“Of course it is,” she replied, gliding her hand up the trunk of the tree she leaned against before she twisted and pressed her arched back into it. The goddess’s flowing hair tumbled with each movement. Grace personified. For all the sticking debris that lived in the tree, none seemed to soil her, despite her close interactions with it. “I’m the Goddess of Love. That’s what brought you here, isn’t it?”
Kazuaki clenched his jaw. He paid little mind to her unintentionally inviting movements. It seemed to be her nature to move seductively. Almost as if she couldn’t help it at all. Instead, he focused on her eyes and the flicker of subtle misery that hid inside them. “Something like that,” he replied, standing his ground.
The flawless features of the goddess’s face darkened. She remembered the last time she saw him with the same amount of desperation on his face, searching for the Steel Serpent. “If you’ve come to beg for one of us to spare your lover’s life,” she said, her words soiled in smooth venom, “you’ve come to the wrong place.”
After running his tongue over his teeth and spitting a mouthful of saliva onto the ground, Kazuaki huffed. “Then point me in the direction of the right place.”
Naphine’s chin lifted in a quick and jagged jerk. Her beautiful eyes narrowed into heated slits. “Do you know how many gods and goddesses the Steel Serpent slaughtered during her little temper tantrum?” Her shoulders pulled back, and she sauntered forward. Her hips swayed from side to side, as she neared her visitor. “For claiming to only want Mimir’s life, she ended far more than his, and still failed to claim him in the process.”
Her approach did nothing to intimidate him. Kazuaki kept his lone eye locked on hers until she stopped several feet before him. “I can appreciate why you’d be apprehensive to help her,” he said, trying to squeeze the malice from his voice and replace it with pleading—something of which he knew very little about. “But I don’t know how else to help her. I’m …” He paused, grimacing as he swallowed, to buy himself time from having to give life to his discomfort. “I’m desperate.”
The hardened gaze on Naphine’s face softened, but not enough. “You sing my favorite song, Mr. Hidataka.” Her concentration moved down from his face to rest at his hands. “But I will not help you. None of the gods will.”
“Naphine, if anyone exists who can save her, it’s the gods and goddesses of—”
“No!” The goddess’s eyes lifted, exploding with new fury. “She was saved! I told you to take her from Northwestern to spare the lives of my kind, and where did you take her? To my daughter!” Her words shook, tight and violent. “I helped you, Hidataka, and you still managed to take something from me that I had no desire to give!”
Kazuaki’s arms tightened as a ripple of anger rumbled from Naphine’s body. The goddess’s hair defied gravity, lifting around her hardened jaw. Unmoving, the captain absorbed her sentiment. It matched his own. “I did not know she would exchange a life for a life, Naphine.” His voice surrendered some of its harshness. “I, too, feel a heavy absence where once Umbriel lived. She did not deserve the fate that I unknowingly delivered to her. If it pleases you, you must go on knowing that guilt will plague me for the rest of my days.” He leaned back, his tension dropping. “It will be no easy existence carrying that burden, but I have experience shouldering such things. I can endure the torment of the hand I played in Umbriel’s death … but I do not know that I can endure Bermuda’s, if hers were to follow so closely behind it.”
The power of Naphine’s confidence faded. The shimmer of unshed tears tainted her eyes. She forced herself to look back at him, her voice a heated whisper. “Nobody wishes for the deaths of loved ones, but existence does not play favorites. Death is inevitable. Death is fair.” Her throat tightened, choking the last of her words before they spilled out of her lips. “And if anybody deserves it, it’s her.”
Her pain. He knew from where it emerged. Kazuaki let her rage flow through him. “Your daughter gave her life away willingly,” he said, suppressing his instinct to react explosively. “Umbriel wanted Bermuda to live.”
Naphine scowled. He tried to downplay her pain by passing the circumstances off as her daughter’s wish? How dare he. The goddess’s face drained of its color, and for the briefest of moments, her beauty was marred by her wrath. “Leave Northwestern,” she whispered, her breath stopping. “Now.”
