Treasure (31 page)

Behind him, Taka's expression fractured, and he took half a step before stopping himself, hesitating, and finally falling back again. It hurt to watch them, and Kin could feel any remaining anger bleed away. Kyo was right:  Raiden had endured much, whatever his role in the matter. Kin hoped he was able to repair the rift between him and Taka.

"So what do you intend to do?" Kyo asked. "Perhaps I am mistaken, but one dragon cannot—"

"You're correct," Raiden interrupted. "One dragon, one god, alone cannot control chaos. It requires three to hold chaos, to control the wind and the sea. I cannot bring my brothers back. I can, however, create new ones. That was the other reason the ceremony must be done this way:  it is the only thing sufficiently powerful enough to summon the raw chaos I need to make two new gods. But I also need vessels."

Kin frowned. "Vessels? Like Pozhar?"

"Similar," Raiden replied quietly. "I need two people of suitable strength and spirit to become new gods."

Beside Kin, Kyo drew a sharp breath. "Us, you mean. Of course us. That was your plan all along. I came because I am the sacrifice. Taka was forced to come because you bought his contract from me. And you insisted that we take the
Kumiko
, ensuring Kin's presence—though I admit I wanted it to be the
Kumiko
as much as you."

"Yes," Raiden said quietly. "I needed all of you here because in the one hundred years that I have been searching, this is the first time that everything has aligned. If we do not do this, there may not be another chance." He looked so tired, so close to breaking, that Kin ached looking at him. It was hard to believe Raiden was a lost god when all Kin could see was the near-broken version of the man who had taken in a half-merman boy who nobody else had wanted.

"Is that the only reason you took me in?" he asked.

"No," Raiden said sharply. "I took you in because you deserved a chance, because once upon a time mermaids were not the angry, violent creatures they are now. I took you in because I loved the little boy you were and saw in you a lifelong friend. One who might someday be a brother, even if all of this failed, and we remained as we are."

Kin shook his head, overwhelmed. "I don't want to be a god. I don't know how. I can't even comprehend that."

"Then stop thinking," Kyo said and took his hand. "You were already going to live forever—now you will do it with magic."

Kin looked at him, startled. "You knew I would live a long time," he said softly.

"Of course I knew," Kyo said. "Now shut up and agree to become a god."

"Yes, highness," Kin said with a sigh, still not convinced he wasn't having a strange dream. Turning back to Raiden, he asked, "So what do we do?"

"It's simple, really," Raiden said with a sigh, moving aside to give Taka more room. He started to reach out a hand, but curled his fingers in and let his arm fall back to his side. If Taka noted the aborted gestured, he gave no sign. "Keep the Eye of the Storm ready. We three take position where you see ... "

"The bloodstains," Kyo finished for him, and he moved to one of them. Far above them, the sky had grown black and thunder rumbled, lightning flickering in the depths of the dark clouds. Kin moved to another stain, expression torn between angry and wary.

Raiden moved to the last and said quietly, "Taka, in the middle."

Taka moved slowly into the middle of the triangle they formed, not looking at anyone. Kyo could feel his turmoil, but only faintly. Abandoning his own position, he said, "This won't work. One moment." Grabbing Taka's wrist, he dragged Taka away, up the stairs and down again, well away from the others until they stopped on a small strip of beach that was more rock and shell than sand. Water lapped at their feet, soaking the bottom of their robes.

Kyo took Taka's hands in his own. "Taka, if you do not want to do this—"

"It needs to be done," Taka said flatly, looking out over the water. "You and Raiden are both correct about that. I never thought I would be party to restoring the Lost Gods, and I still—I don't understand any of this, Kyo."

Letting go of his hands, Kyo cupped Taka's face. It was still so strange to be starting at himself, and yet all the things that were Taka were there. The way his mouth twisted when he was unhappy, his habit of staring directly in a way no noble typically did, the way all his emotions were far too available to anyone looking for them. "I'm sorry, Taka," Kyo said. "I kept all of this to myself because I thought it was the right thing to do. Even after Krasny told me I should be honest, and all the reasons I should, I refused to listen. If I had been honest, maybe this all would have happened differently."

"It doesn't change what needs to change," Taka said bitterly.

