Those hands reach out, about to make contact with his temple. “You’ve got a tragic bruise there.”
He shifts out of fondling range. Merry notices, her features cinching as her hand jerks back. To be more specific, a cataclysm of hurt fills her expression. “I’m sorry. Did I do something wrong?”
“What carousel?” he asks. “What carnival? And what forsaken skirmish?”
“I have first-aid.” She’s relentless, rushing to grab a wet cloth from the nightstand and then returning. She extends her arm, ready to mash the wad against him, but Anger’s had enough.
He jolts away. This Merry person seems crestfallen by the rejection, and he’s beginning to comprehend why. In the minutes that he’s known her, it’s obvious that she possesses a saccharine side, which she has no experience containing. It’s becoming abundantly clear that she likes what she sees in her bed.
Shit. Infatuation. That’s all he needs.
But for some reason, Anger doesn’t care for the bereft look on her face, nor being the cause of it. He accepts the cloth with a nod of gratitude and sets it against his temple, wincing as he does so.
The gesture resurrects the color in Merry’s cheeks. She resembles a human of nineteen or twenty. In reality, this puts her around his age, no more than a few centuries old.
Her room is a garret with double doors leading to a rooftop deck. Tacked to the low brick walls, neon words glow.
A thespian deity with a penchant for chatter. Hair the color of prom night—an insipid, mortal rite of passage to which his peer, Envy, had once been assigned. Plus, heartfelt pink irises to match. And those sparkler pupils, as blinding as a marquee.
How pathetically idealistic. Who the Fates is she?
Because Anger says nothing, Merry does an astounding job of filling the silence to capacity, babbling about last night’s events. It comes back to him slowly and surely. He’d just arrived in this city and had been prowling a building terrace, seeking a panorama of the area. Plagued by the past, no matter how far he’d fled, he had paced the ledge while fighting the temptation to wallow.
That’s when he’d noticed a pastel rainbow. That’s when he’d spotted a girl across the divide, her skirt flapping like a propeller as she skated at inhuman speed through an elevated park. And that’s when he’d noticed the deity hunting her with a nocked bow.
It hadn’t been Anger’s battle. It hadn’t been his business.
But the motley female had puzzled him with her chromatic ensemble and weaponless flight, escaping while listening to headphones. The spectacle had magnetized him, his rationale tilting on its axis.
He’d torn after the pair, without a plan and without an ounce of logic.
Yes, he remembers her. The carnival, the carousel, the concussion.
Anger recalls the archer who’d landed a blow to his head. This young woman had aided him afterward, lugging Anger’s bulk across the city.
Merry offers him a glass of water. Anger guzzles, aware of her gaze idling on his Adam’s apple. He sets down the refreshment. It’s best not to request a refill, since that will encourage her to continue ogling him.
Reading his features, she perks up. “It’s coming back to you. Oh, I’m glad. I was beginning to worry our chance encounter would never be relived. That would be awful, don’t you think?”
“You haven’t answered my question,” he says, irritated. “Who are you?”
“I already told you. I’m Merry.”
“And who exactly is Merry?”
“She’s a deity, like you.”
He drums his fingers on his knee, instructing himself not to blow a gasket. “You’ll have to be more specific.”
“You’re an outcast, right? Me, too. What other immortals end up in this city but the exiled ones? And well, that means we’re not necessarily active anymore, but we’re still graced with most of our powers, and we can live forever, right? Aside from being wounded by another deity, that is. You’re lucky Malice’s fists didn’t drive you into anything metal and pronged. But then, I’ve also heard that living forever might be overrated, especially by the time you reach a thousand, which tends to complicate things. Have you heard that?”
A deliberate frown slides down Anger’s face. “The only thing I’m hearing at the moment is you.”
Merry wiggles on the bed. “I’ve been here since I was born, while you have the shine of a newcomer, besides the fact that I’ve never seen you until today.”
“Since you were born?”