Kazuaki watched his opportunity slipping away. He curled his fingers into fists, to help him better grasp a sense of calm. He needed to fix this. Quickly. “Naphine …”
“Get out!” The goddess detonated. Color bled out of her irises until her eyes were nothing more than pallid orbs of blinding light. Around her, the woman’s hair defied gravity once again, and her voice resonated with an eerie echo, as she flung her arm out to her side. “The gods will be of no help to you, Hidataka! You may have grown accustomed to eternal life, but know that if you ever set foot in Northwestern again, I will see to it that your existence ends!”
The captain’s jaw tightened. It was to be his only reaction, save for the black strands of hair that billowed around him, tossed by the energy that emanated from Naphine’s body.
She was grieving. He was no stranger to the sensation.
Devastation rarely led to help. The goddess remained in too vulnerable a state to be anything other than jaded.
As much as it pained him to abandon the effort—for now—it was best to leave her alone. He did not need her fury bubbling over when they eventually returned to Northwestern in search of Vadim Canmore’s Chronometer.
Faster than it took a second hand to glide across the face of a clock, he was gone. Northwestern, with its pine-scented forest and howling winds, and Naphine’s glowering face, all vanished from his sight.
Back in the sanctuary of his airship, Kazuaki stood outside the dining hall. The very spot from where he had departed earlier. His eye closed and he leaned forward, pressing his forehead into the wall with a thunk.
That did not go as planned. Perhaps because he went in without a plan to begin with. He should have known better than to rush blindly into something so important.
It didn’t matter. He’d go back. He’d try again. Umbriel’s sacrifice would not be in vain. It wasn’t the first time someone had threatened his life—and it damn sure wouldn’t be the last.
Chapter Seven
Nicholai laid his flesh and blood hand over his stomach. He frowned as the airship cut farther into Southwestern territory. The slow rise of guilt and anxiousness gnawed on his guts. He felt more of it lately. The bites were deeper, more merciless than they had been before, when he had a fresh layer of denial to spread over his intangible wounds.
Suppressing his feelings over Edvard’s death, over Umbriel’s death, and even re-living Darjal’s death, was a survival tactic. A necessary thing that he needed to employ. It was better he thought, to push the crushing weight of that reality aside. If he did not, it would hinder him from ensuring the destruction of the Chronometers. From promising Panagea’s people freedom from supernatural oppression.
They needed that, and he needed to make sure that they got it.
Harder to subdue than the looming deaths of the last few months however, was Emont. Nicholai rested his free hand on the ship’s ledge, digging his metal fingertips into the railing.
Emont: the man who had stepped up to rule Southwestern, when no other trusted individual would. Emont, the powerhouse of the slums, who once fought alongside Kazuaki and the crew in the battle at Avadon. The man who relocated and rebuilt a new hometown for Southwestern, after Carlos Angevin’s tower in Denicee burned to the ground. The man had done his best to shelter those who were cast out from the cities for lack of an ability to support themselves.
Gods, it seemed like decades ago.
The former Time Father’s head bowed, and with his gaze, he traced the scratches that ran through the metal of the airship’s rails.
How could they have let him rot in Southwestern for so long? Yes, the gods
and goddesses were ravaging Panagea. Yes, they were busy trying to douse their fires; but he had been a friend. A human being.
Nicholai sighed, scrubbing at his face with his hands. Umbriel would have told him how ridiculous it was to chastise himself for such things, knowing full well he couldn’t leave his division at the time. Knowing full well nobody had any idea where Emont was.
“Stop it,” he whispered to himself. How did she slide back into his thoughts again?
Across the deck at the airship’s wheel, Brack stood on the tips of his toes. He tried to look over the edge. Trees. Trees everywhere. As he and the others continued looking for a spot to land, he shifted his focus in Kazuaki’s direction, sporting a big grin. “Looking forward to pulling Emont out of this gods-forsaken place!” he shouted over the roar of the engines. “Haven’t seen that bastard in years!”
