A Tale of Revenge Ch. 12

"Do not pursue me again, Imonesh. I will not take kindly to it."

Her face twisted in rage. "I did not come after you!" Her power moved around her like flames on her skin, shimmering with warm light. Leonid chose to ignore it. She gave him a cruel smile. "You think I can be so casually pushed aside? You think that I don't know what I cost you and how much revenge you must wish on me? Do not feign indifference to me, Leo. I know you too well."

Leonid gave her a mirthless laugh and turned from her. "You may believe what you wish. I care not." She opened her mouth to reply but he left before she could utter a word, knowing how infuriating it would be for her to lose the opportunity. He moved to Anna's room at the inn and found her asleep, her face still puffy from her tears. More than anything he wanted to stay, to hold and heal her. But he had to return to The First Level now, and his sister had much explaining to do.

The games ended now.

He burst into her sitting room, much the way she had stormed in after he struck his deal with Anna, though he did not send any of her trinkets spilling off the walls. He was unsurprised to find her in the company of several of their cohort, none of whom looked bewildered at his manner. His cold mask firmly in place, he swore to himself that they would see no crack or fissure in his godly façade, despite having recently occupied Anna's mind. He was done being toyed with and acting out in anger or passion would get him nothing but knowing glances exchanged between the more level-headed among them.

"Leonid!" Emera exclaimed, her eyes wide. He looked at her intently, watching as she calculated the probability that she could continue to hide from him.

Ion, one of Emera's closest friends among the gods stepped forward. "Leonid, it is good to see you again. Emera told us you might be partial to socializing again." Leonid did not turn towards the onyx god dressed in green robes but kept his gaze firmly on his nervous sister.

"Indeed? It seems she tells you a great many things." His voice was light but cold. He would not be deterred. "Perhaps she will do me the same courtesy." Emera, to her credit, did not lower her gaze and instead met his accusations without evasions.

"Leonid, I would have told you," she began. But he was not interested.

"I'm sure your motives are intricate and no doubt based on many demonstrable claims but I am not interested. I want to know exactly what is going on, no games, no lies, no more manipulations." He stood firmly at the entrance to the room. Many others shifted nervously at the intensity of his objective.

"Perhaps it would be better if we spoke alone," Emera said, turning towards the room. The others nodded and murmured their goodbyes with varying velocities in order to quit the room. Only Ion remained. He brought his inky hand to Emera's elbow, clasping her there.

"I do not have to go," he offered. She slid her fingers over his and gave him a small smile.

"I think it would be better if I spoke to him alone."

For his part, Leonid moved around the pair to position himself on a low divan, waiting for her to join him. Ion looked over at Leonid's calm face and nodded once, disappearing through the door and closing it behind him.

Emera turned back to Leonid and lowered herself gracefully onto the pillows across from him. She seemed collected but he could see her fingers sliding against one another as she prepared herself to speak.

"It is rather a complex issue," she began, not meeting his eyes.

"Simplify it," he said shortly, indifferent in her delay.

"There are many factors to take into consideration—" she began again but stopped, meeting his stony face and looking away again. "This is much bigger than the stakes I initially presented to you."

"That much is obvious, sister." He said the word with a hint of irony.

Emera took a breath, the sapphires on her shoulders glittered as her shoulders moved. He watched her bright blue lips part and close again. "It appears that Imonesh is a much greater agent of chaos than we initially assumed. Her takeover was not simply to gain power, but to gain access and wait for the time to be right." Emera paused but he gave her nowhere to go except forward with her story. "Imonesh was after the empire, though not as we understood it. She wanted control only of one particular location, which is why she let the empire crumble as soon as she was influencing the royal family. The reason she is so particular is because of the nature of this realm. The energies therein work via conduits, allowing humans to wield magic at varying degrees of intensity. It also siphons off in particular geographical locations, confluences of power as it were." She was not telling him anything he didn't know yet so he chose not respond when she hesitated again.

