scholar reached over to seize his letter opener, peeling the paper back on the envelope.
“How’s Rennington been fairing?” Kazuaki asked. “Being away from Iani for so long?”
“He’s enduring.” Bartholomew glimpsed Kazuaki as he unfolded the letter. “You know Rennington. He’s tough. He’ll survive.” With a smile, he flicked a glance down to the letter, scanning its contents. The expression of contentment that lived on his face vanished altogether. His skin paled. He re-read the last sentence over and over, before quietly folding the letter back and placing it in his lap.
Kazuaki was no fool. He studied Bartholomew’s face, preparing himself. “What is it?”
“Uh ... it is ... it seems ...”
The captain grew restless. It was unlike the scholar to stumble over words. Words were the man’s life.
Bartholomew pinched the bridge of his nose and closed his eyes. He took a deep breath. “It ... seems things have ... taken an unexpected turn.”
“How wildly unpredictable,” Kazuaki muttered, in a tone that indicated it was all too predictable.
Bartholomew looked to Kazuaki. He stalled for as long as he was able. “Bermuda’s war on the gods has taken a toll on her body, Captain. I don’t wish to torture you with the fine details, but ...” He glanced down at the folded letter and bit the inside of his cheek. “Rennington says they suspect her final battle is upon her. Her body is depleted. He ... asks that I prepare her a plot ... next to his brother.”
Kazuaki leaped to his feet. A puppet to his newfound alarm, he suffered through the hole Bartholomew’s news left in his chest.
Bermuda, on the verge of death? No. He would not allow it.
His brain scrambled for ideas. He’d witnessed Havidite, Naphine, Mimir, and the other gods travel at a whim. As a god, did he, too, possess this skill? He had to. Kazuaki flung his focus to Bartholomew and stepped forward. “Where is she?”
Bartholomew stood to his feet as well. “I’m afraid I don’t know their precise location. They move so much.”
Northwestern. That was all Kazuaki knew. That was where he’d go if he could only figure out—
The captain blinked. He jerked his head around him, startled at his newfound environment. Gone was Bartholomew’s library. Instead, trees surrounded him. It was a place he was certain he’d never been before, lest it was Umbriel’s island. But no. He intended to arrive in Northwestern. Did Bartholomew not say earlier the gods had taken it over?
This must have been it. It had to be. He felt it in his gut.
Kazuaki spun on his feet, soaking in the contents of the area. No people. Just trees and animals. Animals he thought long dead. Animals he hadn’t seen since he was a boy, hundreds of years ago.
The sentiment of panic was both unwelcome and unfamiliar. Kazuaki pushed through it, his eyes trying to see beyond the clusters of vegetation. He needed to find her. He would not allow her to die.
“Oh, look ... another false god.”
Kazuaki halted. He spun toward the sound of the voice, which came from the treetops above. His eye narrowed.
Naphine flipped her luxurious hair behind her shoulder and huffed. “How many more of you will men make?” she asked, wrinkling her nose at the thought of Darjal. It was the greatest delight that he fell from the good graces of men’s minds far enough
so as not to bother her anymore. She could only hope the same fate awaited Kazuaki. “If you’ve come to kill us,” she started, gesturing to the katar sheathed at his back, “know that we can fight back this time. And there are far more of us than there are of you.”
Kazuaki instinctively reached back to grab the katar strapped to his spine. He stopped himself from pulling it out. Much as he despised her, from the moment he saw Umbriel speaking to her in Nenada’s forests, perhaps she could be of use. “Where is Bermuda?” he growled.
Naphine’s eyes narrowed. “The Steel Serpent?” She spied an opportunity. A bargaining chip. Sensing Kazuaki had no plans to destroy her, she leaped gracefully from the tree limb and landed before him. Her arms crossed as she lifted her chin. “She has caused nothing but problems. I will tell you where she is, but you must make me a deal.”
Another deal with another god. If Kazuaki had learned anything of the perils, they fell to the wayside, for Bermuda’s sake. “What are the conditions?”
