The Rising Gold

by Ava Jae

  “I hope you’re right,” I whisper, but the truth is, I’m really not sure he is. Because maybe Eros wants to avoid conflict, but maybe he also wants to be able to claim a victory of some kind on something. And if that something happens to also equal getting revenge for what my brother did to him, all the better.

  Eros has too much motivation to fight my request. And he must know if it comes down to it, Elja simply can’t fight Asheron.

  He would crush us, and me with them.

  15

  Eros

  Deimos and I bring Mal to his guest room—we’ve had a long set and the poor kid is blazing exhausted. But after Kora confronting me like that, I’m anything but—I’m amped, and still kinduv blazed, and even if I weren’t an insomniac, I doubt I’d have been able to get much sleep anyway.

  Which is fine because Deimos doesn’t seem too interested in sleeping either.

  “We won’t be here much longer,” Deimos says, “so I’d love to show you around Vin Eja to see the night street performers the city is famous for. They’re truly incredible and I think you’ll like them.” He smiles. “What do you say?”

  I shrug. “Sounds good to me.”

  Deimos grins, takes my hand, and we’re off with Fejn and Kosim at our heels. Down five sets of stairs (stars, the Daïvi fucken love their blazing stairs) and up to the front entrance with the enormous, thick double stone gray-blue doors. But then he pauses and glances at me.

  “Is um …” He hesitates, then lifts our clasped hands a bit. “Is it okay for me to hold your hand in public? There will be orb guides out there following us around that’ll likely broadcast everything we do.”

  I smile and lift a shoulder. “It’s fine with me if it’s fine with you. I don’t mind people knowing you’re more to me than my advisor.”

  The grin that takes over Deimos’s face causes my breath to catch in my chest. He lights up like I just told him the best news in the world, and it feels so, so good to know I did that. I made him that happy.

  “We’re really doing this,” Deimos says. It’s not a question, not really, not anymore. But I grin and squeeze his hand and answer anyway.

  “Shae. We’re really doing this.”

  Deimos hugs me so fast I can’t prepare for it. It’s a quick, tight hug with his face pressed into the crook of my neck and his smile imprinting into my skin.

  Then he lets go and pulls me into the night.

  Vin Eja is nothing like Velja or Asheron. There aren’t spires and mosaics, slanted roofs and sand. Here, every building is like a mini mountain—made of stone of all colors, textures, and sizes, every building a different shade. There’s so much color—even the streets go from bright blue to neon green to light purple to suns-tinted orange. The walking paths alongside the road are the same way—a riot of color, except mixed together, with bricks of pink, blue, green, yellow, red all laid next to each other in no apparent pattern or order. It’s so unlike anything I’ve ever seen, like someone built the city out of every color available in the universe.

  And even at night, the city is alive with light, with laughter, with music. Everything is so energized, so awake, it’s like the air itself is dancing around us. The energy is contagious—it gathers on my lips and has me tapping the fingers of my free hand on my thigh.

  “This is amazing,” I say. “Everyone seems so … happy.”

  “Shae, they smoke a lot here,” Deimos says, and I’m not sure if he’s joking. “I do love this city. Never fails to put me in a great mood. Come.”

  We take a few turns around vibrant buildings selling herbs, instruments, food, herbs—actually, come to think of it, there really are a lot of people smoking all over the place, which is kinduv hilarious—until we reach a long, extra-wide street full of people instead of ports. All along both sides of the street are people gathered in groups around performers; a group of dancers performing some kinduv traditional stomping chant dance thing; a woman blowing rainbow fire; two men balancing on their hands and bending their bodies in ways that should be impossible, mirror images of each other. The crowds cheer and clap and shout their approval.

  But the thing that catches me most is Deimos and I aren’t the only two of the same gender holding hands. There are men and women and people in between walking with their arms around each other and their fingers tangled together like it’s the simplest, most natural thing. And it is—nothing has ever felt more natural than being with Deimos—but seeing so many like us out in the open, unafraid is just …

  I haven’t seen that before. And it feels so fucken freeing to see it casually like this. Like I can breathe—really breathe—for the first time in my life. Like I have nothing to hide or be afraid of.

