The Young Gods (The Young Gods #1) [NEW DRAFT]

•capítulo cuatro // chapter four•

In the darkness that follows, Eden sees a lot of things he wishes he could forget.

His father, beating him senseless. His mother, standing by and watching. His two sisters, Beverly and Harper, huddled in a corner, brown eyes wide and mournful. What had he done to make his dad so mad, anyway? Why is it this that he can't seem to recall?

His mum's next. She's screaming for help, but this time it's Eden that watches, shivering. His dad's shouting something unintelligible, fists coming down again and again. His foot lashes out sometimes, catching Eden's mum in the chest, the stomach, and then the head. His mum throws up her hands, shrieking, right before that foot catches her in the mouth, blood and spittle flying into Eden's face.

His hand trembles as he reaches for the knife on their small dining table. Its handle clatters, and he fears that his family will hear it- but over the screams and the cries, no one does. He takes the knife into his grip, chest heaving, palms sweating, creeping up at his father's back.

Everything afterwards comes in flashes. The knife plunges into flesh. Blood stains his hands. His sisters scream. His father lets out a gurgle. Fire blazes high, and then higher, bright in the cold of a Wilshorian winter. Eden walks away, unscathed, his tears freezing on his bloody face.

And then he awakens to an afternoon sky.

"What in the gods happened to you, Eden Tudor?"

What he'd thought to be a vivid afternoon sky is not a sky at all. Instead, that sky is his best friend's eyes, brilliantly cobalt, surging and glowing with power. Val's dark hair is a haphazard mess. His uniform is unbuttoned, epaulets all askew, one dark eyebrow twitching.

"Val." Eden tries sitting up. He flops back down again instead. The surface beneath his back is soft. A bed?

"You're in the infirmary." Val's voice is low and deep, like they're having a private conversation and he doesn't want anyone to overhear. "Your patrol squad is awake. I've been trying to figure out why you were all lying prostrate in the street this morning-"

Someone groans. Eden's aching gaze meets the source of it. It's Buenaventura, nursing a nosebleed, stuffing a cloth up his nostrils.

Val clears his throat, expressionless. "-but no one seems to remember a thing," he finishes. "It's all very... troubling." He looks away for a moment, before his attention finds Eden again. This time, the set of his jaw is almost grave. "Whenever I look at you- at any of you- you're all frayed."

"Frayed?" asks Eden, rasping out the word.

"The strings of your energy," Val explains. "It's normal for people with the Sight, like me. We have to distance ourselves from the weave to see it better." Val frowns, then, eyes downcast. "It's a damaging process, and a near impossible one. None of you should be frayed. It would've taken such skill, Eden. What do you remember?"

Eden breathes in deep, trying to ease his way past his memories. He was... leading a patrol. Yes, that's it. A Tondan boy broke into the Hospicio de Reina Letizia, taking with him a number of vials full of antibiotics. Eden ordered a pursuit, naturally, and he and his squad chased the boy through streets and alleys, close on his heels for some time, before cornering him on a wide avenue near the harbour. Buenaventura tackled him. There was a confrontation, and then-

An explosion of pain rockets through his head. A series of still frames superimpose themselves over his eyes: a girl cloaked in black, hair the colour of dry blood, delicate hands holding tight to nothing but air, and a man emerging from a shadow that Eden knows all too well.

The next thing he knows, Val's handing him a handkerchief. Eden takes it, puzzled, just as blood leaks into his slightly gaping mouth.

"I've been pressing Buenaventura for hours. I didn't want to press you too, Eden, but I don't have any other options. There were no witnesses."