A victorious smirk moved Naphine’s lips. “I will tell you where she is if you promise to get her out of here.” Her slender fingers lifted, and she pointed to his back. “And, you must return the katars. Hers, specifically. Those weapons are not meant for the hands of humans.” She straightened her posture, her hands on her hips. “If you agree to the terms, the gods will not fight you. But you must make haste ...” The goddess frowned, a strange look for her perfect features. “Remove her now. We have already lost so many. She rains destruction wherever she goes.”
“Done.” Whatever consequences existed from making bargains with gods, he did not care. The katar was nothing but a piece of metal. He removed it from its sheath and held it out to her.
Naphine arched a perfectly sculpted brow. “You might wish to hang on to it, just until you subdue her. She has its mate. And she can kill you with it.”
Kazuaki scoffed at the ridiculous caution. “Fine,” he muttered, returning it to its place on his back. “Tell me where she is.”
Another jolt. Another transportation. It would take some getting used to, Kazuaki thought, as his brain struggled to adapt to his sudden, new environment.
The airship fell into his view first. Its hulking mass was hard to miss. From there, he saw the crew. Bermuda. The crew struggled to keep up with the sea of people who raged war on them, primitive though they were. Bermuda engaged in a fight with the gods. Kazuaki recognized only one: Havidite.
He ran, removing the katar once more. Speeding past Rennington, Granite, Brack, Revi, and Penn, he trusted they could hold their own.
They didn’t need to. The sudden appearance of the captain captivated the attention of most onlookers. Kazuaki commanded their eyes as he zeroed in on Bermuda. She grappled with a god clad in iron armor. All the god could do was defend himself, unable to touch her.
With a shove, the god pushed her back. Bermuda recovered. She drew her arm back to land a hit on him. Kazuaki’s katar met her blade instead, halting it in its place.
“Bermuda—” The captain soaked in the sight of her. It was heartbreaking. Her irises were unusually pale. Thin skin clung to her sinking eye sockets and hollowed cheeks. She was more ravaged than he’d prepared himself for, but through all the nightmares her body endured, the sight of her remained undeniably beautiful.
The woman stared, her eyes wide. Her blade stayed connected to his as she tried to figure out what she was seeing. After several jagged breaths, her stunned look shifted to overwhelming fury. “What trickery is this?” She snarled, pulling her katar back. “Your mind games will not work on me, you filth!”
Wild swings. Kazuaki blocked each one, stepping back as she advanced. He did not know how to stop her.
Tears stung at her eyes as she tried to cut him down. Bermuda’s heart popped and strained. Her adrenaline spiked. Her actions flamed. The raw aggression of her movements sucked the stimulant from her veins.
“Bermuda—” Kazuaki tried again, blocking each swing. He saw her arms growing weaker. Her attacks were less motivated. She was dying before him. Time was running out. With a tight jaw, he thrust himself forward and aimed for her katar. Then, he swung.
The blades collided in a final clash. Metal cracked and flew from the handle of her katar. Disarmed, Bermuda stared at the empty handle she clutched in her iron palm. Her eyes flicked to Kazuaki. Her lips peeled back as she bore her teeth.
He panted, staring at her. Kazuaki dropped his katar to the ground. He stepped up before her, and though there was a risk of her stabbing him with the sparse, jagged fragments still attached to her handle, he cupped the sides of her face. “Belay that,” he said, running his thumb over her cheek.
Even if she wished to fight him, her body had nothing left in it. But when Bermuda stared into that solitary eye, filled with the green blends of an ocean wave, she, too, dropped what remained of her weapon. She had seen a false Kazuaki once before. A vision, when she crawled into the land in-between lands. She knew when she gazed upon him in that place, that he was not Kazuaki Hidataka.
But this man ... it had been a year ... soon as she slowed herself long enough to look at him ... to hear the sound of his voice ...
“Kazuaki?” she whispered, analyzing the integrity of what lived in his eye.
The way she said his name. It still had the same power over him as it had before. He pulled her into his chest and wrapped his arms around her torso. She felt so frail. Still, the embrace filled him. It filled her.
