My blood stilled. And I felt pathetic, with how the fear paralyzed me. He hadn't even done anything. He'd just talked.
"Turn around," he said.
It didn't sound like an order, but I knew it was. I turned, and there he was, standing impossibly still, like a mountain.
"I'm not even close to you,"
he said from across the hall,"And yet your heart is pounding like that of a little bird in the arms of a curious boy," his mouth twitched. "Vicious things they are, curious men," he remarked.
He observed me and his mouth curved into a wide grin.
"Surely if I move closer you'll collapse, or combust."
I shifted my focus on to the ground. Breathe in, breath out. Breath in, breath out.
He stepped closer and my heart pounded frantically.
Closer and closer, he came until he was right in front of me. I held my breath as he inhaled, and his hand reached out. He smoothened a hair that had been out of place.
"True fear," he commented. "I doubt I did anything that would warrant this extent of a reaction though, Anakin. Don't be scared of me."
My skin scorched as he trailed the back of his hand down my face, and as his fingers, with the faintest of touches, tilted my chin up. Eyes like the sun peered into me, like he could see through my mask, and then into my past.
"A one sided conversation is quite a boring one," he sighed, "no one ever wants to interact with the god."
I couldn't think. He was in my space, making the air thin and my head lighter.
"Like did you notice how Charter only hugged Asa?" he asked, an unexpected petulance seeping into his voice.
It was when he raised his eyebrow that I realized he'd wanted me to answer.
"Um,"
I cleared my throat as my voice came out whispered and cracked.
"Uhh, yes. He hugged only Asa," I responded. A little functionality came back to my brain, and I stepped back, needing to breathe properly.
"Then there was you..." He moved, slowly and deliberately drifting to the side. Circling me like I was exhibit and he was deciding whether to destroy it or admire it.
I felt my shoulders hunch, instinctively tucking in as his steps echoed off the high stone walls, each one measured and heavy.
"Me?"
My voice cracked. My eyes followed him, but I didn't dare turn my head.
"Yes, you,"
He ran his hand lazily along a pillar as he passed, fingers collecting the dust as he reacquainted himself with his home.
"You were holding Asa's hand," his smile slipped, sending a chilling shiver down my spine, "...as if it's a piece of him you were gifted."
I swallowed, and stepped back involuntarily, only to stumble into a column.
"So I have a piece of you?" the words tumbled out, and I to felt silly for asking, for even imagining that, even though he'd implied it.
"Yes."
"H-how?"
I stuttered. None of it made sense.
"I'm not a very good god,"
"You don't have to tell me that,"
I muttered before I caught myself. His fingers drifted over the edge of a shattered mosaic embedded in the wall, blue and gold, faded but still vibrant.
"Look who's not so scared now."
I shrank a little.
He breathed in and sighed out, as if he was finding the right way to phrase it.
"I may have pushed the others to their limit," he said, voice slipping into a low, dry chuckle as he turned, drifting back toward the center of the hall. He stood beneath the chandelier.
"Which is the reason I wasn't on Vyn,"
"The others?" my voice echoed in the space. "Who?"
His hands clasped behind his back. He looked regal.
"The other gods, of their own realms,"
my mind tried and failed to form images of these gods and their realms.
"Does Earth have one?"
The question escaped before I could stop it, my heart leaping in my throat. He turned, eyes narrowed, the faint amusement tugging at the corner of his mouth.
"Earth is... Different," he said, taking pleasure in the way my face morphed from expectancy to mild disappointment and frustration, of course he wasn't going to answer me that.
"What do you mean by that?"
"It means that even I don't understand it's origins, and if there is a deity, it is not one that has chosen to reveal itself to us."
I was surprised that he'd answered. And disappointed that his answer hadn't revealed anything to me really.
"Can I proceed?" he asked, almost absentmindedly.
I nodded. He was very good at being polite and rude at the same time. He began to pace again, moving in an arc. His voice was calm and detached.
"They created a prison," he said and though his voice didn't change, or his facial expression. I felt a distinct sense of anger. I wondered what he had done, but he continued before I could dwell on the thought.
"Whoever would release me, would get half of my essence, my being, do you understand what that means, Anakin?"
I felt like I'd been thrown into a stormy ocean. I shook my head, voice tight in my throat.
"No. I don't."
His smile was sharp, but it didn't reach his eyes.
"It means you're not just a human anymore." I opened my mouth, but no words came. "You carry a part of me now-my power, my hunger, my... ruin."
His voice softened on that last word, as if tasting it.
"When I fell, I was split-half locked in that prison, half left to whoever had the misfortune of saying the right words at the right time."
He tilted his head, observing me like a scientist watching a rat figure out the maze. "That's why you feel the air twist when I'm near. Why if you focus on it, you can feel my anger and my desire. It's why I can feel and feed on your fear, and apprehension."
His gaze flickered to my chest, and I felt it-the weight, the heat, the terrifying pull.
"Your body recognizes me, Anakin."
My knees nearly buckled, and I clenched my fists to stop from shaking.
"I didn't ask for this," I whispered.
"No one ever does."
His tone was so matter-of-fact it made me want to scream, "And those who ask for it don't get it."
"So-" I started before the question had even formed in mind, "So how are you going to get it back, this essence?"
"I can't get it yet. You'll need to stay on Vyn for a while first," he said, and the sense that he wasn't telling me something came to me.
And I couldn't shake it off.
"Yes... I'll need some time, before you're ready." he said.
"Are you dying? Is this hurting you somehow?" I asked.
"I'm not dying, especially not if you're still alive, but I need to reconnect with Vyn."
"Can you do that?" I asked, "with half of yourself gone?"
"There's a ritual..." he said, "That should bond me back to Vyn.
Our survival here hinges on that ritual working, on my power returning, at least to a certain level.
" The word survival stuck in my throat like a splinter. My stomach twisted.
"What? Why?"
Survival??
"I crossed a couple of gods," he tossed the sentence at me. "And now that I'm free, they will come after me. And you."
His eyes scanned me for my reaction, lingering on my neck and chest like he could see the pulse.
"Because if they kill you, I'll cease to exist."
I huffed out a breath. Then another until I started laughing.I wrapped my arms around myself, barely holding it in, my body trembling. There was a bunch of angry gods, and they wanted to destroy Maahz. Of course I was the key to that. Little, weak, human me.
"You and I are starting to seem more alike than I'd thought," he said, his own hollow laughter echoing mine.
He straightened, rolling his shoulders like a man resettling a heavy cloak. The air seemed to still around him, the space quiet and breathless.
"I must prepare for the ritual," he said, and his voice cool. "So I'll leave you to digest that."
He turned, footsteps ringing sharp across the stone as he walked away, and the space he left behind felt emptier than it had any right to.