SONS OF GODS

Chapter Five: Kayana

On the night of the Diamond Moon, Adonis accompanied Artemis on a hunt. Over the course of their expedition, he chided her with boasts of his superior hunting skills over hers. Artemis considered this the gravest of insults, enraging her to the point of craving payback. That night she launched an arrow into the sky, piercing the moon and shattering it into a shower of glass that fell down on Socratone and into Adonis's steaming soup. Upon ingesting the sheer fragments, he choked on a pool of his own blood. Selene, Goddess of the Moon, had descended from her place in the heavens to offer thanks to Artemis for her heroism, revealing that Adonis had forced himself on her, using his abilities of desire. She then dedicated the Diamond Moon to Artemis.

CHAPTER FIVE

KAYANA

SHE STORMED OUTSIDE, fueled with irritation. The aggravation that stirred within her toward Cienzo was unrelenting. But why? Why did she care? It's not as if she wanted to. He somehow had a hold over her, without having to ask for it. This is your fault, she chided herself. Not his. She knew she could not blame him. It's not like this is new to you. Her thoughts were mush. She begged for clarity. None came. It never did.

The stench of charred fat wafted from the platter she gripped. She turned to call on Caleseus, but noticed him speaking with a tribe of vagabond centaurs just down the way. They were stunning. An arrangement of colors that mesmerized her: aqua furs with pastel-yellow manes, white furs with red manes, and gray furs with rose manes. The sight brought her a sense of relief, and she watched him for a moment, wondering if he, too, had ever yearned for something beyond his eternal commitment to her. Could it be absolute truth that once a centaur was tethered to its master, it was all their souls could desire? She couldn't imagine it. A life compelled to serve another. The idea made her sad. Often guilty.

She felt obligated to protect Isla and Cienzo, and the stronghold of that very desire held her back from ever leaving Kenslan. From ever finding her own way. Since the very day news came of hers and Cienzo's dapa's murders by Roamers, she found herself dreaming of a life free of worry or expectation. The yearning had grown into impenetrable mountains the older she grew. So many times she tossed the idea around with Cienzo, but he feared anything than the safety of known comfort. And she could not imagine abandoning them. Not ever. Milos was right. The sting of irritation flushed her cheeks.

She gazed upon the moon as it slid to the forefront of the clouds, reminding her of the Diamond Moon that dazzled in the sky seven years prior; so crisp and clear it resembled a fine-cut gem. It was the only time she remembered feeling a sheer sense of freedom. And it was on that night of that Diamond Moon, where she participated in the Tethering Ceremony.

So engrossed by the memory from that day that she had not sensed Caleseus come up from behind her. "Can I speak?" he asked.

She smiled to herself before turning around. It was that very separation—the one that could disarm her of her keen hunter instincts—which she longed to experience as freely as the falling snow. The freedom of all things. Invisible wings.

"Has anything ever stopped you in the past?" she teased, resting the platter of meat on the ground. "If your answer is yes, please do remind me."

He peered up into the sky, chest inked with symbol eternal moons, torso wrapped in leather, steel and fur. "Do you remember the Diamond Moon that guided you to me the night of our Tethering Ceremony?" he asked.

She remembered it vividly. She and a group of five others—Milos being one of them—were instructed to drink from the Goblet of Artemis. The liquid inside, said to be from the sweat of the Goddess, tingled as it dripped down her esophagus. The power of the fluid made her light on her feet; she felt high, hypnotic and loose. She had been relieved of any conscious inhibitions; an out-of-body experience that defied the natural laws of her physical world.

"What did it feel like?" he asked.

She wondered where he was going with it, but she gave into him. "When I drank from the goblet, my vision ebbed and shapes turned to blotches of color. I remember glancing down at my hands and feet. They were nothing but swarming, pulsing blurs of silver. Strings of energy around me had been replaced by colors." She paused to savor the memory. "Then I felt a push. It was more of an instinct. To find you."

"To think," he said, "that in all the enchanted lands of Nephele you found me. A land filled with wandering, free centaurs, satyrs and minotaurs. How very lucky I was."

"Nothing is left to luck," she said. She looked up at the moon again, breathed in the past. It was sweet, and she unraveled with her every step toward reminiscence. "Finding you was not random. My feet were firm on the ground, but I felt like Hermes. As though small wings had been clipped to my boots. I was not hunting for you, I was floating toward you. I could hear the great Artemis' voice in my ears, urging me on. Guiding me."

"And when you located me?"

"Warmth fell over me. I turned to spy a silver cloud across from me."

"Is that when we marched toward one another?" he asked.

"It was," she admitted. She recalled the explosion of energy that was inscrutably exhilarating. The desire, the need that penetrated her so painfully to the core.

"I think I recall tears from you," he teased.

"There was no such thing," she chuckled. She remembered they stood before one another; the edges of their energies begging to unite. "Then I asked you what your name was. And when you told me, it was like I already knew. I reached out to grab the strands of your energy and cupped my hand around your chin and said—"

"'Caleseus, creature of the night and Son of Artemis'," he finished for her. "'I am Kayana Katar. Will you pledge this life, and those many lives that follow, to me?'" He pressed his eyelids shut. "And I vowed to protect you. To honor you in all our lifetimes."

She rubbed her finger over the scar on her lip. He nodded at her and said, "Then we drew blades and sliced our lips. We swiped our fingers over the other's wounds and drank each other's blood. Do you remember what we said last?"

She narrowed her eyes. "To forever."

He lowered his head at her and repeated the words. "To forever."

Even then she could feel the tiniest remnants of the freedom.

"You remember it all," she said.

"How could I not?"

"And I assume you have a very specific reason for bringing it up?"

He galloped beside her, the pearl beads in his hair clanking against one another like chattering teeth. "I've been at your side since that very night," he continued. "You have always watched him in secrecy. I've witnessed every moment. A part of me even watched him for you. It is the only time you shed your huntress skin. I've witnessed the way you drink his eyes and felt the pain caused by the actions of his guardedness. And still, you wait for him to change," he added. "For the day that he openly shares his heart with you. So you can feel better about not leaving. About staying here. You know better than I, that day will never come."

"You don't know what you're talking about," she said, waving him off.

"But I do," he said.

Kayana recounted all of these moments in her mind. She would never reveal to Cienzo the way she truly felt for him. She was not even certain what that feeling was. Only a fool would subject our friendship to the tarnishing of love. Instead, she loved—no, not loved—him from a distance, watching and admiring him from a faraway island from which she'd casted her heart away.

"You can't continue chasing after him forever. He is damaged. And you are no slave to him." Caleseus's eyes, the color of fiery bronze, held hers. "I only hope for your heart to find the peace it deserves. And that peace does not lie here."

She remained silent. We are best friends, she told herself, almost too forcefully. Something peculiar was working its way into her mind. It was an invading feeling that put her at unease. Could it be that she was allowing her feelings to interfere with the reality of what really was? She hoped not. This weakened hunters.

And weaknesses like love, ended in tragedies.