𝕱𝖗𝖔𝖒 𝖙𝖍𝖊 𝖆𝖘𝖍𝖊𝖘, 𝖜𝖊 𝖗𝖎𝖘𝖊.
The legendary Phoenix is reincarnated from his ashes every thousand years... or so the story goes. When Emrys wakes days after his death with bare memories, the vengeful deity responsible for his revival is...
On the Dawn, the worlds were crafted by the First Sisters: Initia and Osus. Sprawling landscapes flourished, and seas spanned endlessly throughout the realms, but a heartbeat had not yet found its place.
Thus, the Celestials were created. Provided with endless souls by their Creators, they brought new life to the realms: humans, beasts, and creatures alike. The older the Celestials grew, and the more they refined their gifts, the more power they craved.
And the Fall began.
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|| CHAPTER 6.0 || || EMRYS ||
"WHEN I SAID TO FIND HER, I didn't mean flatten a city block."
Emrys lifted his eyes from the book to meet Amaya's frigid glare. She stood tall in the common room's entrance, her sharp features cutting the hearth's glow into jagged patches of shadow and firelight.
He ceased pacing, though he never realized he'd begun. Thankfully, when he glanced behind himself, there was no rut to follow his back-and-forth steps along the fireplace. He reached for the mantle, where a stout tumbler of whiskey rested beside a finely-etched decanter. The bottle's purpose made no sense to him. Their glasses refilled without being tended—sometimes to his own downfall—and it served no use besides adding needless clutter to the gothic decor.
"You should really be more specific." Emrys raised the glass to his lips while he turned his attention back to his book.
Drinking and research always seemed like a much grander idea than it turned out. At first, it calmed his mind, but after a few sips too many (it was hard to tell with his ever-filling glass), the words blurred together as they did now. But at least reading kept Amaya from bothering him.
Usually.
He could still see her from the corner of his eye. Amaya wore her disapproving scowl like the greatest finery—an expression perfected by days upon weeks of close proximity with him. It was hard to tell exactly how long he'd been with her after as many times as she'd slaughtered and reincarnated him from his ashes. But judging by the foggy memories at the perimeter of his mind, it'd been more than a brief stay.
She would probably kill him again before long; the lapses between each life didn't seem to last. Emrys had gotten good at annoyance. It must have increased with each lifetime, just as his fight against her torture and executions had decreased. It was another day in the Celestial realm, and he wouldn't remember it upon rebirth anyway.
"You were tasked with eliminating the Corrupted in our way," she reminded him. "Not slaughter pedestrians and burn them alive. Our issues do not lie with Others."
"All work and no play makes an unhappy Phoenix." Emrys wasn't sure where he'd heard the phrase, but when it slipped from his tongue, it felt fitting.
The following silence left him waiting, refusing to look at her, sipping from his glass nonchalantly. But when he still stood there moments later without being disintegrated—or whatever she did to get rid of a once-supposedly-immortal being—he turned. The look on her face was one to kill. But she could have done it in an instant, and she hadn't. Which meant she didn't want to.
Which meant she needed him. Soon. Or soon enough to not bother with resurrection.
Or she was waiting for him to take enough absent-minded sips of his Ambrosia-laced whiskey to force him into coercion. The lines had blurred just enough between intoxication and compliance that he didn't care if each drink bent him to her will. Because it also helped him forget.
"My eyes have sensed a new presence on Earth. Demons." Amaya's voice simmered. "If they've come to collect, it means she's close. We don't have time for stalling."
Stalling. There was stalling, and then there was fun. Pure, destructive, torturous fun. His weaker self, whoever he was, never would have allowed it—that much he knew. He'd missed out on so much in a world that had made him soft.
Emrys snorted. "And your magical 'eyes' can't find this girl themselves?"
The lid wavered on Amaya's contained rage. He enjoyed watching it light her eyes. The way that little vein protruded from her temple. How her nose twitched with restrained anger. The lightning bolts flickering from her fingertips as she boiled closer to the edge of his next annihilation.
"They are not equipped for battle."
"For trash duty," Emrys corrected. "You don't want your children getting their hands dirty."
Instead, it was him getting dirty. He came home crusted in ash and dust that he soaked off in a scalding bath, bearing new fast-healing scars until Amaya took them away. He'd rather have worn them, but she insisted on him being pristine. He supposed someone hundreds of thousands of years old may be worth something in good condition.
It was the only reason she'd kept him around for so long, and he relished in it. There was nothing more satisfying than watching her veins pop and her teeth clench as she killed him time after time, because he knew full well that he would return by sunrise.
Emrys swallowed another mouthful of his drink. "How's this woman avoided you for so long, if your minions are as good as you say?"
"She must have help. They know of at least one ally aiding her. It wouldn't be a surprise if there's more." A hint of amusement danced across her lips. "You can't be the only one she's deceived."
Emrys crinkled his brow, reaching into his memory to recall more than the vague description he'd been given of Thana's human half: average size, auburn hair, pale eyes. An innocent demeanor hiding the hellish goddess beneath her skin, feigning whatever remained of her soul... if she had one to begin with.
Emrys swirled the liquid in his glass. "And when I find her friends?"
"Have your fun, but don't go astray."
Though a grin began to stretch his lips, and the possibilities lit his mind with pleasure, it was short lived when he felt a light tingle along his neck. Emrys raised his hand to the nape of his neck, feeling the small lump beneath his skin—a Runestone that would alert her of his every move. One with not only the power to find him, but strip him of his life with one wrong move.
Amaya grinned. Her leash was the only thing that kept him firmly beneath her control.
"Whatever happens... do not leave that woman alive."
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