"We believe that she is using her influence to draw on a central confluence of power. In doing so it allows her not only to access a far greater amount of energy in the Realm of Men, but also to go so far as to merge it with other realms, effectively subordinating a great deal of power to her own will."

Leonid did not let surprise or concern reach his features. "To do that she would need to be using humans in that realm. As it stands, she is not capable of accessing any specific power from a given sphere, none of us can."

Emera nodded. "We believe that she has such humans in her service, how she has managed it without subverting The Balance, I do not know, but the war is a mere prelude, a distraction that somehow fits into her plan."

"How is it that no one has been able to investigate this?" Leonid asked before answering it himself. "Does it have something to do with her inexplicable ability to monitor her entire kingdom?"

Emera looked at him sharply. "She came to you?"

He nodded. "You might have mentioned that to me earlier. I unknowingly put Anna in a fairly precarious position there." He saw his sister's concern. "She is intact, and unknown to Imonesh."

"Leonid, I would have told you," Emera started again before he raised his hand, stopping her again.

"I do not care why you didn't tell me. I only ask that you hold nothing back now."

Emera nodded. "There is precious little left to tell. A decade ago things under the newest king began to unravel and a strange barrier shielded the capital city. Imonesh must have some mortal agent who is acting on her behalf. Ion became aware of it when one of his healers went missing some year ago and could not be found. When he tried to seek him out, Imonesh confronted him, laying claim on the territory around the kingdom and since then he has raised the suspicion amongst many of us. We are watching her but we cannot interfere."

"So you came to me, the only one left with a bound connection to the Realm of Men and spun a story of redeeming myself to you."

"Yes."

He didn't move his gaze but turned this over in his mind. The goddess in question has implied that he was missing the bigger picture, and he had to admit he had always assumed Imonesh's motives had been a rather banal usurpation. It appears he was mistaken. He knew, more than most, how tempting it was to seek out greater power. If she were finding a way to augment her own it would make more sense that she had gone to such lengths to protect it. But there was something Emera had not touched on.

"You knew that Anna would follow her family's killers to the capital." Her mouth drew into a tight line. Leonid kept his voice even as he thought through it aloud. "You must have been depending on it if the true motive was to be able to get a thread of power past whatever Imonesh is planning. Which means that your anger in the bargain I struck with her must have been feigned." Blue lips parted to protest but he continued. "You have watched me struggle with my own darkness, all this time allowing me to believe the stakes were personal, redemptive instead of political."

"It's not political!" Emera said with no small amount of indignation. "This is the very fabric of The Balance that she is meddling with."

"Allegedly."

"We have to be sure."

Leonid shifted his eyes from his sister for the first time since entering the room. This meant Anna was walking into something much worse than a fight with ruthless soldiers. If Imonesh had the type of control that Emera was implying, then she would do any number of hideous things to the girl if she found out about her connection to Leonid, and he would not be able to stop her.

"And have we contemplated Anna's fate in all this or is she merely the unwitting mouse we are placing in the viper's den in the hopes that it bites?"

Emera looked him over. "I had not anticipated that you would grow attached to the girl. I had thought you would have been aloof to her and allowed me to use your connection once she reached the capital so that I might be able to interfere, or at least gather evidence to bring Imonesh before The Five."

"And when were you planning on telling me my visits would soon bring about such dangerous scrutiny?"

"I was going to tell you before but I did not know how you would take it. When I began this I knew nothing of your darkness, of the destruction I tempted to the very place I was trying to save. I have betrayed your confidence to no one and have had no council on this. I am sorry that I delayed too long."

Leonid did not know if he was ready to hear her apology. "If Imonesh has done all of this without upsetting The Balance or infringing on the rules of the sphere then we are the ones trespassing and she will be free to bring us before The Five."

Emera tipped her chin in agreement. "We are trying to be cautious."

He gave her a twisted smile. "And you said it was not political."

"Leonid, please," she said mournfully, clearly she was still unsure as to how he was taking this all. It pleased him to know his thoughts were more obscure than they had been.

