The winter air nipped Ava's cheeks and threatened to freeze her eyeballs. Her breath fogged against the bowstring and arrow ready to be released. Her wound throbbed with each stretch of her muscles, but it was a pain she grew to love.
Neon pink ribbons hung from their daggers, surrounding her in a cage. Steadying her breath one last time, she released the arrow. It stabbed straight under the dagger and into the twisted tree branch, adding to the ten arrows she already shot off.
Two more, then three more arrows. Ava ran on automatic. Her boots crunched the snow, making impressions everywhere she turned and struck. The faster she went, the clearer her mind became. It dwelled away from the gods. Away from the Black Rabbit and Reaper. Away from Marc's bouquet of roses and Mika's hurt expression.
She aimed at the sky. The leaves rustled in a slight breeze from outside her cocoon, waving about like they were cheering her on. Steady breath, she let the arrow sore and grabbed for the next one behind her back. Like all the rest, its wooden base fit differently between her fingers, nothing like the arrows she used with her weapon. These were solid.
"You will make your wound worse if you keep straining it."
Startled, the arrow slipped from her fingers.
Darious caught it, the tip inches from his lean neck.
Ava was awestruck. He wasn't affected by it at all—not afraid. She almost killed him. He was too calm and collected, and just as stuck up as usual. Yet, it still sent an odd prickling sensation across her skin from this dark feeling inside her gut, a challenge. One day, she'd fight this man and see how strong he really was.
He twirled the arrow between his fingers before presenting it to her. She took it and prepared for the next attack. "Did you not hear what I said?" Darious asked.
"Oh, I heard you loud and clear." Ava pulled the string back tighter out of spite.
From the corner of her eye, she caught him staring her down. She couldn't remember the last time someone watched her do archery. It added stress to her mind and weight on her shoulders. She pulled the string tighter. The muscle popped around her wound and released the arrow into the forest. It hit a branch nearby but nowhere close to any of her daggers.
Ava grasped her upper arm, clenched her teeth. It ached, burned into an agonizing pain. It felt like it would never stop. Darious grabbed her and unzipped her coat. She pulled away from him. "What are you doing?"
He told her to take her arm out of the sleeve and did it himself when she resisted. Ice nipped her skin, shaking her whole body to the core. It made him move faster. Before she knew it, he drew a koto spell on her arm.
His writing was sloppy like the writing in the koto books back at the Capitol. The Ama character for numb flashed over her elastic band, instantly smoldering pain and left her with his cold touch.
"Why do you have to be so stubborn?" Darious snapped. "Can't you see you're only hurting yourself more by training. And out here in the winter frost!"
Ava pulled her coat back on. "If I can't use my arm like this now, then how do you expect me to use it when I'm wounded in battle? This is the perfect time to train!"
For once, she left him speechless. Darious didn't utter a single word of retort, but didn't leave either. He bundled further into his mink coat, and fluffed into a round cotton ball. So the cold man was allergic to the cold—a weakness to remember.
A strong breeze filtered through the twisted tree trunks and their thriving vines, sending shivers across her body. Ava's coat was open long enough to extinguish any heat she might have retained from the house. I might as well go back inside at this point.
She leaned over and collected daggers that failed to stick off the ground. Her arm didn't hurt anymore. It felt normal, numbing the upper muscle each time she moved. Darious watched her the entire time.
"I wasn't expecting to find you doing archery of all things," he said.
"And I wasn't expecting you to step out in the middle of my training area. I guess we're even." If he was looking for an apology, then he was sorely mistaken.
She took her time searching for any missing daggers. Darious also knew about the gods and reapers. He probably knew more than Marc since their grandparents trusted him to look after the twins. The only problem: they didn't get along. Somehow, she needed to ease her way into the topic, get him to spill.
Darious bent over to pick up a dagger—one Ava purposely missed—and with ease of the fingers, he handed it over. She dropped it into the canvas bag with the others and knotted it closed. He fell right in her trap.
"Why are you shooting towards the sky?" He pointed at the four arrows stabbed in the limbs high above.
"One of my weapons is an archer's bow," Ava said. "So part of my training is to practice shooting down Primordial Warships."
That only intrigued him further. Darious stepped closer. A smile played on his lips, reminiscent of pink petals from a peach tree. "An archer's bow? How many weapons can you produce?"
