A Tale of Revenge Ch. 12

It reminded him of the stars, the way different pieces lit up and went dark around him. The speed of movement was impressive, even for a being of his level it was hard to keep up. Just as he'd access some newly illuminated space it would go dark again in favor of something else. He delighted in chasing them, finding glimpses of images or feelings, phantom sensations or muscle twitches. The lights began to coalesce before long and a picture formed. Her sister stood before him, then her father and mother appeared and the house grew around them. Anna's form took shape directly in front of him.

Some strange barrier grew between the pair of them and the dream figures in the room. Anna raised her hands and placed them there, anguish rippling off of her. Leonid watched as the domestic scene was violently interrupted by a band of soldiers bursting through the door. Anna screamed as the dream played out but Leonid was no longer concerned with the action before him, but rather what it was doing to her mind. For the first time it seemed to him that her emotions were not some distant phenomenon. Instead now, from inside her own dream, he could feel them, encompass them entirely and witness her feelings from all angles. Captivated, he noticed as his chest hurt as though someone was pushing knives beneath his skin; his head pounded with pressure. A deep coil of pain emanated from inside him. He felt intoxicated by it, consumed in a way he'd never felt before. It was fascinating, arousing even.

It wasn't until the house began to burn, the bodies of her friends and family alight in his eyes that he realized how outsized the emotion was, how overwhelming it must be to a lower being. It was then that he reached out to her and took her dream-figure into his arms. She yielded to him, unsurprised at his presence which itself seemed odd. She cried into his chest; the emotion shrank to a more manageable size. He clasped her closer, watching as the lights around them began to dim, the dream faded and so did her form. And once again he was left alone watching the lights flicker around him.

His focus came back to the room around him, still staring at his ceiling. For a moment he just lay there, feeling ripples of the dream spread out along his body, which itself felt electrified as if every part of his skin was stimulated at once. His breath was quick, mirroring the breathing of the human girl who had sobbed into his chest. For lack of a better description, he felt alive.

"I hope I'm not disturbing you," a low voice came from the darkened doorway. Leonid started a little before getting control of himself. There was something unnerving about the lingering human reactions.

"Never, Jakob," he said from his place, welcoming his servant into the room with him. "Please join me. I see you've kept the place for me while I was away."

"You should be grateful," Jakob said moving to the seat opposite his master. "I had several enticing offers for employment during your long absence."

Leonid gave him a look and allowed the smallest smile to his lips as he turned his gaze back up to the ceiling. Jakob had been a human man who had pledged himself to Leonid during his life and when he died in battle his energy was not released across the universe to be a plant in one sphere and a chipmunk in another, but retained his form and consciousness so he could serve Leonid for as long as Leonid desired. The same would go for Anna once she died now that she had pledged her soul to him. "Have you missed your wayward master?"

"Exceedingly," Jakob said carefully.

Leonid sat up and faced the man across from him. "I trust it was not too dull, that you did not feel abandoned."

Leonid watched as his servant looked at him blankly for a moment. He could not tell what the man was thinking and it pleased him that he would never be in this position with Anna. The urge to shake the man until he spoke was easily suppressed though it was still there.

"It has been a matter of some delicacy to continue your responsibilities in this realm. As you are aware, I have no such power to work in the spheres, so those tasks have gone untended too..."

"Yes, Jakob," Leonid cut him off. "I've been neglectful of my duties. Thank you for maintaining order in the universe as we know it while I was off gallivanting." Leonid accepted the man's complaining with a small smile. If Jakob was not needling him then all was truly not right in the universe.

"Well if you are well recovered from your...gallivanting...then I have at least five committees with issues before them that could claim your attention, as well as a century of reports from the various areas of influence that have completely collapsed in your absence. Your position as Sun God in the 6^th sphere is going to be reassigned by the high council who had drawn up numerous requests for your presence to answer for any number of insults due to your extended...vacation." Jakob gave him a look and stood. "Shall I fetch the resolutions you are meant to weigh in on?"

