Part 19 (1/2)
”Good. Get out and finish drying off,” Zurach ordered. A towel was thrust into Terin's hands. ”Stand over here, and keep on the tiles. Blood is hard to get off the marble. Just keep cooperating, and you'll find I can be quite nice. Don't test my patience again.”
Terin sighed.
Blaise slapped his hand against the metal rail and jumped the fence surrounding the promenade. Mud, stone, and shale broke beneath him and he slid several feet. He crouched among the rocks and scraggy brush, palms pressed to the ground. The cliff's edge dropped away. A few feet below, a wide ledge with an overhang offered a hiding place big enough to hide several people.
The overhang creaked under his weight, and he dropped down before it broke beneath him. The curve of the cliff obscured his view of the promenade. If he'd been followed, no one moved to follow him down the cliff. He shook his head and s.h.i.+elded his eyes against the stinging rain. The wind whipped at him. Instead of the whistling song of the cliffs, the storm howled. Blaise scowled up at the clouds.
While the gusts weren't enough to dislodge him from his perch, he didn't relish the thought of remaining if the weather soured further. The heavy rain and wind was bad enough, but partnered with the incessant rumbles of thunder and the flash of unnatural lightning, he didn't want to think too long about the destruction the storm could cause.
A hand grasped his shoulder. Blaise didn't quite jump out of his skin, but he tensed, and his fingers curled into the claws. His body tingled as his grip on his disguise faltered.
The thunder masked his undignified squeak.
”What do you think you're doing?” The voice was neither feminine nor masculine, but an impossible harmonic of both characteristics. The deeper rumble of a man partnered with the airier tones of a soprano.
It'd been so long since Blaise had heard the melodic voice it took him a long moment before he could reply. ”I could ask the same for you.”
”Impertinent child.” The hand on Blaise's shoulder squeezed hard enough to hurt. He winced, but didn't pull away.
”Isn't that why you like me?”
”No.”
Blaise winced again. ”Isn't it against the rules for you to come here? What do you want?”
For a moment, the melodic laugh soothed even the storm. ”I'm sure my Lady will forgive me eventually. She never was one for the rules, anyway. You've been causing more than a little trouble, childling. Were you, perhaps, testing the limits of your lifespan?”
Without bothering to turn around, Blaise rocked back on his heels. The hand on his shoulder s.h.i.+fted to press against his back. Part of him wanted to turn around and look, but if He didn't want to be seen, He wouldn't be seena”not even to Blaise's eyes. ”You made me well.”
”I think I made you a little too much in your mother's image.”
Blaise scowled. While it didn't exactly bother him that he'd never met his mother directlya”he wasn't even sure what his mother wasa”Blaise couldn't shake the feeling they'd both been insulted in some fas.h.i.+on.
”You're not supposed to be here,” Blaise said. He didn't dare tell Him what to do, but he s.h.i.+vered at the thought of what the presence of the true divine meant for the mortal coil.
Nothing good.
”Your mother is meddling again. She left the way open. How could I resist?”
”You broke out of the Gardens, sneaking around behind Her back, and you came to see me? You're up to something. What is it?” Blaise rubbed his temples and felt a headache blossom behind his eyes.
”Impertinent child. You've been left to play long enough. It's time for you to come home where you belong.”
Blaise stretched out his hand to keep his fingers from curling into talons. ”I'm not playing around.”
”Then what are you doing? It's time to return to where you belong. Wasn't I generous? I humored your request. What do you hope to accomplish? Except, of course, proving you can be disobedient and show a general lack of regard?”
”I'm not leaving them.”
He laughed again, and the storm quieted once more. ”White really doesn't suit you. While you're a just enough creature, you're hardly pure or innocent. I fear I may have matched you too well to your color. When are you ever going to learn?”
”Yes, yes. I know. Your punishments don't end early. I don't care. I gave my word,” Blaise muttered.
”Even if it costs you everything?”
”You already know the answer to that,” Blaise said.
The touch on Blaise's back warmed him, and he imagined the Gardens as they had been before he'd been cast out with Lucin, Mikael, and Aurora, s.h.i.+ning and resplendent in the light of Her sun. At least if he never made it back, the memory was still there, fresh enough it didn't feel like Blaise had been living among mortals for so many years.
”Your brothers and sisters miss you.”
Blaise laughed. While the other divines were, technically, his brothers and sisters, he didn't missed them. Every now and then, he thought about them, especially late at night when the mortals slept and he had nothing else to occupy his thoughts. In a way, it surprised him that they remembered him at all. ”It only took them a few thousand years. I'm not returning.”
”I can force you, if I desire.”
The hard tone, as unyielding as the stone and cliff, drew a wince out of Blaise. ”Please don't.”
”You've used that word a lot lately. How unlike you. Well, then, childling. Why shouldn't I?”
”I already told you why!”
”Can't bear to repeat yourself?”
Blaise did his best to ignore the taunt. ”If someone doesn't stop them, not only will a lot of people die, but they'll lose their souls, too. Won't your Garden feel a bit barren, then?”
”I'm aware.”
”Well, at least one of us has to care,” he snapped, jerking away from the hand on his back. ”My brothers and sisters certainly won't.”
They, like Him, paid little notice to the things that faded away in such a short time.
”Just like your mother.”
”If you miss her that much, go visit her already and leave me alone!”
He laughed long and loud. Blaise sighed and shoved his hands in his coat. ”You could just forgive them.”
”Then they wouldn't learn anything, now would they? I'd also set a poor example for your siblings. Now, reconsider. Come home.”
”No.”
”I should've known. At least try to take better care of yourself. Do you know how much trouble I'll be in if I have to go crawling to your mother because I let her precious firstborn lose his soul? While I think I could talk her into helping me recreate you, you were troublesome to raise the first time. My Garden wouldn't look right without red in it.”
”I'll try to keep that in mind,” Blaise said, shaking his head. The rain no longer fell in a torrent, but rather as a soothing drizzle.