  It’s amazing.

  Deimos and I watch more performers than I can count, and he showers them all with more credits than I’ve ever seen in my life. People grin at us wherever we go—bowing and nodding and glancing at our held hands with bright smiles. Several not-unattractive people of various genders wink or whistle at Deimos and he grins and winks back which … I’m not sure how I feel about, but it seems like a casual, meaningless gesture to him. A group of kids run over and ask if they can take a picture with us, and though Kosim and Fejn step forward, I tell them it’s fine, so the kids’ personal orb guide takes a picture for them. Which then leads to like fifteen mos of people taking pictures with us until Deimos laughs and says that’s enough and we keep moving through the crowd.

  We’ve just broken away from the picture-takers when a really tall woman—like, she even towers over Deimos—steps in our path. Her face is painted with stripes of every color and her eyes are bursts of white around her pupils, to gray to black.

  “Ol Sira.” She bows and extends her arm, moving her light, flow-y robes. “And Avra-kaï Deimos, how wonderful, how truly wonderful to have you both gracing our humble place of performance tonight.”

  Kosim steps forward again, but I lift my hand and nod at her. “Thank you. We’re having a great time.”

  “I’m delighted to hear that.” She grins and my stomach lurches—her teeth are filed to points. “If I may, your majesties, I’d be honored to read your futures.”

  Read our … futures? I glance at Deimos, who glances at me. “It’s fine with me,” he says with a lifted shoulder. “What do you think, Eros?”

  “Uh …” I glance at her again, still smiling with those unnerving teeth. “I … guess?”

  “Wonderful! How wonderful. Please, please, come this way.” She leads us through a group crowded around a white circle drawn on the ground. Kosim and Fejn follow us into the circle, but she stops and holds her hand out. “Please, if you could stay outside the circle. Right there in the front is fine, but I need this air clear to accurately read them.”

  Kosim’s eyes narrow, but the circle isn’t even that big and it’s not like she can do anything to us in front of the quickly forming crowd anyway, so I say, “It’s fine. We’re right here.”

  Kosim purses his lips, but he doesn’t protest.

  “Wonderful, wonderful,” the woman says. “Now please, everyone, quiet as you can, please. Quiet, sha, sha, just like that, thank you.” She turns to Deimos and me again. “Now, if you two could face each other and hold hands.”

  Deimos shifts in front of me, takes my other hand, and wiggles his eyebrows with a grin. I laugh as the prickle of hundreds of eyes settles on my skin. The crowd is getting bigger by the breath. Which is probably why she wanted to read us or whatever, come to think of it, but no harm done, I guess.

  “Beautiful, beautiful. Now stand perfectly still, please. Just like that, sha, thank you.” She closes her eyes and holds her hands behind each of our backs. The crowd is so quiet I swear everyone is holding their breath. Deimos lightly squeezes my hands as we look at each other, smiling—and this should be awkward, staring at each other while people stare at us—but all I can think about is the warm glint in his mismatched eyes and the way his soft hands feel in mine. And how do my hands feel in his? Min
e aren’t nearly as soft—they’re callused and usually dry and nothing like his silk-soft skin. Does that bother him? Does he even notice it?

  I’m thinking too much.

  “Sha, sha, I see it now,” the woman says suddenly. “Sha, it’s so clear. There are many changes ahead, my young Sira, and some of them will be difficult. People will come and go in your life, people you care for, but you must let them go when the time comes. No matter how much you love them, you can’t tie them down.”

  Something inside me sinks as I look at Deimos. She can’t mean—she’s not talking about Deimos, is she?

  Would I believe her if she was?

  “But naï, not the Avra-kaï.” She smiles and the breath unhitches from my chest. “Naï, I see much happiness for you both. There will be good and bad sets, of course, but I predict many, many happy cycles together.”

  I grin and Deimos grins back. “I like the sound of that,” he says with a wink.