Leonid nodded wearily and waved him off, lying down again and adjusting the bulge in his pants as he did. It seemed the arousal he had felt from the dream's intensity had not abated while they'd spoken.

Jakob stood but did not leave. Leonid looked over to see the gleam in the man's eye.

"Very well, you may take care of this first." He looked back up at the stars twinkling back at him through the multi-faceted glass mosaic of the ceiling as Jakob settled between his legs, taking his length down his throat as a dying man in the desert swallows his first sip of water. Leonid purred as the man worked his well-practiced tongue over his organ. A little indulgence of servants was necessary.

*

Leonid sat back with a sigh, it would seem that the last few weeks had seen many more of these indulgences. Jakob got up to leave but paused at the door.

"Yes?" Leonid asked, still feeling a bit permissive.

Jakob shifted awkwardly back into the room. "I fear I may overstep my bounds."

"So formal, Jakob. Speak your mind," Leonid indicated for his servant to take a seat.

"I speak only because I believe I may have some insight into the situation given that I was once a man from this realm." He paused again and gave the god lounging before him a plaintive look before ploughing forward. "I believe that you grow too close to this girl, master. By inhabiting her thoughts and experiencing her emotions you draw yourself closer to the human condition."

Leonid did not move but a certain ease in his posture evaporated. "Indeed?" the word hung in the air between them.

"You may not have noticed the difference, my lord, but I have seen a change in you, however slight, as you've spent more and more time with her. I know you hope to assuage your hunger for the energies of the Realm of Men but I fear you are unaware of the personal connection between you and this one inhabitant." Jakob continued on, trying to make his point before the god's anger took over. Given the increased volatility of the deity's reactions of late, he was treading on very thin ice.

"You are constantly occupied with her thoughts and dreams, her memories and reactions. You've hardly interacted with the other gods since you've returned to this level other than to resume the barest of your responsibilities. Even when Emera is here you barely give her a passing glance. Was she not once your chosen mate? And yet now your desires focus only on a mortal girl, one who is affecting you greatly." The man took another breath to continue but was cut off as Leonid rose from his languid pose and moved to the far side of the room, ostensibly occupied with whatever he could see beyond the window there.

"Your concern is noted, Jakob." He would not dignify it with a response but the man's loyalty should not be discouraged.

"I am concerned that you have replaced one weakness for another, master. And this one may—" Jakob was cut off as Leonid appeared before him, wrapping his hands around the man's throat.

"You dare speak to me of weakness? You who have witnessed and understood the power of gods in all realms?" The anger in Leonid's voice made the room echo as the undertones of his voice became more pronounced. He knew he was losing control, acting exactly how Jakob was warning him not to, and yet he couldn't seem to suppress the growing fury in his chest, the pounding of his heart. His hand was throbbing with black pulsing veins against Jakob's ghostly skin, the darkness inside him billowed up in great clouds of magic from within. "She is mine to do with as I see fit, and I will not be so questioned by some lesser being."

"This is an interesting tantrum, brother," Emera said from the doorway. Leonid didn't turn to her but brought himself under control, ignoring the stab of panic at being caught in such a state. He dropped his hold on Jakob, who quickly stepped back from him.

"Sister dear, what brings you by?" his voice carefully relaxed.

"It appears the same concerns as your man here," she said, grabbing Jakob's arm as he moved past her to leave. "No, don't go Jakob, it seems your insight may prove very useful to this discussion."

"I don't recall agreeing to any discussion," Leonid said as he drew himself back from them.

Emera gave him a hard look. "Many things hang in the balance here and I am determined to see this episode through with the least amount of damage to the realm as possible. When these threads unravel, I will stand before The Five in clear conscience, and so will you."

Leonid turned from them, once again directing his gaze out into the world beyond his windows. In the level where the god's resided, there was no ground or sky but rather a mixture of the two. The seven spheres revolved around them, hanging in space, surrounded by a multitude of stars and galaxies, which painted the sky in all the colors of the cosmos. As such, the water that flowed by his window disappeared easily into the infinite space and yet any god could walk across the expanse or simply appear where they wished. He very much preferred the feeling of earth and growing things beneath him, even above him. After so long away this level still seemed precarious to him. He turned back to the room—his thoughts disturbingly human.