“Mm-hmm. I was banished from the Peaks at infancy—not because I did anything wrong. Immortal infants don’t hatch with offensive intentions, as far as I know, but I’m what you’d call a dud.” Her sigh rivals the lamentation of an opera diva. “Like a failed star, I fizzled out before my time, from a promising goddess to a lemon.”
Anger is thrown. The Fates had discarded Merry for some reason having to do with lameness, some lack of abilities or promise. The prospect is worse than banishment for a crime. In the latter case, at least a deity has had the opportunity to exist amidst kin, to prove themselves.
Anger once had that chance. And he’d risked it.
And now he’s here, an exile sitting across from another. On the outskirts of his mind, he registers that Merry’s still talking. And she’s constantly striking different poses like there’s a glitch inside her.
Is this a ploy to entice him?
If it is, she’s wasting her time. Prattle isn’t his type.
Moreover, someone else already occupies his daft heart—someone who doesn’t deserve to, someone who hadn’t desired him back. A goddess whom he’s failed to vanquish from his mind.
But what can he expect in a scant four years? That’s a hiccup’s worth of time.
Contrary to that, somehow the lapse has felt longer. Much longer.
“On what grounds were you cast off?” Anger asks. “What emotion were you supposed to wield?”
“That’s my secret,” Merry says. “I’ll tell you once we’ve grown closer.”
She’s lying. Yes, she’d probably tell him soon enough. But the part about it being a secret? That’s a falsehood because there’s a tang of dishonesty in her reply. For all he knows, she’s a popular female, her root emotion patent to every exile in this city. Perhaps it’s a fragment of knowledge within a much larger canon.
The word merry describes a state of being, not a feeling. So that can’t be the emotion she’d been born to wield.
Why keep this private from him? Why be meek about it?
Lying isn’t a favorable sign, but it does get her to chirp less. If only for an instant, enough for him to draw a breath.
“What about you? Did you come here straight from the Peaks?” she asks. “How long did you live there? Were you already serving the mortal realm? Were you banished recently? I’m just so eager to know what we have in common.”
Anger rations his words. “I grew up in the Peaks. I was an archer who made a mistake. Now I’m paying for it.”
As predicted, she lobs more questions at him. What’s it like in the Peaks? What class did he belong to? Why was he banished? What transgression did he commit?
She doesn’t spare him a moment to actually respond. Just as well. He’s not in the mood for chit-chat, but the quieter he remains, the more practical information subsequently leaks out of Merry.
Some of the details, he already knows.
They’re in a city dubbed by mortals as the “Celestial City.” The moniker is a nod to destiny because this is where the stars burn brightest, more than any other metropolis in the country. It’s a landscape of historical architecture, with fewer skyscrapers and more nature than a common urban setting. It’s a realm crammed with glittering trees and a Carnival of Stars at its heart.
Anger hadn’t planned on traveling here. He hadn’t intended to leave Ever, the snow-capped mountain hamlet where he’d been brooding until recently. But he’d heard of this place, known as the refuge where immortal outcasts flock, lured by the locat
ion’s starry reputation.
Anger had sneered at the hype until he’ gotten desperate. Curiosity—plus a hodgepodge of alienation, virulence, and selfishness—had won out. Not that he tells Merry any of this. Although he wonders what she’d think, what she’d say, because there’s something edifying about her festive spirit, so void of ego.
Unfortunately, she’s still talking. If there’s one thing that Anger cannot abide, it’s nonsense. A great big chunk of him longs to find the Off switch, but she’s done him a service, so he reins in his annoyance. “Who was that archer chasing you?”
“The bad guy,” she replies. “There are two kinds of exiles here. The ones who hug and the ones who stab. The latter is Malice in a jar—sorry, I should have made that clear before, when I mentioned him clubbing you. He’s a grim reaper with the soul of a sadist—and the grin of one, too—and he’s the one who socked you in the noggin, when really none of that should have happened since the Carnival of Stars is neutral territory. Combat is prohibited there, but we got swept up in the moment, and you didn’t know any better. Outcasts each have their turfs, and we each have our own homes within those turfs. This is mine.” She smiles, flashing that toothy gap. “I’m glad you’re on my side.”
