Total pages in book: 169
Estimated words: 161535 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 808(@200wpm)___ 646(@250wpm)___ 538(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 161535 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 808(@200wpm)___ 646(@250wpm)___ 538(@300wpm)
Won.
My Kalos has won. There’s no one else to be defeated, no more obstacles for him to return to his home. I should be celebrating, but it hasn’t truly sunk in, not yet. Someone races past us in the plaza, elbowing me, and I move closer to his protective form. “What happens now?”
“I can ascend whenever I’m ready.”
I lick my lips. “When is that?”
“When you’re ready,” he says gently.
As in, when I’m ready to die, because I’m the thing tying him to this world. “I-I don’t think I’m ready yet.”
He nods and pulls me in close. I fall into his arms and let him stroke my hair, and all the while I shiver and shudder against him. “You take as long as you need, love.”
I shiver against his chest, but my head is too full. I can’t relax. “What about you? How are you? Do you feel different? Has anything changed?”
“Nothing of import.” He strokes my hair again. “Hush. We’ll talk about it later.”
There’s a tenderness to his tone that feels…new. I pull back and gaze up at him, searching his face. He looks the same, but some of the soft edges on him are gone. His eyes no longer look as sleepy. He seems more alert, his angles sharper. I could feel his Apathy before, just in looking at him. Now it feels as if some of it has been smoothed away, like he’s come into focus.
I don’t know what to make of it. The last thing I want is for him to change. I study his face harder, looking for signs of that other Kalos, his brittleness. All I see are green loving eyes as they gaze back at me. He cups my face in his hands and strokes my cheeks. “Everything’s going to be just fine.”
Easy for him to say.
Chapter
Forty-Two
It’s only when a person runs past us, shrieking, that I realize the plaza is still in chaos.
Of course it is. I’m standing over a dead man. The goddess is currently being swarmed by a human blockade, her worshippers desperate to protect her, and others are vomiting and coughing as if they’re about to die.
I pull back from Kalos, worried. “Can we stop the plague?”
He arches a brow at me. “If you like.”
“I do.” I’m conflicted about his response. This has been his personality all along, which means absorbing the other Kalos hasn’t changed him completely. No matter what, Kalos isn’t going to give a shit about random people. On the other hand…he was sent down to learn to give a shit, and he’s failed on that particular front. “Please. For me.”
“I do everything for you,” Kalos says. He presses a kiss to my forehead and angles my face to his shoulder one moment before I’m hit by a violent series of sneezes. I bury my nose in his shirt until the spell passes, and when it does, I’m dizzy and weak in the knees.
When I pull back from him, there’s a red stain on his sleeve. My heart drops. “Oh no.”
“I pulled on my power too much.” Kalos tugs his shirt off and offers it to me. “Wipe your nose, Elsie. You’ll be all right.”
I nod and hold the tunic to my face as Kalos heads for his dais once more. He climbs up it easily—less fatigued than before if I don’t miss my guess—and straightens the chair atop it. He indicates that I should join him, and I move to his side, hauling myself up the hay bales. He turns me and sits me in the throne, then stands directly in front of me, his back to me. “People of Narshire,” he yells, spacing his words out strangely. “Be…calm! I have…rid you of…plague! No one means…harm!”
I peek from around Kalos. A few people slow down, but everyone seems afraid. A woman is sobbing loudly off to the side, and a baby is crying, muffled by its mother’s frantic attempts to cover it with a blanket. Off to the side, Belara holds a girl against her, and her expression is one of pure irritation. The goddess looks as if she’d rather be anywhere else. Behind her, the land hippo acts as a blockade, and the rest of her entourage continue to surround her with spread arms.
Kalos looks over at her and cups his hands to his mouth again. “Belara means you no harm. I mean you no harm. Be at ease.”
“Darling,” Belara purrs. She tosses her long hair and pushes out of her clinging worshippers, leaving the teen girl firmly in their grasp. Stepping forward, all eyes turn to her as she speaks. “Quit causing a fuss. You’re alarming the crowd. Why would I harm anyone?”
He eyes her. “It’s not a slight against you, Belara. I’m just trying to calm them before they burn their own city down out of stress.”