Jakob stood near the door, eager for dismissal, but Emera was situating herself on the dark furniture, waiting for him. "Speak if you wish," Leonid said, hardly willing to offer up his own guilt in the matter.

"You've grown attached to the girl," Emera said simply.

Leonid considered his answer. "My prediction that access to the mind of a human would be a diversion and focus for my less savory impulses in that realm has proven correct."

"But it is more than that," her face had not changed.

"It is no more or less. It was unprecedented that one of the gods would breach the sacrosanct barrier that keeps us from the minds of mortals in that realm. We did not know what to expect." Leonid moved and sat down across from the goddess.

"And so we are learning that the more you indulge your experience of a mortal's mind the more attached you become. But that is not all, the longer you spend in her mind the more your own behavior and thoughts begin to mirror hers and you begin to act and feel as a human does." She said this carefully, watching his face for movement. He did not appreciate the scrutiny and was about to speak when she interrupted him. "You do not need to tell me yes or no, Leonid. Before this episode I would not have been able to make out a single expression of yours that you did not wish." She gestured at his body language, which was tense and defensive. "You can barely contain yourself."

Leonid's first instinct was to fume at her but he quickly saw that it would only further prove the truth she spoke. Instead he got up and moved away from her, settling his eyes somewhere far from his company.

"I am at an impasse then," he said simply. "I cannot break off from her without risking the sphere and I cannot stay with her without risking myself."

Emera pursed her lips, pleased that he had skipped over the denial and was back to pragmatism. "Then we shall find another way. Jakob, have you any suggestions?"

The man started at being addressed, concerned as he was with fading into the wall. "None, my lady."

"Oh come now man, you had so much to say before I arrived. Don't be shy now."

"Do not taunt him, sister," Leonid said remorsefully, "I have given him a fright." He nodded at the man, dismissing him as he wished.

Jakob began to move from the room but stopped once again at the threshold. "Perhaps you should try to remain outside of her mind when you visit. Then you may be able to stay focused and yet unaffected." He nodded once at Leonid and scurried from the room.

Emera gave Leonid a look. "Seems as good an idea as any."

Leonid stifled making a face and turned away again. The pair was silent for a while before he spoke.

"How long were you here?"

"Long enough."

"Do you..." Leonid started, trying to find the correct words.

She did it for him, in a most painful way. "Do I feel the sting of your rejection? Have I been pining for my wayward mate? When I call you brother am I attempting to draw you back into my bosom so that I can be whole again?"

Leonid didn't respond but looked at her in confirmation, an uneasy feeling growing in his chest, one he had been pushing away for decades now.

"No, my love," she said with a smile. "We cannot know the will of The Balance and so we are left only with our assumptions. We may have thought that being created together, reflecting back on one another as we do, was a sign that we were intended. It has long been clear to me that was not true."

Leonid felt the relief loosen the guilt inside him, though something she said gave him pause. "How long?"

"Have I known?" Emera avoided his gaze for a moment. "I should have let you go long ago."

"Before Imonesh?"

"Long before."

Leonid looked away from her. For a moment they were silent and then she stood to pace the room.

"I do not claim any responsibility for your actions nor do I absolve you of your guilt, but I do see that my reticence to bring to light our incompatibility created a certain amount of dissonance in your mind. Imonesh was wily enough to spot it and use it, and you were angry enough to fall for it." She paced and stopped before him, he raised his eyes to her snapping blue ones. "Was it anger or boredom, Leonid? What did she use? What corner of your mind did she see that I did not?"

"You are still angry," he stated simply.

"I am."

Her anger was godly; she was controlled and displaying her power, not threatening and shouting as he had done. A god's emotion was a cerebral matter, one they understood and acted on but did not feel the way a human would. She would not experience it in her skin as he had, or move without intending to. But anger was anger, and it eats at its bearer.

