When Rhagos remembered the mortal that Aron had come crashing to his door to retrieve, he remembered not just the female, but Aron’s reaction to her. Aron had been the Battle God of Aos since nearly the dawn of time, back when the mortals were little more than a crude tribe here and there. He’d become as jaded as Rhagos and the others, perhaps more so. But when he’d seen the mortal waiting for him? When he’d heard her squeals of delight at the sight of him?
He’d cracked.
For the first time, Rhagos had seen pure and utter joy in one of his brethren.
Rhagos hungered for that.
Fucking envied that. He wanted that joy. He wanted to care about something so very much that it drove him mad. Right now? He did not care about much of anything.
Had to be the Aspect of Apathy that had won, damn all the luck.
How to get that joy, he wondered. He couldn’t simply steal the woman away from Aron. Not only would he likely lose his eye again, but he’d felt nothing for her. He’d had her in his clutches for weeks and she’d inspired nothing but curiosity and a hint of confusion.
This was the creature that Aron was storming the underworld for?
He fingered the deep scar across his face, the one from when he’d lost his eye. He had his eye back—but he kept the scar as a reminder of the past. It did not pain him, but Rhagos rubbed it anyhow, thinking.
Perhaps he could lean on one of the other gods who had returned. Steal their anchor if the mortal proved to be more pleasant and entertaining than his own. His brother Kalos would assist him in this…provided that Rhagos did not attempt to steal his own anchor. Brothers they may have been, but gods were also incredibly possessive.
Kalos would want something from him, though. Brothers though they were, Kalos only sought out Rhagos when he could use him. Perhaps in centuries past, Rhagos would have gone along with such plans, but he’d tired of them – and of being used – and so he avoided his brother entirely.
He thought of who else had returned. Magra, but the harvest goddess was useless to him. Vor, Lord of the Seas—not a friend. Gental of the Family would likely have some sniveling idiot—or worse, a mother with twenty children—hitched to him, and the idea was unappealing to a one. Perhaps one of Tadekha’s crystal-crusted handmaidens, or Belara, though he had no idea if either of the goddesses had returned.
Besides, Belara would have picked a male, and Rhagos was far more interested in a female. He thought of Aron and his blonde anchor, the way she’d flung herself at him and twined her legs around his waist. That had hinted at far closer a relationship than mere companions.
He definitely wanted a female.
Kassam was long gone, Anali would be a bore and…
The Spidae. Hmm. Rumor had it that they had a lovely and willing anchor. Now there was a thought.
Rhagos flung himself up from his throne, crossing the long pillared hall that was now empty of souls. His footsteps echoed on the stone floors, and the walls seemed to vibrate with his sense of purpose. At the far end of the Hall of Souls was his own web, stretched between two pillars, that allowed him to contact the Spidae and other gods in their realms. The threads of the Spidae were magic, able to span space and time, and Rhagos brushed his fingers over them now, strumming them like a harp.
He waited.
The threads shimmered. A picture focused, and a pretty female with dark skin and a thick braid came into view. She wore a crimson dress that made a bright contrast to her flesh, and her hands moved back and forth as if sewing. She had not yet noticed him, so he studied her. This was their anchor, then. Her form was shapely, and he wondered if she was intelligent. Clever.
He wondered how one took an anchor from another god. He still had to get rid of the problem of his own anchor. Even now, there was a dull pain burning in the back of his mind where he’d sent Varias away, and the stretch of their tether was giving him a headache. He’d have to retrieve the fool soon enough.
A figure garbed in white paused by the female, and she looked up, smiling. It was one of the Spidae, and Rhagos watched as he caressed her face with an almost careless touch—except that at the last moment, he brushed his fingertips over her mouth and she shivered, her smile growing wider.
Then, the pale eyes of the Lord of Fate focused on him.
“You cannot have this one.”
Rhagos frowned, arms crossed over his chest. He had said nothing.
“She belongs to us.” The Spidae swept forward, all fluttering pale clothing and even paler skin. He gave Rhagos an imperious look through the view of the web, stepping carefully in front of the female and obscuring Rhagos’s view. “You have an anchor.”
“Precisely my problem,” Rhagos bit out. “And if you know so much, then you must know of my problem.”
“Is it a problem? Or do you simply see it as one?”
He gritted his teeth. They loved to answer questions with more questions—a rather irritating tactic. “Do not play your games with me. I do not have the time or the patience.”
“The problem with you, Lord of the Dead,” the Spidae continued in his hollow, toneless voice, “is that you see this as a game, a manipulation. You see my answers as more questions, but you do not realize that every question you ask has multiple answers. It is up to you to seek the one that you want.” His pale eyes stared through the web at Rhagos.
“You know what I want,” he stated again. “I want—”
“To change the outcome of the Anticipation? To have a new anchor? To reverse time?” He reached into the air and pulled a thread out of nothing, a faint smile on his face. “They are all one and the same in this instance, brother Rhagos.”
He bit back a snarl of irritation. The Spidae were not his brothers save in godhood, and yet…he was getting somewhere. “What do you mean?”
“You know what I mean.”
“I can have a new anchor?” Rhagos asked. Now that the idea had been planted, he couldn’t unsee it. Yes. He didn’t want the pretty girl the Spidae had, or even Aron’s bright-eyed blonde. He wanted a companion that was wholly his own, that would be suited to him…a companion that was not Varias.
He wanted someone that would look at him as if he was more than just death. Someone who saw him.
“Can you?” When Rhagos snarled at the web and raised a hand to tear it down from the pillars, the Spidae spoke again. “You had four a short time ago.”
He lowered his hand once more. “Four?”
“You know how the Anticipation works, do you not?”
That was a rude question, so he ignored it. He did know how the Anticipation worked. It was the bane of every god’s existence, the punishment of the High Father for imagined sins or for simply being poor at one’s job. It was when the gods were gathered from their realms in the Aether and cast down to the mortal landscape of Aos, forced to dwell without powers in mortal-seeming bodies. Each god’s personality was split into four Aspects—facets of the things the High Father wished to eradicate from their essence: Apathy, Hedonism, Lies, and Arrogance. Spending time with the mortals would improve each returned god for the better, or so the High Father thought. It would make them feel more in touch with their subjects.
Fucking rubbish.
All it made Rhagos want to do was burn the entire mortal realm to the fucking ground.