He snaps, “Who said I was?”
“I do. You’re invited. Don’t you want to be invited by me?”
“What does my face tell you?”
She takes that literally, her effervescent gaze orbiting his features. “It tells me that you’re afraid to get close to anyone because…because the last time you did, it wounded you gravely?”
“She didn’t wound me.”
The pronoun just comes out. Belatedly, Anger realizes his error.
“Oh.” Merry pounces, tilting her head like a flexible straw. “Are you a man scorned?”
“Fates. Are you for real?”
“That means yes.” She shackles his fingers, clamping them to her own. “Did you suffer a forbidden romance with another god or goddess, thus forfeiting your status, and that’s why you were banished? How calamitous. You must be world-weary and in need of mending.”
Truthfully, he’s in need of a fire escape. He wrenches his hand from hers, dumbstruck by the way his flesh tingles, so much that he shakes his digits.
A spike of rage climbs up his windpipe, a shout building there. He tears out of the bed. “Where’s my archery?”
“I don’t know,” she confesses, rising with him. “The last time I saw it, you were aiming at Malice, but then you got hurt and collapsed, and it all happened so fast. By the time I got you to your feet, I didn’t see the bow or quiver anywhere.”
He nods. “Then we’re done here.”
“No, wait!” She braces her fishnet palms on his chest. “We’ve only just met.”
He ignores that while strutting toward the doors that lead to the roof. Someplace in the carnival, they’d left behind the sole relic of his existence, his purpose, his worth. Deprived of his bow, he feels stripped, incomplete, and even more useless than he did yesterday.
As he yanks open the door, he hears Merry grappling to stall him. “You haven’t told me your name.”
Anger pauses, one booted foot propped over the threshold. As his head pivots over his shoulder, he feels the ring in his lobe jolt. He used to wear only a stud, but he’d since added a hoop to the other ear, to serve as a reminder of who he used to be—and that he’s no longer the same.
He watches her shuffle in that crimped skirt. Those lovely hands fidget beneath the ray of a twining neon sign that says, Love.
Merry doesn’t want him to leave. She wants him to stay.
His chest clenches. When has anyone ever wished that of him?
Ire tightens his muscles all over again. This luminary yet invasive female expects too much, hopes for too much. And he detests that neon sign.
His story is personal. And he’s on nobody’s side in this city. Interacting with another living soul, even battling one, had felt invigorating. However, the contact high has worn off.
That aside, he finds himself compelled.
Notwithstanding the spring season and its flushed weather, condensation from the late hour accumulates on the double doors. For some bizarre reason, he gets impulsive—a first for him—and indulges her whim. Dragging his finger across the fogged glass, he answers her.
Anger
Then he departs to the roof. Merry’s gasp of recognition trails in his wake. So she’s heard about him, because who hasn’t, at this point? The story became widely known and must have reached the exiles as well.
He suspects she’s puzzling together the rest of it. That doesn’t stop him from leaving, tracking across the deck, the breeze whipping through his hair. He moves quicker than necessary, overcome with a violent urge to separate himself from that confounding young woman who has evidently forged an observatory as her home.
He doesn’t want her company. He’s not even sure that he can stand her.
But what bothers him the most is this: His hand still smarts, still reels from her touch. The act of holding hands isn’t what had caused his gut to protest.
It had been when he’d torn himself away.
Anger’s pace increases across the summit, the distance growing between him and her. This vantage point overlooks the Carnival of Stars, bringing the carousel to mind. It’s fitting that he’d met Merry there. Her personality reminds him of a pinwheel, a novelty that spins with light and music.
He shakes his head. Strange female.
He almost chuckles.
But then he tamps down the inclination. He’d lost his weapons because of her. The Fates may have stripped him of the power to regulate fury, but his longbow is a part of him. He has to get it back.