"Seven." She smirked. "I'm surprised you didn't know, as someone whose keeper of the god weapons."
He pursed his mouth into a thin line. Unlike Marc's, this one reeked of annoyance. "So Marc's been telling you stories again." He leaned in, whispering low, "You must feel proud to have our Crown Prince wrapped around your finger."
Ava's grip tightened on the bag. It took everything in her to not throw the daggers at him. "Why are you here? To start another fight?"
Darious stuffed his hands inside his pockets and burrowed deeper into the coat. "I came to apologize," he said into the collar. "It was wrong of me to slander your mother's name when she's been nothing but welcoming."
"You should apologize to her."
"I already have." He looked away. "Your mother can be frightening when she wants to be. Now I understand your infatuation with knives."
Even in her weakened state, Caterina was ferocious. She loved to give a shallow cut to the neck. It was one of her M.O.'s when someone threatened her children. And yet, he still came out here knowing Ava took after her mom. This intrigued her more.
"Who are you? I know nothing about you except that you're the twins' retainer. So you must be important to their grandfather."
He stood slightly taller, confidence dripped off his every word. "I'm one of three ambassadors for their grandparents. Since I'm the closest to the twins, they entrusted their safety to me while we're on Earth."
But then he paused, and for a moment, he let his defenses down and wore an expression that not even Ava could decipher. Sorrow? Worry? Happiness?
"Thank you for helping Mika," he said before standing taller and distant again.
That subject was still sore for Ava, if not physically. She searched for a way to talk about the gods and ended up being rude, instead. "So you're just like Zephyrus then?"
Darious shook his head and let a short ha. "I was trying to tell you there are always two sides to every war. But no, I'm not an advisor, nor am I pompous or arrogant. My duty is to counsel their grandparents on establishing connections with specific planets, and then I maintain them."
Then he must have approached Gregori about striking an alliance. That was thirty years ago, but thirty years was nothing for an Ama. If Darious had been staying on Amaranthine, then time wouldn't be a problem for him. "Were you involved with my creation?"
"I wish I were. I would love to know how they were able to create a god when usually they are chosen out of random." He waved his glove around the air. "Although, I guess it's not so random afterall."
"What do you mean?"
"Sometimes the next host has similar characteristics from the previous host. Sometimes they only have a similar living environment, or their skill set is on par with the previous host. It's hard to know specifically what the weapon's searching for."
He sure knew a lot about the gods for a diplomatic ambassador. Ava hitched the bow and quiver up her shoulder. "But doesn't that mean they have to re-learn how to use their weapon all over again?"
"Except the gods recover their past life memories through their weapon," he said. "Think of your gods' weapon like a computer. It automatically saves their memories, their skill sets, all their aspirations and emotions. Then uploads them to the new host when they're triggered by an event."
"So it's like they're being reincarnated? But that would mean..."
They were real immortal beings. They got to come back to life, while humans only basked in the idea of staying alive and ageless forever. Humans didn't get a second chance at life like they did. No wonder they called themselves gods.
"But everyone has a weakness. Just because they were born a god doesn't mean they're exempt. Everyone is flawed in some way," she said.
Zephyrus wouldn't stand a chance against the UFE, then Primordial would have no choice but to either find a new advisor or admit defeat. This war could be over in an instant.
Darious wagged his finger and shook his head like he finally caught on to her ploy. He leaned in, closer, and stared her down. His breath wafted in the air with cloudy fogs, colliding with the tension collecting between them.
"You only need to understand one thing, Avalyn. If you ever come across a god, run the other way. There is no winning against a god as they come back stronger each time."
He was trying to scare her, instead it just incited a thrill to challenge him more. "Then shouldn't you be afraid of me since I'm supposedly a god."
He merely smiled.
It ticked her off. Whatever she said or did never intimidated him. He was always confident and straight-laced and acted like he knew better. And that golden mask—why was he wearing that stupid thing all the time?
What was he hiding? Did he have a hideous scar or was he self-conscious about his looks? And why didn't he have a weapon of his own? He was always using what was available or given to him. His action made no sense. He was too flirtatious for an Ama, too outspoken, and didn't fit the profile for one.
Then it just clicked like the pieces of a puzzle finally fit together. If Primordial used a god as an advisor, wouldn't Amaranthine do the same? It would explain why Marc couldn't beat him, why this guy was so intimidating, and why he didn't fear death.