"I will set this right for you, Emera. But I cannot fix your feeling."

"Why do you refuse to tell me what happened?" She loomed over him, crackles of power spreading over her skin. Leonid stood up slowly, moving into his space and crowding her fury back towards her.

"She used you," he said, stepping towards her as she refused to move. They were close enough to feel their power resonate off the other one. "She used your passions and purpose to make me jealous, she used your focus and success to tear me down. She poisoned me against you until all I wanted was to obliterate everything you had made in this Realm of Men, the one I was made to extinguish and you had the audacity to build up, to revel in without me."

The blue cracks of lightening dancing over her skin combined with the black clouds that emanated from inside him. Their powers united and diverged only to join again and again. The echo of their connection rang out like the tone of a far off bell, one that might never cease. "We were designed as something much worse than mates. We were made to trigger the other one, to begin the cascade that would consume what we thirst for. Can you taste the blood in the Land of Three? Does it sing to you now?"

Emera looked up at him, her face wild and excited. "Yes," she breathed. He held her gaze, watching his perfect sister as blackness consumed the blue in her eyes.

Leonid did not move away, allowing wave after wave of power reflecting back between their bodies, building to some terrible crescendo as the room filled with their combined storm. He watched her face as she flirted with her temptation, as the desires within her rose up from wherever she had buried them. It was a sight to behold, her full glory and ultimate power just out of reach. There was something so tempting about pitching over that edge together, realizing fully their potential to consume the energies around them. He kept back from the precipice and yet he could not help but look over it.

Emera was always better at resisting temptation, at listening to her head and not her nature. She stepped back from him, her face closing off and the resonance of their shared power dissipating as she reined hers in.

"You tempt a dangerous power, brother." She clenched her fists at her side. She was diverted from her anger so she could feel the injustice of having her weakness dangled before her.

"As did Imonesh," he stopped and took his own step back, pulling his influence from her space so that she might not feel the pull of his powers. "I was fortunate to focus my attentions on the royal family, as even I was unaware of my appetite for rampage until far into the plot. When the urges came I threw myself out of the realm to disperse the destruction, leaving Imonesh to believe she had been more artful than she truly was."

"How did we never see this before? Centuries we spent together and never once did I feel that desire." Emera was always searching for an explanation.

"Ignorance can mask nearly anything. But do you not recognize the sensation, Emera? Did you not feel this pull towards glory every time we coupled? As if there were some peak just out of reach, one that might satisfy more than just our carnal urges?" She gazed back at him, her lips tight. The recognition in her face was answer enough.

Leonid turned away. This prying into himself was beginning to irritate him. He would do it for Emera, so she might understand what was at stake, but the constant need to bare these deeply buried secrets was beginning to make him feel exposed. Immediately images of Anna's bound body reared up in his mind. He wanted that, to hear her scream in pleasure he gave her, to bend her to his will because he could. Here, with Emera, he had to acquiesce, to make it right again. But with Anna he had control, and he needed that now.

"I will try to heed Jakob's advice, but I need Anna."

"Do you care for her?" Emera fixed him with her gaze.

Leonid looked back at her, impassive, "One may need something, desire it even, and not truly care for the object itself. She serves a specific purpose and in using her to that potential I must invest in the dynamic in order to draw from it what I need."

"You did not say no."

"But I did not say yes."

"Be careful, brother. You cannot lose your head."

Leonid laughed darkly. "She is the only thing keeping it in place, sister."

Leonid left the beveled glass room and moved further into his home. The black walls glistened with light as though made from the darkest opals. Plants and their likeness wound their way around every door frame and across the walls. When he reached his sleeping chamber, two massive trunks delineated the room from the hall as ivy curtains, heavy and mineral moved aside to let him pass. His bed sat in the center of the large room. The frame was made up of huge crystalline structures growing from the floor as if it were the earth itself instead of an expanse of pitch dark space held at bay by the clearest glass.