Mermaid Tear (The Fated #2)

13 | Trust

Koun, appearing before them in all his confident glory, merely laughed as Iliana nearly jumped out of her skin. Her only saving grace was that she wasn't alone--Callias had been just as startled as her.

"You've been having such pleasant thoughts while calling me," Koun mused. At Iliana's knitted brow, he tapped the base of his throat. "The fox."

Shit. Did he hear everything she thought while holding it? Including the whole strangling thing? Iliana dropped the fox. Immediately, the lavender and blue strings disappeared, leaving only the red in their wake.

Callias--the gentleman he was--slipped into a bow. "Lord Koun, I--"

The god waved him off.

"No thanks, and no formal greetings. I've no patience for them at the moment."

"...if that's your wish."

He straightened and Iliana had to cover her mouth to hide her amusement. As annoying as the gods messing with her everything was, she couldn't help but feel grateful in that second for the insight it gave her. Had she not been bound to him, she never would have guessed that beneath Callias' even face was brooding irritation.

"It is," Koun confirmed. His unsettling, golden eyes shifted between them, as if searching for something, before his gaze returned to Iliana. "Did you pull him here?"

"You tell me," Iliana snarked.

That familiar tinge of wary fear slipped down her spine as Koun quirked a brow, but thankfully he didn't call her out on her attitude. Instead, he sighed, before his fingers through the air, and staring at something only he could see. "I had intended to."

He released the unseen, before bending over to grasp the triskele's string of fate. The second it was clasped in his palm, the other threads reappeared. Callias' instant tension told her that--this time, at least--she wasn't alone in her sudden ability to see the gods' power.

Koun brushed the strings with his thumb. A golden glow overtook them as he pried each individual thread just far enough that they could be distinguished for just a moment.

"As you may have guessed, this power--" His free hand ran along the length of the sea-blue thread. "--belongs to Umae. It is what remains of what came before. Without it, when the girl perished, so would have the Moon."

She stared. "Do you have to be so fucking cryptic? Is it like...a job requirement for gods?"

"Iliana."

Koun chuckled. "I do not mind her, Little Moon. In fact, I find her lack of self-preservation to be refreshing."

Oh.

Somehow, that was more disconcerting than his previous warnings, if she were being honest.

"As I was saying...this thread is what remains of the bond Umae created when entrusting you with his gift. As Aion is so fond of repeating, however, magic has a mind of its own. What he meant as a simple reassurance of each other's life and location, turned into a binding between souls. So, when one side perished, it threatened to destroy the other."

At her side, Callias had gone stiff and still. If she hadn't been privy to his mind, Iliana might have thought it because he was distracted by Koun's words.

But, that wasn't it.

He was caught in a heavy flood of emotion so deep it felt like he might drown. It was grief, guilt, anger, love and abandonment and so much more. Everything he had been muffling behind an alcohol driven haze that Koun's words threatened to dissipate.