Chapter Two (Part 2)

Idris’s eyes widened. “No, I – ”

“I have the guards gathering a team to scour the riverbed,” Nen interrupted, unaware of the tension. “And I have someone compiling a list of all the residents who are strong swimmers or able to breathe underwater. I’ll begin looking into them personally tomorrow.”

Idris nodded faintly but didn’t take his eyes off me, waiting for Nen to go so he could give me whatever bullshit excuse he was making up in that big head of his. But I didn’t want to stick around to hear it, because I might just start throwing punches, and attacking the king of the gods wasn’t something most took lightly.

“Then we’re done here, right? Okay? Good. I’m going home. Try not to need me,” I said, and without waiting for a response, I vanished, teleporting from Abdos to the edge of the venomous forest.

How dare he? I thought as I began the walk through the forest. My anger poured off me in waves, and even the poison-tipped leaves on the trees seemed to shy away from me, responding to my mood. Night was beginning to fall in this part of the realm, and shadows were creeping in across the forest floor, but I had no trouble finding my way. My eyes were accustomed to the darkness, and I could see in it almost as well as I could in the day.

Nothing would dare attack me. All the creatures here, from the sentient shadow beasts to the writhing, blood-drinking vines, knew who the master of the forest was. They were family at this point. My kin. They wished me no harm. And they knew better than to mess with me right now.

I knew where Idris was coming from, of course. A poisoned river was no small matter, and if the poison was acquired from my kingdom, then it made sense to interrogate everyone in that kingdom, including Peace and Wisdom. But they would never do that. They’d never leave the forest in the first place.

I had offered before, on a few occasions, to give them a home outside the forest. I knew that if it came to it, I could ask Idris to give them shelter, and he would, because he considered every being in the realm to be his, including those in the venomous forest. Which was really fucking pompous and possessive of him, but it meant that Peace and Wisdom would have somewhere to go if they decided they wanted to leave me.

But they never took me up on it. They told me they liked living in my palace, liked living in my piece of shit kingdom, and to this day, I had no idea why, but I was grateful for it. If it weren’t for them, I probably would have gone completely off the rails a long time ago.

They were adults now, had been for a long time, but they still didn’t see any need to fly the nest. And they were adventurous, I knew that. I also wasn’t stupid. I knew they left occasionally without telling me, despite what I’d told Idris. They did it all the time as teenagers, but I’d given them all the tools they needed to be safe in the forest. I wasn’t too worried about them getting hurt, and if they did, I would know it immediately and come get them.

But that didn’t mean they would poison a whole river. For one, why would they care? They didn’t know Nen or anyone in his kingdom. They had nothing to gain from doing so. And besides, neither of them could swim well enough to replant Butterfly Root in a river that deep. There was nowhere to swim in this forest as all the water was dangerous to be in for long periods of time. For them anyway. I would be fine, as I’d built up immunity. But if I hadn’t installed a filter system when I first built my palace to get clean, running water, they would be very smelly and very sick. And sure, Peace loved splashing around in the tub, but that didn’t mean he had the lung capacity to poison a river.

Peace and Wisdom didn’t do it. Period. But someone had, and it was kind of pissing me off that they thought they could just waltz into my territory like that. So even though the idea of having Idris’s guards here was making my skin crawl, I would put up with it, because I certainly couldn’t spend all my time at the swamp to watch it myself.

My palace, a great looming building of black stone, was set in a sloping valley behind a set of wrought iron gates. And waiting just outside those gates were my babies.

At once, all six Sublime Ones raced over to greet me, rubbing about my legs with purrs so deep and loud they caused my bones to vibrate.

With the head and body of a panther and the tail and venom of a snake, the Sublime Ones were an accidental creation of mine. I shouldn’t have been playing around with my magic like that, but I didn’t really regret it. Yeah, I had accidentally fused together a panther with a snake, so what? It was hardly the worst thing I’d ever done. And my babies are perfect just as they are. I had been trying to create something to strike fear into the hearts of whoever dared approach my land. Not that the forest itself didn’t already do that, but my Sublime Ones were the stuff of nightmares, and the gods in paradise at the time had whispered about them with the same fear one would have for a demon. So, mission accomplished.

I reached down to scratch the head of Coda, the first of my Sublime Ones and the one who usually took to corralling the others. He arched his head up into my hand, leaning his shoulder against my thigh in greeting.

“Anything to report?” I asked him softly, moving to scratch behind his ears, which seemed to please him if the way his glowing blue eyes fell half-closed was any indication.

