A deep smile stretches along her lips. Meika Silverend. A sentient witch with enchanted blood and a deep hunger for battle. Slowly worn and jaded over time. No respect for Empty bloodlines, no remorse for the weak. Sweet, gentle, calm with superiors.

A loyalty that runs infinitely for only a few.

"Kali."

My nose scrunches up in a cringe. "Please, don't call me that. It's been ages."

The Fae-Witch laughs heartily, even approaching and clapping a hand on my shoulder. "What does the daughter of destruction go by these days then? Perhaps Celosia to nod at your brighter side? A previous religion, maybe?"

"No, have you not heard the girl cry my name?"

The ancient woman smirks. "Whenever they speak it sounds like white noise, I often ignore such insignificance."

"Great," Theron mutters. "Now there's two of them."

Against my better judgment, I attempt to stand. Her hand latches around my bicep and eases me onto my feet and with a more than intrusive gaze, searches my frame for further injury. Something seems to satisfy her when she lets go without another word.

"You've both assumed new identities then? Such are the times I suppose, conflicting, to say the least. Whether or not to fit in is always the question."

"Iridian," I say, glancing back to mark the locations of Theron and Remi. I track the sound of Daniels footsteps on the dirty pavement. Only a ways off, likely a mile at most.

Meika snorts a bit, startling the humans. "You named yourself after a select grain of granite?"

"Nevermind that, what were you doing with a group of Destroyers?"

She pauses for a moment and takes a long deep breath. The thin, faint wrinkles of time show for a moment. Her deep black hair shows simply in the sunlight, without any hints of silver. A sad look in her eyes tells me it's not the most lovely story.

Staying close to me, Meika shakes her head and looks up pleadingly. The shift instant and hidden from the others. Tears shine in her eyes even when she begs. "Not here."

Nodding, I turn on my heel and look over the others. Remi is tucked in a rough blanket with knees drawn up tight. Dark, smokey smudges of ash rest against her skin everywhere besides her wrists and ankles. Theron is no better, yet his features are paling slightly and I notice a darkening hue in his eyes.

When he blinks, it's washed away.

Daniel walks up from behind me and smirks. He hefts two large sacks with him, tossing them down on the ground by the already bursting packs we've been carrying with us and a new one I can only assume came from Meika.

He eyes her wearily and comes to stand on the other side of me.

"It's good to see you up and around," he says softly, resting a ginger hand on my shoulder blade. "How are you feeling, Ira?"

My stomach tenses at the nickname on another man's tongue, but I steel myself. He doesn't know, I can't be mad at him for simply caring. "I'm okay."

Dan checks me over, the look in everyone's eyes very similar. The questions weaving through their eyes all the same. Are you fragile? Are you weak? Are you going to die?

The fact that Meika isn't asking any questions aloud is mildly suspicious to me to begin with, but I get the sense that it involves the pain I saw earlier.

Theron clears his throat and I look around, sensing the awkward tension. This strange woman has been watching over them for likely several days while I recovered. And leaving him in particular alone with a cranky immortal doesn't sound outstandingly safe.

"I've been told Var-" Meika stops herself from finishing the name and sighs. "You've been separated."

Remi looks up curiously. "What were you going to call him?"

"Varuna," I murmur almost inaudibly. "Hindu God of the Celestial Ocean. One of his favorite names."

I shake of the silence that follows.

"Yes, as I'm sure you can tell by the state of things..."

Meika raises an eyebrow and glances towards the maroon skies above. Charcoal clouds curl into the air, melding together and carpeting the stars. Not a single constellation dares to guide the way. Twisting in a circle, she assesses the dry ground and charred bark.

Though Africa seems to have escaped a severe scorching and for the most part, you can view the lines where pestilence and flame meet and blend together.

Her eyes come to rest on me. "An apocalypse of epic proportions... I thought one of the other God's had gotten their hands on this world."

Heads turn and I exhale sharply through my nose.

"Other Gods?" Theron asks.

"Here we go..." I mutter under my breath.

Meika chuckles to herself quietly, looking between the lot of humans all staring at me in shock. Her eyebrow quirks up at me and I groan slightly. "You mean, they don't know?"

Other Gods.

Reasons, why not to have this conversation, swarm my tired brain. Without inducing confusion and mistrust, not to mention showing as though I'd been lying the entire time. They asked of different creatures and the many duties Lindon and I possessed, it didn't even occur to me I'd have to speak of this.

Of course, he and I weren't the only ones. Together, we possess the greatest power, but there are several others. Many with children, some pure blooded and others Demi.

"It wasn't relevant."

To be honest, talking about my brothers and sisters - as we refer to one another for lack of a better term - didn't appeal to me at all. In fact, opening my mouth didn't seem optimal at all.

"It's relevant now," Theron says rather calmly, meeting my eyes in a level fashion rather than the confrontational nonsense so often underlying.

I nod and shrug. "There are other Gods, but I'm not going to list them off. None are capable of this level of demolition without straining themselves to near death though."

"Couldn't they help you find Lindon?" Remi asks, pushing up off the ground and wobbling slightly.

My gaze brushes over Theron, watching him flinch in restraint. He'd have caught her should she lose her balance but her legs stabilized. Their fragile dynamic seeming a tad more strained than before, I wonder if something else happened while I was unconscious.

He clears his throat again and my attention shifts to something else.

"They wouldn't be any more help than you or anyone else," I explain. "Nor would they want to. We don't get together for meet and greet's, there's nothing linking us or binding us to one another. We aren't responsible for each other, there is no one to hold us accountable. We're Gods. Not best friends or colleagues."