"What is that?" Kyo asked softly.

Taka said nothing, merely pulled Kyo's hands away and stepped back. "We should go back before we lose the chance to do this."

"There is time enough yet," Kyo murmured. "A sacrifice reluctantly made is no sacrifice at all. Would you be happier switching places?"

"No!" Taka said, sinking his fingers into his hair and raking them back in frustration. He dropped his hands and balled them into fists, looking as if he would very much like to punch someone. "I don't want to be a god. I don't want to be an Eye! I just wanted—" He broke off, turned away, and began to walk back. "I'm not reluctant to help," he said over his shoulder. "I believe in doing the right thing. I just wish the right thing wasn't callously manipulating me."

Kyo went after him, pulled Taka back, and held him tightly about the waist even as Taka tried to squirm free. "I think if it were only a matter of manipulation, he would not look so heartbroken." Taka said nothing. "It's not like you to be so unforgiving," Kyo said quietly.

"I'm not interested in forgiving someone who only—whose only reason for having anything to do with me was to kill me to regain his power. Even at your brattiest you never did that. Even your father has not stooped that low."

Kyo rested his chin on Taka's shoulder. "No, my father never seduced someone with the intention of killing him for power. He merely produced a child with the intention of killing him for power. He treated me coldly my entire life, whipped and beat me, because I was just someone to be thrown away."

Taka stiffened. "Get off me."

"You're being a brat."

"You have no room to talk and do not think for a moment—" Taka drove his elbow back into Kyo's gut, causing him to let go with a grunt of pain. Taka whipped around and finished, "that I am done being angry with you, Kyo. All this time! All these months, just so what—one of us would stumble across your corpse? You're not much better than him!"

Kyo rubbed his stomach, grateful his thick sash had taken most of the blow because Taka had not held back. "So let me ask you this, Taka. What would you have done in his place?"

"What?" Taka asked with a frown.

"What would you have done in his place?" Kyo repeated. "You are a god who made a terrible mistake. You wait centuries for a chance to escape, only for that escape to be possible at the cost of your brothers' lives. You wait another hundred years for a chance finally to set things to rights. What would you do to ensure it worked?"

"Be honest," Taka snapped.

Kyo gave him a look. "So if Raiden had told us back in that warehouse that he was a god—"

"Alright, fine, I concede that point. But he did not have to treat me like I was—" He broke off and glared at the sand, and then said in a barely audible tone, "He did not have to fuck me." Taka looked up. "Let me return your question. What would you do in my place, Kyo?"

"Be extremely angry," Kyo said. "But though you are more practical than me, I am, in the end, more dutiful than you. I came here to do what I knew was right, no matter that I was miserable about it. I did not tell you because you would not have let me. So, I would be angry, but I would accept his reasons and remember that he wants to make me immortal. That after nine hundred years he trusts me to be the Eye of the Storm, an avatar that helps stabilize the gods."

Taka looked as though he had been struck when Kyo's words registered. "I don't want to be any of that," he said quietly. "I just want to be me."

"You are you," Kyo said, beginning to get angry. "You will always be you, just as I will always be me. You haven't changed since becoming royalty. I doubt being the Eye will change you, either. There is a bigger matter—"

"I know!" Taka snarled. "Why do you think I agreed? But I'm not you! I'm not Kin. I'm sure as storms not Raiden! I'm a storming secretary. My only skills are keeping you organized and drafting complex papers. I don't want to be the Eye!"

Thunder cracked and boomed, and Kyo sighed in annoyance and sympathy as rain began to drum down upon them. "You have made your feelings plain, Taka. You have every right to be scared. I'm not exactly calm about the fact that I must be the one to spill your blood, but I came this far afraid of dying yet prepared to do it." And if Taka decided he wanted no part of the ceremony after all, he would still have to kill himself to keep the world stable long enough for another chance to appear. "Have faith, Taka," he said softly. "We are here because Raiden had faith in us and still has faith in us, despite the fact he is quite clearly heartbroken."

"I said I would do it," Taka said. "I'm even doing it willingly, but do not expect me to do it happily. That's asking too much." He turned and walked off, returning to the temple ruins while rain continued pouring down harder than ever.