Tonight. Now.
Striking across the roof, he leaps from the observatory and lands atop the next building. And the next. And the next.
Nature plots, conservatories, and miniature gardens crowd parapets and gables. At such pinnacles, central telescopes stand vigil.
He reaches the arena of dappled trees and crosses into the carnival, which is animated with supernaturally themed motifs and stratospheric rides. It’s the mortal world’s attempt to eulogize the stars, the planets, the great unknown. Yet it cannot compare to the reality of the Peaks, the land that he came from.
Anger feels a glower mash his lips. The more he sees, the more ticked off he becomes. One wrench of a plug, and this place would lose its charm. This is not real magic, just the result of a pyrotechnics and a clique of engineers.
Whatever. He’s not interested in exploring.
His right boot takes a step, then halts at the razor’s edge of a voice. “Welcome to the Celestial City, former God of Anger.”
What does he react to more? Is it former or God that stops him?
Even when he’s replaced, his title as a deity will remain—in general, at least. No one relinquishes that unless promoted to become a Guide.
And yet the proclamation stings. He’ll remain a god, but not the wielder of anger.
He turns, having anticipated this possibility, the chance that he might have company. The archer from earlier leans against a lamppost encasing tongues of blue flame, his eyes like furnaces collecting ash, his mouth twisted with diabolical elegance.
Anger takes inventory of the compact blond waves and the saber fingernails.
This must be the one called Malice.
The exile raises his hand, brandishing a bow. “Looking for this, mate?”
“Looking for stitches?” Anger threatens, because it’s disrespectful to handle another deity’s weapon. Not to mention plain stupid.
Malice hardly seems to care. He walks up to Anger, clad in a loose-fitting leather sweater, the material shifting with his movements. He hands over the bow and quiver, then waits until Anger harnesses the archery. “Well, aren’t I the fortunate one. It’s an honor to meet the archer who defied the Fate Court—and didn’t get away with it.”
“Was it an honor knocking m
e out?”
“Ah, that. My apologies, mate. I didn’t realize who you were at first. Not until I found your weapons. Only two archers in history have forged their arrows from iron—you’re one of them, if I’m correct. I like being correct.”
“You know a lot for an exile.”
“I know more than a lot.”
“I was being sarcastic.”
“I wasn’t. Knowledge is one of my specialties, among other hostilities.” Malice juts his chin toward the west side. “Let’s go someplace more wrathful and have a talk. I swear, I won’t bite.”
Yes, he will. If dissatisfied, he will. Anger knows this kind, because it used to be Anger’s job to know. This archer is less god, more demon.
Malice is also unarmed. At the moment.
Anger laughs without humor. “I’m not in the mood for an ambush. In other words, I’ll pass on the invitation.”
“I think not,” the demon god answers. “I’ve been waiting for you.”
“Is that so? What for?”
“To have a drink with me.” Malice grins. “And then to break Merry.”
4
Anger
For what Malice has just proposed, Anger isn’t above reciprocating that concussion the archer had given him. Anger’s scarcely a friend of Merry’s, much less an ally. But he’s not an assassin, nor a subservient to this exile who seems to think Anger will eviscerate an innocent deity on command—at the behest of someone he isn’t even indebted or duty-bound to.
“My arrows may no longer wield rage, but my fists are another story,” Anger warns. “If I were you, I’d retract that order.”
Malice shrugs. “It wasn’t an order but suit yourself. At least hear me out.”
“I would rather continue wandering this city aimlessly than get in the middle of a petty, territorial war.”
Anger shoulders past, but the archer has the gall to snare his elbow. “Christ, it’s not about territory in this hovel,” Malice says. “It’s about getting back what’s ours.”
“How very cliché of a nemesis. Getting what back?”
“Our place in the Peaks.”
Anger stiffens. How can they possibly win back favor in the Peaks? How does breaking Merry accomplish that? What does she have to do with such a goal?
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