Remi deflates, frowning slightly.

To my surprise, Daniel doesn't seem off put in the slightest. Or even confused. He watches me closely, calculating everything that comes out of my mouth and weighing it against something else. Perhaps the knowledge I gave before or a different kind of explanation I'm not yet aware of.

Just when my eyes are about to narrow in on him, Meika scoffs to gather my attention. "Can we talk about something? Privately?"

My agreement is instantaneous, nodding and beginning to walk off in a shaded direction. Before me stretches a small span of repaired buildings and dead trees, both falling apart and rotting from mal-use. I hear her steps trailing after me, slower, more confident than my own.

A glass door with broken glass caving in on itself stands before me after a moment. Miscellaneous papers litter the ground, burnt and charred. Mostly ash remains, from glass and tree made products alike. The knob had been pounded off long ago, probably from some scared citizens attempting to take shelter.

This is confirmed when I kick the frame off its hinges. A few black skeletons lay in a pile of dark clothes. Flakes and shards of bone splinter as if from a distorted image warped by heat and time.

The crunch of broken glass underfoot grinds uncomfortably into a cement floor. Most of the products inside have been stolen from what I once gather is an old hotel building. Tall and wide with many rooms, it either mimics an inn or some odd business with a few too many workspaces.

Meika eyes every single thing skeptically, ready to flip and kill anything on a dime. We wander through several hallways until she pushes ahead and tugs me into a dining hall.

She stalks around to find a moderately untouched table but instead of pulling out a chair, she slides on top of it, leaning with her feet still grazing the floor.

"What is it, Meika?"

The Fae's eyes shift to a more gentle, loving demeanor. "It's good to see you, Iridian..." She says the name deliberately slow, checking to see if she remembered it properly. "I'm sorry you and... Lindon...? Were separated, what can you tell me about what happened?"

I close my eyes and think back as hard as I can. A few visions of screaming and thunder flit through my memories like the blown pages of a book, recounting endless fighting and a raging downpour. Few survived but they had a cornered. "I've been so frustrated with them..." I whisper, looking back in the direction of the humans. "The species, like it were all their fault. Yes, greed made them monsters and fear turned them into slaves of desire... But I know they had to have had help from someone. Something. A powerless animal wouldn't know the first thing about trapping or caging us, a being would've had to have given them the knowledge..."

"The cells in your spark were corrupted Ira, the very fabric of nerves in your brain rotting and morphing into something I'd never seen. Whatever the mania inside your head is, you are not responsible for it. They are."

I shake my head, arms crossing. "I am hate, he is love. Of course, I am going to jump the gun and slay the few hundred that cross my path but... that doesn't mean their all bad. I wasn't in my right mind, I wasn't..."

Meika pushes off the table and reaches out to brush my shoulder. "You're feeling remorse, Ira."

"It's fucking nonsense!" I snap, turning to smack a chair.

It goes shooting into the wall and dismantles into legs and arms on the ground, a pile of scraps to be picked at. I stare at my hands in confusion, flexing to test the Mana in my system. To my surprise, it responds to me.

Meika looks sheepishly at the floor. Before saying another word, she makes sure to clear a good distance of me.

"We could talk about our infinite mistakes all day, Love. Or, we can talk about what really needs to be addressed."

Still in shock, I find myself honing in on her heartbeat and tracking her movements. "Meika, what did you do?"

"It's not permanent."

Slow, calculated, I take a deep breath. "What. Did. You. Do?"

"So far, I bonded our souls in a temporary contract for your sanity... It's why you have a conscience right now, why you can think clearly, why you're strong."

My fingers drift unconsciously up to my sternum, tracing over the thick bone with familiarity. "What does that mean for Lindon? What does this mean for the rest of our-"

"Calm down, it's not permanent. But we need to talk, you're not strong enough to hunt him down with this alone."

My teeth grind in rage, face flaming up in an uncomfortable, itchy frustration. It almost hurts. Her uneasy movements remind me of a leash I do not have.

He is my leash.

I cannot feel my restraints, nor do I know how far is too far. There is nothing stopping me from pinning her neck to a wall in two seconds other than the awareness of what once was. What I should follow regardless of existence.

"Will he feel it?"

She nods, fearful. "But without completing the contract you will both die."

"This could potentially kill us anyway," I growl, feeling the tension and anger build. A screaming tea kettle penetrates the walls of my thoughts, a landmine of options and consequences. "I might've been able to make it, I might've-"

"No," she interrupts, a dark, cynical look overpowering the love hiding in her eyes. "You wouldn't have survived two more days. One with that reckless behavior on shore. You'd be dead right now. You'd never see him again, don't you understand? Then what, doom him to die?"

I stare into nothingness, tears pooling up in my eyes and streaking down my cheeks. They leave dark stains in my jacket and steam when landing on the floor. My teeth sink into my lower lip to keep it steady, but it quakes regardless.

She finds enough courage to take a few steps closer but I feel numb. Hollow. Selfish. Paralyzed in place at the realization that maybe severing the link could make us stronger somehow, or put us on even more of a timer.

"You know I'm right," she says softly. "What would he do if he came back to a world alone, with only people he hated... What would he do without you?"

She was right.

She is right.

And when I fell the floor she caught me. 

Update time!

So I promise no more in the middle of the night updates, I realize they get buried in everyone's notifications. I've been having a lot of fun plotting out the next few chapters. 

Thoughts and feelings on the book so far? Please don't forget to vote and comment if you enjoy the chapter, it truly helps me as an author. Shout-outs to Crimson_Graves for being super awesome with her feedback as of late. I really appreciate it. 

I love you guys and have a great day!