Because Darious was a god.
Her phone vibrated in her pocket before the ringtone went off. And oh my god, she wished it didn't. A chicken sound echoed through the trees like the backdrop to a funny spy movie and got louder when Ava finally yanked it out of her pants pocket.
Darious raised an eyebrow. Her face burned with embarrassment. Dammit, Harry. This better be important.
"What do you want?" Ava snapped. "I'm kinda in the middle of something."
"You alone? Get alone—you'll wanna hear this," Harry quickly said.
She stood frozen in the snow. Turning her back on Darious was the worst thing she could do, considering what she just discovered. And she had a lot of questions. Lots of very personal questions, ones that he most likely wouldn't answer willingly.
The bow and arrows shifted on her good shoulder. If he were going to hurt Ava, he never would've numbed her wound. He would've attacked her instead. She gave him plenty of openings. Her instincts decided it was okay to trust him—for now at least.
Ava turned away from Darious and went back to the house, her boots crunching through the layers of snow. This was more important right now. With everything going on, she completely forgot she asked Harry for his help, and he wouldn't be calling if he didn't find anything.
When she was out of hearing distance, she told Harry to go ahead. His fingers frantically tapped on the other end, never breaking a beat as he spoke. "I broke through the firewall and you're not going to believe this. The Council set the passcode to change every hour on the hour for that laboratory. I've never seen them be so thorough on anything. I mean who does that unless they're hiding shit."
"So what about the numbers?" she asked, keeping her voice low out of caution.
"That's the crazy part. They aren't just numbers, it's an ID," Harry said. "I couldn't find it anywhere on the records—old and new—until it picked up on an image from an excavation site we scrapped materials from. It was an old ID badge for BioGENEtics."
"And you're about to tell me this facility was destroyed in the war."
"That's what you'd think, but get this. BioGENEtics was the leading pharmaceutical company in curing all diseases. Which they accomplished just before the last world war broke out. Coincidence? I think not. Because who do you think owned BioGENEtics? The Commander's father."
Ava stopped dead in the snow. Her heart sped, fearing the worst possible ending. She wanted him to help her, not dig up secrets on Gregori. Shit. Taking a deep breath, she brought the mic close to her mouth. "Harry, you need to think carefully about what you're going to say next because there are some secrets not worth dying for."
There was an audible gulp on the other line and a chair squeaking. Ava imagined Harry leaning back so far it might fall over.
She always looked up to Gregori, saw him as a father figure, but she knew to never cross him. At the snap of a finger, he could be cold and cruel. He wouldn't hesitate to hand her the sword to end Harry's life.
Harry cleared his throat as a drawer opened and closed. An object and then the snap of a lighter until Ava heard a deep inhale. And a deep exhale.
"So after he established The UFE, they renamed BioGENEtics the AVA Project. But since every facility comes with backup files in case of a total blackout that means you need to get inside that laboratory before the Earth swallows it up."
Marc walked out of the house, wearing his dark coat and a phone to his ear. He frantically searched around until he found Ava. As he approached, his gaze narrowed on the guy standing next to her.
"When Josh said you went outside, I thought he was lying. You've always hated the cold," he said, pulling his collar closer. "What were you doing out here?"
"Becoming better acquainted with Ava without her entourage." Darious held the canvas bag between them, the one full of daggers. "You dropped this."
How long was he listening? How much did he hear? There were footprints from his shoes, but she didn't hear him approach at all. Swiftly, she took the bag from him and ended the call before any more could be said.
"Is your arm already healed?" Marc asked.
"What?" she asked, then noticed the weight on her bad arm from holding the bag with ease. "Oh, I think the cold helped heal it faster. It doesn't hurt anymore."
Marc narrowed his eyes slightly between Ava and Darious. If he knew Darious forcefully pulled out my arm just to numb it, what would he do? Would he even care?
"What brought you here?" Darious asked, walking towards the front door. "It must be important for you to rush out in the snow."
Marc cleared his throat and put his phone away. "Right. The twins. They're awake."
"Again?" Darious stopped, expressing his rage with his hands. "Leo swore they would stay asleep this time. Is every healer on this planet that incompetent at their job?"
Ava wanted to give him a few rude words, but she held her tongue. Darious ran a hand down his face. He looked stressed out. He was worried about the twins' safety just like Ava, while Marc didn't look worried at all.
"No, they're done transitioning."