He did not want to let her go, but the direness of her failing health made Kazuaki gently push her back. He tried to find her eyes, but she seemed to have trouble focusing. “I’m here to take you out of this place. I’m here to get you help.”
Bermuda’s head felt light. Her eyelids, heavy. A held breath came out of her in a short, choppy laugh. “Funny,” she whispered, unable to raise her voice above a hushed sound, “I was supposed to be the one helping you.”
The god-revering humans stilled in their places. They watched, instructed by the lessers that Bermuda had not yet killed to keep their distance. They did not wish to send their adoring humans to battle. Did not wish to see the crew cut any more of them down. Not if they could avoid it.
The crew stared too, open-mouthed and absent of words. Was it truly Kazuaki Hidataka? Back from the edge of death? They had taken him for a goner long ago.
“I thought you said he was dead,” Revi uttered, staring.
Penn was too dumbstruck to reply. He couldn’t rip his focus away.
Granite also appeared as a statue might, too shocked to move.
Rennington dared to take one step forward, his grip on his machete loosening. “Is ... that really him?” he asked, his voice unsure.
Brack stared too, at first dazed into silence. When he saw the pair embrace, a breathless laugh left his lungs. “Of course it is,” he said, remembering at that moment every glorious song or tale ever told of the immortal captain of Panagea’s seas. A smile stole over his face. “Who else but the captain could cheat feckin’ death?”
Kazuaki felt Bermuda growing limp in his hands. Her knees shook. Her breathing slowed far beyond any rate he was comfortable with. “Just hold fast,” he instructed, unable to stifle the small panic in his order. “I’ll get you out of here. I’ll take you home.”
She thought she felt the moment her heart stopped. It grabbed at her core and squeezed without mercy. Bermuda would have collapsed, had Kazuaki not caught her in his arms. She tried to speak, but her mouth did not obey her commands.
Kazuaki lowered her carefully. What he could see of her eyes—she looked terrified. Not of death itself. She was happy to march into its mouth a moment ago. But of being ripped apart from one another again, after only just reuniting.
She needed a healer.
She needed Umbriel.
“Bermuda,” he said, grasping her hand. He knew he could not restore her. It was not within his imaged skill set. The people of Southern birthed him as a destroyer, not a shaman. Kazuaki did not ha
ve time to familiarize himself with all the laws of godliness, but he’d spent enough time with Mimir to know that any god who possessed a human’s soul could transport their body much the same as the gods could when they violated the rules of space and time, “if you grant me possession of your soul,” he whispered, “I can passage you to Umbriel in the blink of an eye.”
She had so little to give. The fragments she had, she offered to him in the form of a loving smile. Though her words came out lined in agony, she whispered, “If you are truly Kazuaki Hidataka ... then you already have possession of it.”
He stared down at her, his heart, if he had one at all, crinkling in on itself. He needed to focus. To remember the Addihein homestead. To picture it in his mind’s eye before he transported them there ...
He needed to hope to the gods that Umbriel was there when he arrived. If she wasn’t ... his heartbreak ran the risk of turning into rage.
And the rage of Kazuaki Hidataka, God of Salvation, would be enough to burn the world.
Chapter Thirty-Five
Processing everything that had happened in Western was ... impossible. Nicholai did not know if it was beyond any man, or just himself, but as he rolled his steam car closer to his home in Nenada, he felt numb from the mind down.
Putting Edvard to rest brought an awkwardness with it. It was a hurried funeral, lacking in the kind of sendoff a Time Father deserved. Only several of Kudgan’s residents attended, despite a public announcement. It seemed word had spread rapidly about Edvard’s relationship with a goddess.
Given the condition of his father’s body, Nicholai had opted for a closed casket. It was easier to watch the box being lowered into the ground that way. The Southeastern Time Father did not delight in taking the easy way out, but in that particular instance, he reveled in the small relief it brought.
The circumstances of the arrests were strained. The footmen who made the arrest hated gods. The judge Nicholai petitioned to fast-track the confinement hated gods. He was unsure if, after he left, the men who killed his father would remain in jail. He just had to hope they would.
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