Prey and Mercy

Preface

"Love is willing to become to villain so that the one who you love can stay a hero."

― Josephine Angelini "Firewalker"

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Before the  C R A S H I N G

If death is a dance let her waltz in the sweet embrace of darkness.

It was impossible to imagine a better moment than now. With his arms lifting her up, firm fingers clasped in her small ones. She held him to her, like a survivor clutches a rock at sea. He was her anchor keeping her afloat throughout the madness of the storm reflected in all the eyes of the gods around them.

Death leaned in close and she let him, feeling the pull between them like two stars on the verge of collision. But this she could survive as she had survived it many times before. Her lover smelled of honey and ashes, sweetness and ruin.

But it wasn't enough to combat the thoughts, her vultures, circling her mind. "None of this is right, Rhy. You see that, don't you?"

Gently, he pulled back, spun her. With a cocky grin dallying on his lips, he trailed her back in until they were nearly chest to chest. Devotion glimmered in his eyes, "I'm aware of the predicament before us, my love. But at the present moment and ever second after in which you are mine and I am yours, my salvation belongs to you and only you. How am I to focus on the child when she is far by the most inferior to life I hold in my arms?"

His beloved breathed, a roaming gaze on his throat, his lips, his ardent blue eyes, "Because you love me," she said.

"And because I love you," again she spun, "I refuse to endanger my other half. Does that make me vile? Villainous like everyone decrees, my dearest Odphy?"

The room glittered in the darkest of golds and ambers, the twinkling lights of the chandeliers fading into distant stars. Among the faces flung out into space, every one of them glanced upon their march as if it would be her last.

In this she she could sense, things were different now. The joys and contempt at which they used to marvel being the only kindred spirits in the room was gone.

It didn't matter that they were in love and that nothing could ever come between them. It didn't matter that their immortal moments of happiness were in the palm of their hands, in the space between their hearts...

A war, once simply a premonition, had come at last.

They were dancing in a room full of warriors, on a battlefield, a revolution. All in the name of the child's mortality and extinction. She couldn't allow it.

Suddenly out of breath, she untangled her hands to press them against his cheek, to hold his face perhaps one last time, "Look at me, Ryhmos. There is nothing evil about you, no matter how many lives you take, souls you bewitch and page. You have my heart and my soul. I'd make the world a barren place before I let anything happen you. But the child...she needs us."

"She's dangerous-"

"I'm dangerous-"

"If you were to perish-if I-were to ensnare your spirit I couldn't bare it." The God of death looked upon her fervent obstinance, the stubbornness in her eyes, seeing the horrors she'd placed upon her own heart. She knew he could see her fear, feel her pain.

Whatever conflict he'd prepared to humor collapsed; Rhymos placed a kiss between her brows. He would do anything anything for her. "It's the two of, darling, against the heavens. Are you prepared to unleash the hell that comes with it?"

"With you by my side, Lord of Death and Balladry, nothing can become of us that I should grow to fear." Odphy reassured him. As long as she had him...as long as his soul lay in tandem with hers everything would be alright.

Nothing could separate twin flames. Nothing in the world or the heavens above.

"And when the skies come crashing down around us...?"

"We'll hold one another as we always do. Even in mortal blood and bone my heart will belong to you."

"Ah," his amusement did nothing to hide the torment she could so clearly see in his hardened jaw and knitted dark brows. Beneath it all, through the bond that connected not only their minds but hearts, there was anger. And yet, he managed a smile, "You're a poet I see?"

Odphy stepped away, taking in the sight of the God she'd been born to love, and delivered a playful curtsy. The passion that burned in his eyes sent a flush through her.

It was clear she loved this man more than gods loved their ego, the sun the moon, and the earth gravity.

That would never change...but the state of the world, the life of the child in need of their help, that all had to.

Holding out her hand, Odphy held her chin high, shoulders back. The song had ended and sudden restfulness filled the silence of the ballroom. She took in his enamored stare like Dionysus with wine, "Take my hand, darling, we have retribution to bestow."

So the God of Death followed the Goddess of Life into darkness, the ever-brewing eye of a hurricane, prepared to lose everything...except the woman in his arms.