I sensed his negative answer, meaning nothing had happened while I was gone. Not that anything ever did. Like I said, I didn’t get visitors, except for Idris when he came by to bug me about miscellaneous shit, and for some reason, Coda and the others never fucking bothered to do anything about Idris. They let him do whatever the hell he wanted, no matter how many times I told them not to let him through. I was starting to suspect he brought them dried meat to bribe them into letting him pass. Clearly, their loyalty to their stomachs was stronger than their loyalty to me.

With the promise to spend more time with them later, I drifted into the palace, letting the hallways guide me to my bedroom.

I had designed the hallways with an illusion spell to confuse intruders. I’m honestly not sure why I thought I would need such a thing, as no one had ever tried to break in. Paranoia was one of my bad traits, I supposed.

The spell made it seem as though the hallways were constantly shifting, and if you weren’t familiar with the spell, you would get lost wandering forever. Since I was the one to create the spell and because I had lived here for eons, it was easy for me to spot the fake walls and misleading turns. They were like a shimmer against reality, just slightly too perfect and pristine to be real.

The halls had no decoration apart from glowing blue wall sconces to light the way. Personal or aesthetic decorations would just make it easier for intruders to tell which hallways were real and which ones were fake, so artwork and the like were strictly reserved for the rooms.

Speaking of rooms, I found my own after only a moment and strode in just to drop face down on my large, canopied bed. The black silk bedding was a cool relief against my skin, which still felt a little warm from being in Abdos’s hot climate.

My room was my haven. The floors were sleek black marble covered in plush, blood-red rugs. The walls were painted by yours truly with red, green, and gold interlocking designs climbing up the walls like vines, and the wall behind the bed was entirely glass, looking over the tops of tightly clustered trees. Poisonous vines climbed up the outside of the window, framing the view with a delicate latticework of dark green stems and white flowers. Next to the canopied bed was a small nightstand currently holding a delicate metal lamp and a stack of books. On the right side of the bedroom was a walk-in closet, inside the closet was a mahogany dresser, and next to it a floor-length mirror that I couldn’t use, but liked to have anyway just to say I did.

I’d spent hours designing this room, and immediately I felt myself calming now that I was alone. Of course, that peace didn’t last, because Peace himself decided to burst into my room.

“You were gone for a long time,” he declared, coming up to sit next to me where I was still sprawled face-down on the bed. I grunted and rolled over to look at him.

Peace had grown into a fine young man. He had eyes the deep brown of fresh soil, skin just a slightly lighter shade, and his hair was dirty blond, falling around his head in sleek waves. He was tall, just slightly shorter than myself, but had never gained much muscle mass, remaining gangly despite how much food he ate.

And because he was the physical incarnation of peace, just being around him was enough to make that last bit of tension drain out of me. He smelled like rain and musk, a pleasant combination, and he was looking at me expectantly, waiting for me to explain my anger.

Peace was like a bloodhound when it came to emotional turmoil, which made sense. He could tell when I was upset because his basic nature was to make peace wherever he went, so when I was feeling less-than-peaceful, he was the first to know and the first to bother me about it.

And unfortunately, where he went, his sister usually followed. Wisdom drifted soundlessly into my room not more than a second later, moving like a shadow to sit on my other side on the bed. With a sigh, I flipped onto my back so I could look at them both.

Wisdom was incredibly tall, taller than me, and probably even taller than Idris. She was over seven feet for sure, with a healthy figure, piercing gray eyes, long curly black hair that she currently wore in a ponytail, and skin the same shade as her brother’s.

“No need to push him, brother,” she murmured in a deep, silky voice. “He has something to ask us.”

As expected, Wisdom knew more than she logically should. She always did. And unfortunately, she was right. Idris was right, and boy did that sting to think.

Because Idris was always right. It’s why he was king of the gods. I could pray that he would choke on a bag of dicks all I wanted, but the asshole still had a point. I had to at least ask Peace and Wisdom if they knew anything about the stolen Butterfly Root, to cover our bases, if nothing else.

Blowing out a frustrated breath, I sat up and pushed my waist-length, silky black hair out of my face. Peace and Wisdom watched me patiently. Gods, they were good kids. I don’t know what I did to deserve them.

Just as I was about to ask them about the Butterfly Root, a bolt of electricity tingled down my spine, alerting me to the visitor making his way to the front gates. I cursed foully.

Could this asshole leave me alone for five goddamn minutes?