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

•capítulo dos // chapter two•

The air in the stairwell is as stale as ever. Val's solitude is deafening. The torches that he passes, burning and crackling in his periphery, seem to pierce the very fabric of the world.

Out of habit, Val pushes his dark hair out of his eyes. His gloves smell of rusted iron and blood, metallic as the barrel of the pistol that's strapped to his hip. There's cause for it, of course. The Head Sentinel that preceded him used to tell him that he couldn't change the world without getting his hands dirty- and how right he was. Val stares down at his gloves, at the blood that stains them, and he pulls them off of his hands, finger by finger, before stuffing them in his pocket. The gloves are gone, but the stains remain, however invisible they are on his white hands.

He goes back in his memory to the man hanging from the chain: Juan Cortez. At first glance, he didn't look like anything special. Dark hair, dark eyes, olive skin. Probably from one of the southern cities like Navarra or Rujia, having come to the capital for trade and wealth. He'd had no status, either; not a Don by nobility or rank. A nothing. A no one. That queen he'd spoken of could've chosen anyone, so why had she chosen a simple merchant to carry out her plans?

Val suddenly wishes for his old maestro, even if they had never gotten along. The man that had taught him how to See, one from a faraway island in Vesennan territory, would know what to do, surely, and where to look. But it's been years since maestro Haruto left the country, and Valentine, to their own devices.

Val reaches the bottom of the steps. There's one damp corridor that leads to a single cell. The weave has worn thin here, stagnating with the lack of hardly any human contact. The strings, suspended and tangled together, are dull. There's no lustre here. No life. He'd be remiss to hope that the monster at the end of this corridor is as dead and dull as the weave here, to turn and walk in the opposite direction. But he can't do that. He doesn't have the luxury. There is no one and nothing, after all, that can help him now. No one, except for the thing in the cell a short walk away.

A rat squeaks by his feet, scurrying across the floor, and finally Val takes a step forward.

The weave starts to change before his very eyes, shifting and turning and darkening. He pauses like he's hit a physical wall. It shouldn't be this hard. It shouldn't be, but it is. He keeps going anyway, determined to see this through.

A chain clunks ahead of him. He grips the kerosene lantern in his left hand so tightly that he thinks he might just bend the thin metal handle.

"Valentine," comes a deep, rasping voice. "They told me you'd be coming."

The cell is only a few steps away, now. He can already see a bit of the creature that awaits within. Val crosses that short distance and sets his lantern down by his feet. It illuminates the cell, the bars, the thing inside. Soulless black eyes meet his own, eyes that seem to absorb the darkness around them. They're shrouded beneath black, upturned eyebrows, a mess of raven hair, and grime that's years old.

Still, there is no mistaking those eyes. Those are Valentine's eyes.

"As they always seem to," Val murmurs, "father."

Arturo de Casillis stares up at him. "Even in spite of what you say every time you leave me, you still return." In a poor, drawling imitation of Val's voice, he says, "I will never come back." His lips twitch into the barest hint of a smile. "And yet here you are. I'm flattered that you continue to return to me."

"Because I need you."

"I know. That's why you keep me alive."

They keep watch over each other for a moment. Val's father hasn't changed much in the months since they've last spoken. He's still pale. Still grungy. Still ageless, somehow. Nearly ten years in this cell have not changed him, while time has turned Val from a child with no mother to a boy with power.