Kyo reached out with his magic and calmed the storm as much as he could, banishing the thunder and reducing the rain to a mere drizzle. How much more would he be able to do as a god? He was going to be a god. The thought was too surreal. It was terrifying. But he thought he would not know how truly terrifying it was until the deed was done.

First, he had to kill Taka. Kyo drew in a deep breath and let it out slowly. How was he supposed to do it? He supposed he would figure it out soon enough. Reaching into his sash, he extracted the tiny Eye of the Storm he had removed from his pendant. Thinking of that reminded him of all that had transpired in the offering chamber, which brought a pleased flush to his cheeks.

It was not the time to think about such things, however. Drawing another calming breath, Kyo tucked the Eye away again and returned to the temple ruins.

The others had resumed their places, and Kyo saw that Kindan and Raiden both had daggers out. Taka stood in the middle again, facing away from all of them as Kyo resumed his own place. Kin walked over to him, held out another dagger, and pressed it into Kyo's shaking hand, holding him tightly for a moment. Kin leaned in and kissed him briefly and whispered, "Don't worry," before pulling away and returning to his spot. They were all soaked to the skin, clothes plastered to their body, Kin's scales gleaming whenever lightning flashed.

When had he lost control of the storm again? Perhaps it was the ceremony, because already the air felt different. "So what do we do?" Kyo asked.

"Blood must spill," Raiden said, eyes fastened on Taka the entire time he spoke. Blood from each of us. Slitting your arm will suffice. Before, Manchou used a charm that must have been divinely made. He bound us in place and slit our chests open." Taka startled at that and jerked his head around to look at Raiden—but jerked away again when he accidentally caught Raiden's eye.

"Nothing so extreme is required. It merely connects us to the magic and will let me pull the two of you in to join me," Raiden continued. "After our blood spills, you must spill Taka's." Kyo nodded, tightly gripping the dagger in his hand, refusing to succumb to the nausea and fear roiling in his stomach. He was grateful he had not bothered to eat the past couple of meals.

"I will take it from there," Raiden concluded. "I know the incantations; I can handle those. Just, when Taka—when he falls, place the Eye in the wound. The rest is for me to do."

Kyo nodded. "Then let's begin."

He shivered when Raiden began to speak in Ancient, the words far beyond what he and Krasny had been speaking. It made him feel like a child, listening to Raiden, as if he had been playing with his father's things without knowing what he was doing.

Raiden's voice grew deeper and began to resonate with power, the words themselves lost as thunder cracked and boom so loudly the world seemed to shake. Lightning split the sky in bursts of sun-bright light, and when it faded, it all seemed like night though Kyo knew it was the middle of the day.

Silver glinted in another burst of lightning, and Kyo watched as Raiden lifted his wrist and slit it open with the dagger he held, and then tilted it so the blood poured down upon the temple floor. Kyo mimicked him, horrified and morbidly fascinated to watch his blood spill and pool, adding its own stain to the one already permanently marked on the stones. He looked up and caught Raiden's eye, startled to see that Raiden's eyes were glowing with brilliant, ocean-blue light.

He swallowed when Raiden nodded at him, but gripped his dagger tightly and moved forward. The wind was wild, blowing his hair and robes all about, but Kyo strove to ignored it as he reached Taka, moved behind him, and gripped his jaw with blood-slick fingers. He saw Taka's tears in another flash of lightning, and only then realized he was crying himself. His hands shook, and he raised the dagger—but could not bring himself to make the killing slash. Tears stung his eyes, fear and loathing froze his limbs. Of course Taka was angry and scared, and they all told him—

A hand covered his, rough and calloused, making Kyo gasp, but before he could react, the hand gripped his, changed the angle, and drew the blade quick and smooth across Taka's throat. Taka fell, and Kyo sobbed, dropping to his knees, trying to wipe the tears from his eyes and grab Taka at the same time.

"The Eye," a voice boomed, somehow steadying and calming him. Kyo fumbled in his sash, smearing blood everywhere, and pulled out the Eye. Shuddering with disgust and self-loathing, he dropped the Eye into the gaping wound in Taka's throat, tears renewing as he took in the grimace on Taka's frozen lips, the empty look in his eyes.