Total pages in book: 169
Estimated words: 161535 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 808(@200wpm)___ 646(@250wpm)___ 538(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 161535 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 808(@200wpm)___ 646(@250wpm)___ 538(@300wpm)
She says nothing, just considers me. “Why?”
“Because he makes me happy and I want to be with him, even if I have to be dead. Even if he doesn’t want me there any longer, that’s okay. I just want to be in the vicinity. He said there’s a field where the faithful can wait for their god to come. I want to go wait for him.”
She puts up her hands. “I didn’t suggest that.”
I’m confused. “I…know you didn’t?”
“This isn’t me interfering,” she continues. “It has to be your idea. Not mine.”
“This is absolutely my idea. I made a mistake wanting to come back here. Can you please transfer me back to the other world? To Aos?”
“You’re positive this is what you want? I can’t change it after this. Once I send you there, my role with you is done. You’re no longer my territory.”
“Please send me to the Field of the Forgotten,” I say, and drop to my knees. “I’ll beg if I have to. Just please take me to him.”
“He’s currently in a fugue state, I’m told. It might be a while.”
I’m so relieved I start to cry. “I can wait,” I sob. “I’ll wait forever if that’s what it takes.”
Chapter
Forty-Six
The Field of the Forgotten is…peaceful. Time feels slow and uneventful, and I relax and drift alongside the others waiting. It’s crowded, but in a way that I don’t mind. There’s a comfort in not being here alone. No one talks, but I’m all right with that. I try to focus on my surroundings, to see what they look like, but everything feels gray and formless, and even when I squint, I can’t make out the beginning or end to the field itself. I give up and just wander with the others, existing but not, waiting for Kalos to remember that he has worshippers and for him to shake off his apathy long enough to come and get them.
Is this what being dead is? Calm and drifting? I don’t mind it. My mind is quiet. I miss Kalos, but I’m content to wait for him. I have nothing but time.
A dark figure cuts through the milling crowd, and I lift my head. My heart skips a beat—do I even have a heart?—and for a moment, I think he’s come for me. “Kalos?”
But then the figure steps out of the mist and it’s not Kalos. My disappointment is choking, and I turn away, no longer interested.
The man doesn’t leave my side, though. Eventually I look up at him again and notice green eyes, startlingly similar to my Kalos, and the same soft, pouty mouth. This one has a large nose and an angular face, along with dark hair. All the features that made Kalos so refined and elegant seem oversized or misplaced on this man. There’s no denying a familial resemblance, though. “Are you Rhagos? Kalos’s brother?”
He assesses me in the same cool, remote way Kalos does sometimes and yup, they’re definitely related. “I was sent a message from the Fates asking me to release you from my realm to Kalos. Explain to me why I should care.”
Oh. “Is…is he not coming?”
“Kalos very rarely visits the realm of the dead. I imagine because I am here.” He gives me a thin-lipped smile that lacks warmth in the slightest. “And I’m not inclined to give him anything.”
I perk up. There’s a vague memory in my brain of Lachesis. Of me asking her to send me to Kalos because I’d changed my mind. “Fate asked you to send me to him? That’s great!”
“Is it? Why should I?”
“Because I’m his Anchor. Was his Anchor. He’s going to miss me.” I smile brightly to sell my words, even though I’m not getting any warmth from this Rhagos guy. He looks down his long nose at me as if I’m a worm. “Your brother is lonely, and I want to keep him company.”
“Lonely?” He scoffs. “He’s a god.”
“Gods can be lonely,” I defend. “He has feelings and loves—and hurts—just like anyone else.”
“I’m told that right now my brother is staring at a wall and plans on doing so for the next few millennia,” Rhagos says in a deep, dry voice. “That doesn’t sound lonely. It sounds like he’s sulking. If you know him, then you know he’s impossible.”
“He’s not impossible!” I put on my brightest smile, because he’s clearly wrong and I must make him see my point of view. “Apathy is hard for him to live with. He has good days and bad. We all do. That doesn’t mean anyone should give up on him or treat him poorly because he struggles sometimes. I’m not about to give up on him. If he’s too tired to do anything but stare at a wall, then I’ll stare at it right alongside him.” I lift my chin.