  The woman smiles, then leans close to Deimos and whispers something in his ear I can’t catch. Deimos’s smile widens though, so it must be something good. Then she pulls away and turns to me, opening her eyes. “You have some hard times ahead of you, young Sira, but this one will help you through it, if you let him. Keep him close.”

  “I will,” I say, and she smiles, steps back, and bows as the crowd claps and cheers.

  But while I’m smiling and like the idea of having a lot of time with Deimos, a part of me still stutters on what she said.

  If she wasn’t talking about Deimos leaving, then who did she mean?

  We’re looking at glass statues lit on the inside with some kinduv solid, fluorescent mist or strings of molten glowing something when something warm and wet drips on my nose. I startle and wipe it off my nose—and whatever it is comes off clear on my fingers. Water?

  “Oh,” Deimos says. “Did you feel that?”

  “Shae,” I say. “Something dripped on me.”

  The words have barely left my mouth when water slams over us like a wall. I gasp and throw my arms over my head, but the water is warm and soft—not hard and cold, not like Dima’s dungeon, this is different, this is different—and I’m crouching over the multicolored stone pathway and Deimos is gripping my shoulders and smiling as he blinks through the rain.

  Rain. It’s raining.

  “I’m with you,” he says. “Okay? You’re not alone. We’re soaked, but it’s okay, shae?”

  He’s with me. My drumming heart slows just a bit, just enough to breathe, and the rain pours over us and drips into my eyes and mouth and soaks my clothes, and I can’t remember the last time I’ve seen rain. Two years ago? Three?

  I laugh. “It’s actually raining.”

  Deimos grins. “That happens more often as you go up north. Come on.” He takes my hand and pulls me up, but I tilt my face back and take a deep breath.

  This isn’t Dima’s dungeon. This smells clean, fresh, nothing like the desert, nothing like anything I’ve ever smelled before, but it’s actually—relaxing. I can separate this from what happened in the dungeon—that was cold, and solid, like a wall of ice hitting my head and shoulders so hard it hurt. This tickles my face with warmth and slips over my lips and I can barely believe it but I’m soaking wet and not throwing sand.

  “I’m not panicking,” I say with a laugh. “I’m actually—I think I’m okay.”

  Maybe it’s the openness of being outside. Maybe it’s the quality of the rain, the way it feels different. Maybe I’m finally learning how to separate what happened from today. I don’t know, not really, but right now I’m laughing in the rain and Deimos is grinning at me.

  Then he tugs my hand and we’re running and whooping and laughing in the color-lit streets. Our feet splash over the soaked stones as the rain thunders around us and there’s water in my eyes, on my tongue, on every inch of my skin. Deimos squeezes my hand as we run and grins at me and I grin back—

  Then he pulls me against a building every shade of blue. My back hits brick. There’s an overhang above us, so we’re standing in this strip of dry with water pouring like a wall behind him. Deimos is radiant—smiling from his eyes, from his panting breaths, from every inch of his soaked skin, and the way he looks at me, really looks at me in a way no one has, like—like he likes every bit of me. Like he wants me. My heart drums in my ears as he leans close—closer—chest against my chest and hands slipping up my arms and to my jaw—

  “Eros,” he says softly, so softly I almost miss it. “I’ve never wanted anything as badly as I want to kiss you right now.”

  Heat blossoms in my stomach and tugs hard and low. Is he—I think he’s asking to kiss me.

  No one’s ever asked before.

  I take a shaky breath. His lips are barely a mo from mine, so close the water dripping off them almost drips onto mine. “Well, Deimos,” I manage to say, “then I think you should kiss me.”

  He grins that smirky grin, shaking with laughter. “You just think I should? Or I should?”

  “Shut the fuck up and kiss me.”

  Deimos is laughing as his mouth closes over mine. His mouth is softer than I expected—like his hands holding my face as he presses tight against me, chest to chest, hips to hips, one leg slipping between mine as our lips move together. I feel like I’ve been dipped into a vat of liquid sparks—my whole body thrills with his touch, his taste, the way he holds and kisses me carefully, like I might break even as he pins me to the wall. Deimos kisses me slowly, and so carefully, giving time to my top lip, my tongue, my bottom lip, the corner of my mouth and trailing kisses down my jaw and up to my ear, drinking the water off my skin.