"And now? What plans do you have for the kingdom if we succeed in unseating the king? Are you planning on using Anna to secure the throne again?" Leonid's anger boiled in his veins but he held on, just barely. He had been so distracted, so consumed with Anna that he had missed what an important player she might be in the larger scheme.

Emera gave him a look. "No, a general from the eastern kingdom who fights in the war for the king, General Rafia. He is sworn to me and will secure the kingdom and help dismantle whatever her mortal ward has been creating. He is a good man, Leonid. He seeks to restore the land."

Leonid gave her a look but chose not to respond. She was prepared, but he wasn't. He had to at least try to keep Anna from this mess. If the things Emera described were true, then whatever revenge Anna was seeking would likely land her in the middle of this mess. Damn the rest of them and their suspicions and plots. If need be he would find a way around Imonesh to deal with it. Putting Anna in harm's way again was not an option.

"You will do something for me, sister," he said. "I will speak to Anna before she enters the capital tomorrow and you will facilitate it by distracting Imonesh."

"But how..." she began.

"If Imonesh is truly a spider with her feet on every thread, then trouble the web, sister. I do not need more than an hour."

*

"Brother," Emera's voice rang out in his chambers. Leonid did not raise his head to see her face. Jakob had betrayed his condition to the goddess and she had come. He sat amongst the rubble of his room and furniture, his back to a semi intact wall at the far end from where she stood, open space beyond the holes he'd torn from the structure. He heard the room begin to right itself under Emera's commands; it would only be a matter of time before he destroyed it again.

Her hands were cool against his. "You should not be doing this, Leonid. You have to pull back from her."

Leonid raised his head from his hands and looked at her with blackened eyes, no sign of the white or cobalt remained. "I will not," he said shortly. The rage he was barely containing flickered across his skin in waves of power. Emera knelt before him, placing her hands on his knees when his arms vacated the post as he leaned back, placing his head against the newly repaired wall.

"You tried to dissuade her, it is not your fault. You nearly lost control when she defied you, almost betrayed your movements to Imonesh. This is why so few gods have ever placed their power in a mortal vessel. They are unpredictable and willful. You cannot blame yourself for this."

Leonid laughed at the ceiling. "I am not the only one to blame; do not pretend this is not what you wanted, Emera. She is not only within the capital but amongst the very agents of Imonesh's plans. We now know how Imonesh is planning to access the confluence and yet here we sit, trapped by the laws of the realm from interfering until my agreement with Anna is violated."

Emera stood and swept her eyes over the chamber, making sure all was back in place before sitting in one of his century plant seats. "Has Imonesh involved herself in Anna's fate?"

Leonid shook his head. "She has no contact with the sorcerer. If she is indeed the mastermind of this plot, she works only through the king, no doubt to keep from upsetting the laws of The Five. And the king is only concerned with Anna's heritage, not her power."

Emera nodded, her gaze intent on Leonid. "What good can come of suffering with her? Are you not trying your control by refusing to separate from her?" She took in the god's worn appearance, his skin darkened by magic rippling underneath it like some barely contained beast, a testament to how much he was holding back. She had seen his eyes go black before when he was using his powers or he was tempted to. But to witness his empty gaze as he fought to hold back was a different matter altogether, one she found it unnerving.

"If I leave her alone, then no amount of distraction will stop me from rampaging through the city to get her back. I would burn those who are responsible for her pain to ash and rip Imonesh's kingdom to pieces. And subsequently I would not be able to stop if I started. So no, it is better for no one if I leave her now."

Emera chewed her lip as he closed his eyes. He could feel Anna's pain deep inside his own body. He felt the fear and exhaustion, the wearing of her spirits and physical horror at what was done to her form. It was relentless. And he suffered it still, not allowing himself to look away, knowing it was his fault. The realm meant less and less to him with each passing minute, every time the lash fell on her flesh, every fist that bruised her bones.