As the wind tossed Kazuaki’s disheveled hair around his shoulders, his jaw clenched tighter. Memories of what Vadim Canmore had been reduced to when the gods manipulated his mind flew to the surface. He was a lunatic. A raving mad puppet, who had spent far less time under the gods’ control than Emont. Metaphorical fingers crossed themselves that there would not be any additional side-effects for the length of time in which Emont had not been himself.
Tilting his head, Brack chanced an opportunity to bring the airship down. It was the sparsest location of the tree-lined forest he’d seen thus far, but as the vessel descended, mechanical grunts of displeasure screamed at him. Thick, wooden limbs snapped in the propellers, squealing as they flew from the trunks that used to be their home.
Brack winced when he heard the branches crash onto the ground, and he guided the airship back up. “I don’t think we’re gonna find a landing spot, Cappy! These trees are savage, they are!”
Kazuaki snarled. Brack was right. The propellers didn’t stand a chance against the thicker branches that awaited them closer to the earth. He made a face, reflecting on the problem-solving techniques he had utilized in Southern. If he was powerless to manipulate the objects, he could at least manipulate the environment around them.
Reaching into the inside pocket of his long jacket, Kazuaki tugged a grenade from its hiding place.
Nicholai turned just in time to see the god draw his arm back. His eyes widened, and he held out a hand. “Kazuaki, I don’t think—”
Too late.
The object released from the fingers that held it and hurtled toward the forest floor.
Accustomed to the captain’s methods, the others on deck had the good sense to cover their ears. Highlights of blinding, golden light engulfed the vision of everyone, rattling their bones with a thunderous reverberation. Even from the air, they felt the aftermath rumble through them.
Chunks of trees, dirt, and debris sprinkled down from the sky like an unusual rain. Nicholai cringed when a pebble struck his cheek, right beneath his eye. He pulled the goggles that sat upon his hat down over his face, hoping to spare himself from any additional injuries. This was not the time to go blind, on top of everything else.
Bermuda covered her mouth with her sleeve, as the smoke started to rise. The gray plumes were dense. Difficult to see through. She squinted her eyes to see if the grenade had done its job.
Though she spied nothing through the choking clouds, the eerie creaks of falling trees could be heard, letting her and the others know space had been cleared.
Brack cocked his head, his gaze falling onto smoking stumps once the sky had cleared. “That’ll do it, all right!” He lobbed some laughter toward Kazuaki. “Gave her the good ol’ fashioned Hidataka touch.”
Pits of hollowness invaded Nicholai’s stomach as he felt the airship descend. “Are you sure that was wise?” he asked, turning toward Kazuaki.
Kazuaki huffed over the chaotic scrambling of Revi, Rennington, and Elowyn while they prepared the landing gear. “It was our best option. No sense in constantly hovering over the place. I won’t chance overworking the engines without knowing if there’s a suitable water source for the boilers.” He leaned down and grabbed a satchel of supplies before throwing it over his shoulder. “We can only guess how long it’ll take to push through these weeds.”
“We’re in the gods’ land,” Nicholai interjected, his voice jostling as the airship landed in an uneven position, caught partway on fallen trees. He recalled Umbriel’s feelings for the continent of Panagea; her love ran deep, and she shared only half of the gods’ bloodline. To consider how fiercely the purebred deities loved the land made him shudder at Kazuaki’s actions. “The Goddess of Animals reigns supreme here, Kazuaki. We must remember, first and foremost, that she’s likely to be attached to the forest and its creatures. I doubt very much that she’ll welcome the annihilation of such things.”
“I doubt she’ll welcome us regardless,” the captain muttered, thinking back to his brief encounter with Naphine in Northwestern. “Fortunately, Nico, I don’t give a damn about her feelings. Don’t let your ethics make you forget what she did to Emont. To the people of Southwestern.” He pulled an aging gun from his satchel, testing the sight as he held it near his eye. “She uprooted countless numbers from their homes. Replaced buildings with trees.” Placing bullets in the chambers, Kazuaki secured the weapon and returned it to its place. “Not exactly saintly behavior, if you ask me.”