  His breath is hot on my ear when he whispers, “You’re perfect,” and I swear to the stars my eyes sting at those words coming from him as he kisses his way back to my mouth.

  “You’re perfect,” he whispers on my lips.

  “You’re perfect,” he whispers on my neck.

  Hot all over and I’m fucken crying like a baby. Shit, that is not attractive, I seriously have to cut that out before—

  “Ej, ej, what’s wrong?” Deimos wipes the wetness from my eyes with his thumbs. “Am I doing something wrong? We can stop if—”

  “I just have rain in my eyes,” I say quickly. “It’s—I’m fine. Seriously, I’m beyond fine. It’s just the rain.”

  Deimos arches an eyebrow and smirks. “You’re a terrible liar.”

  My face goes hot. “I am not.”

  “Sha, you are.” Deimos kisses me lightly and laughs. “But that’s a compliment. It means you’re an honest person. I like that about you.” Then he pushes off the wall and slips his hand in mine again. “Come on, it doesn’t look like the rain is going to let up any time soon. We should head back before Kosim and Fejn get tired of standing in the soak.”

  The lack of his skin on mine feels like a hole in the universe. Like blowing cold air onto my damp, still-warm skin. But I take his hand and walk with him under the overhang, my pulse still thrumming in my ears, my skin still tingling with the echo of his lips.

  Just before we step into the rain again, I pull Deimos back. He glances at me questioningly and I take a deep, shivering breath. “It’s just—no one’s ever said that to me before.”

  Deimos blinks. Frowns. “Said … you’re a terrible liar?”

  “Naï, naï,” I laugh weakly and bite my lip. My ribs are clattering inside my chest. I want to say it, but I don’t, but I do. “No one’s ever … called me … perfect.”

  Deimos’s eyes widen.

  “I’m just—I hate the word, but I’m a half-blood, you know? The only one who ever really wanted me was Kora, and even then it was with conditions because of what I am, and it was with the reminder that it couldn’t ever really happen because of course not, I’m a fucken—”

  “Eros—”

  “No one’s ever wanted me, the way I am, without conditions.” The words tumble out of me and my throat aches as I speak. “I was never enough.”

  Deimos drops m
y hand and holds my face again. He looks into my eyes and his breath tickles my face as he says, “You’re perfect. I want you exactly as you are, no conditions, no changes, no alternate universes where you aren’t exactly what you are, here, today.” He smiles and lifts a shoulder. “I can only pray you want me back in the same way.”

  His words are liquid happiness filling me from the inside out. And he means it—he means it—it’s in his eyes, in the gentle pressure of his fingers on my face, in the intensity of his voice.

  I really never thought I’d get this.

  “You don’t have to pray for that,” I answer. “You have it. I want you.”

  When Deimos kisses me again, it’s a promise. From me to him, from him to me.

  It’s a promise I’ll do anything to keep.

  16

  Kora

  The halls are dark when Uljen and I walk back to our rooms, lit only by small white lights ensconced in partially transparent blue geodes. The light is cool and paints our skin in smooth ice, giving the whole hall the feeling of being—almost underwater, if water were blue-tinted rather than purple.

  Uljen’s hand brushes against mine—accidentally, I think—and a hot jolt races up my arm and into my chest. I glance at him and he glances at me. Did he notice that? The air between us is thick with—something. Like a charge crackling in the space where the air meets my body and his.

  To put things plainly, Uljen is not an unattractive man. He’s broad-shouldered and his smooth brown skin looks soft. Though long hair on men isn’t common in Elja, it suits him—the strands that have slipped from his tie frame his face perfectly—and his jaw is strong and angled.

  In the short time I’ve worked with him, I’ve noticed people seem to avoid looking him in the face—likely because of the scars marring his cloudy left eye and cutting through his brow and cheek. But it doesn’t bother me, not really—if anything, the way he fearlessly wears his scars bolsters me.

  Uljen showed me I don’t need to hide my scars, something I’ll forever be grateful for.