"Even if I were to stop them," his voice held the longing for being free to do just that, "Imonesh would have the upper hand with The Five and she would use it to take Anna from me. And the things she would do to her would not equal a hundred times what these humans could dream up." He knew what gods might inflict to souls that they had rights to, so he must be cautious, and wait till a full violation had occurred.

"You must wait for just cause," Emera spoke what he already knew and it flared his anger.

"Do not come here to quote the rules to me. If your own eyes cannot convince you that I fully understand what it is that I have to do, then you are useless to me." His voice rolled out across the room, booming against the walls and reverberating the furniture. Emera's eyes went wide and she nodded silently though she did not leave him.

The pair sat in silence. Leonid closed his eyes, letting the distant torture wash through his own body, feeling on his skin what no being in his level could ever feel, each blow stoking the greater darkness inside him. The guilt ate at him but it also served to still his hand. A blast of magic reverberated along his thread of power; the sorcerer was trying again. Leonid slammed his hands through the floor, shards of glass crumbling off his skin. Emera jerked her head up in surprise.

He wanted to rage until the spell dissipated as he had before, but her presence reminded him how human his reactions were, so he got up and turned away. He couldn't face Emera, knowing that she could not understand it. The desire to physically hurt himself had never been so strong, because it was impossible. It was the fault that ate at him, the human quality of the emotion all of his own making that sat in his chest. For the first time he understood why Anna had taken that knife to her palm—physical pain seemed like such an obvious way to concentrate and dispel the overwhelming emotions that chipped away at him.

Emera came up behind him and brought her arms around his body, resting her cheek between his shoulder blades. "I am sorry." Her voice was quiet and sincere. He took comfort in it. But still he drew away, walking towards the window and looking out onto the stretches of gardens beyond.

"You care for her." It was a statement this time, though still seeking verification from his lips.

"It is not so simple." She could not understand it.

"Explain it then," she said settling back into her seat. He was going to be stuck with her for the duration.

"This is not the time—" he started but reverberations of something much worse than pain began along his connection to Anna. "Emera," he gasped, knowing what was coming. "I cannot stop it."

Emera was on her feet in an instant, her skin cracking with bolts of blue energy. His power began to surge out of him in great clouds of darkness. He tried in vain to gather it back again but the fury that had exploded inside of him when he felt Anna's violation would not be silenced. So he did the only thing he could, the method he'd always used, and redirected it.

His magic charged at Emera, seeking out a mark to destroy, something to devour. The room shuddered under its force. Leonid felt it pour off of him as if he were only a conduit for his own rage, manifested in this all-consuming storm. Emera fought it off, bringing her own magic up to protect herself from the initial attack then quickly wrapping it about his wayward power, pulling it back from where it threatened to force itself from the room. Leonid's fought hers valiantly but he clamped down on himself, slowing the outflow, fighting for control. It was not easy and he clenched his hands till he felt the bones would break. The violence he felt towards the man who had his Anna was more intense than any hatred or fury he'd experienced.

Emera's magic cleared the room, chasing the wisps of black clouds until they were consumed. Leonid sank to the ground, propping his head against the wall and watching the bits of blue pursued what had moments before been so powerful. Emera waited till she was entirely done to speak.

"Perhaps this is why we have not been gifted with the intensity of emotion as the humans."

"That is putting it mildly, sister," he said, closing his eyes and resting his head. Leonid meant to continue but was suddenly distracted by Anna's laughter echoing from across the expanse of space. The quality of her emotions were mixed up, satisfaction and fear mingling together as she defied her tormentor. Emera was right. They had never been designed to feel this much, to be so effected as to risk losing control. He had felt anger, contentment, lust and even love as a god, but the physical, all consuming experience of a human's emotions were far beyond what beings at his level could succumb to. It was both exhilarating and debilitating.

Her hesitation was appropriate, "Is she suffering very terribly?"

Leonid could not answer that. To speak it would be to tempt his control once more. Anna was being hurt again, physically this time. But he found her mind more secure than it had been in the past days. She was still fighting.