“But—”
Nicholai’s protest was interrupted, as Bermuda’s voice rose above the conversation. “We have a problem,” she called out, placing a hand on her hip. “There’s not enough room to the lower the ramp. The forest is too thick.”
Taking in the new information without irritation, Kazuaki strode away from Nicholai and threw open a crate that sat on the deck. “Not an issue,” he murmured, seizing some cordage before he traipsed back to the airship’s railing. Expert knots formed as he secured the ropes to the balustrade and tossed them over the edge. “We’ll do it the old-fashioned way.”
“Ah-ha, it’s an old-fashioned kind of day.” Brack laughed, walking away from the ship’s wheel to grab one of the ropes. He tested its stability by tugging on it twice, before throwing his legs over the side, and rappelling down.
“Can’t help but notice he didn’t grab anything,” Rennington commented, as he wiped sweat from his forehead with the back of his hand. Bending down to grab a filled pack, he poked his head over the side. “Rabbit. Head’s up!”
Having just planted his feet on the ground, Brack looked up just in time to be struck in the face with the bag. “Feckin’ shit!” He threw his hands over the bridge of his nose, the area that sustained most of the impact. After checking to be sure it wasn’t broken, he smirked and pointed a finger up at Rennington. “Ha! Got me good, you little bastard!”
Rennington smirked. He seized another pack and threw it over his shoulder. The sound of the metal weaponry inside clanged together while he descended the rope, landing beside Brack. The soldier winced when he saw his face. Scarlet liquid oozed from the man’s nostrils and a large, swollen mass had already begun forming on his nose. “Oof. Got you a little too good, mate.”
Brack grinned, his teeth stained red with the fluid that dripped from his nose. “Sure did. I taste blood.”
“Get used to it,” Elowyn retorted as she landed beside the two men. “Won’t be the only blood you taste if you don’t tread lightly.”
From above, Nicholai looked over the edge. He frowned, knowing full well that elegant traveling by way of scratchy ropes was not in his forte. Motivated by necessity, he took a deep breath and eased down slowly, one foot at a time.
“Any day now, Nico!” Brack called up to him with cupped hands. “For a man who forsook his Chronometer, you still know how to make time stop!”
A second and third rope flew over the side, as Nicholai eased himself closer to the ground. Granite and Revi, having no patience to speak of, slid down beside him at triple his speed. The former Time Father sighed, though a small smile managed to penetrate his humiliation.
Relentless heckling. Un
fathomable physical expectations. Hurling oneself into deadly scenarios.
It was just like old times.
By the time he made it to the ground, the others applauded, to further mock his barely celebratory feat. Rennington chuckled, throwing his arm over Nicholai’s shoulders and punching him lightly on the side. “Don’t forget, mate—Captain’s the only semi-immortal around here. The rest of us don’t have the luxury of waiting for you to play catch up.”
“Come on, now,” Nicholai chuckled, squinting his eyes as he looked up to the ship. “It’s not as if I’m the last one down.”
Above, Kazuaki watched Bermuda’s face. She held the rope in her hands, staring at it. He scrutinized her expression, as she debated whether or not her withering muscles could support her weight.
The woman ran her thumb over the cordage. Her heart beat faster. The heckling that Nicholai had earned burned in her eardrums. The others were waiting. No time to stall.
Before she could hurl one leg over the side, Bermuda felt the force of Kazuaki’s arm around her torso.
“I can do it,” she snapped, as he lifted her from the deck.
“I know.” An invisible smirk pulled at one side of his mouth, and he held her tighter against his chest. “Is it a crime to want to hold you against me for a little while?”
She was no fool. Bermuda managed a wry smile, despite her instincts. Her arrogance nearly destroyed her once. She needed to make efforts to not let it happen again. “Would it stop you if it was?”
Kazuaki wrapped the rope around his hand and jumped atop the railing, balancing on the thin bar. “You know damn well it wouldn’t,” he replied before leaping down.
He released her as soon as they touched the ground. He did not want to run the risk of embarrassing her further, by bringing attention to the assistance that he’d given her. Bermuda surprised him though, by lingering on his arm.
The Panagea Tales Box Set Page 137