The Rise of Deragon (The Deragon Duology #2)

33

Kit

T he walk to the Temple of the Shrine is quiet, and my only attempt at casual conversation finally comes out when we get to the base of the temple’s steps. “You really don’t have any interest in seeing one of the deities?”

Pandora hadn’t voiced the fact aloud, but the discomfort on her face was evident enough.

“It feels a bit . . . sacrilegious, considering my upbringing. My beliefs.”

Guilt permeates her every word, and I don’t push further. Of course she doesn’t want to step in there. Her heritage runs deep, and maybe it’s not entirely imposed upon her. Maybe it means something to her.

“I’m sorry if the culture here has not been to your liking or offensive—”

“I enjoy the culture here, actually,” Pandora tells me with an excitement that feels faintly forced, but the core of it is real. I know so, because whenever she’s unable to look at me, she can’t tear her eyes away from the world around her. It’s like this part of Mosacia exists in technicolor, while the life she led before was utterly monochromatic. “Marzipan says that Vesta is the crowning jewel of the continent, and each day I wake up here, I realize just how right she was.”

I hate to leave her here while I go inside, but Pandora squeezes my hand reassuringly. “I’ll wait for you here on the steps.”

Nodding in understanding, I pull her hand to my lips and brave the act of placing a kiss atop the soft skin there. But just as my lips brush the spot, Pandora stoops lower and captures my mouth like it’s been hers all along. As if she masked her true ownership over me so that I’d feel in control.

I do not shy away from her touch in response, not when this feels like explicit permission. Instead, I choose to be greedy. I slide my hands along as much of her back as I can roam in one go. The muscles there contract and stretch as she decides what feels best, and the hand that trails towards her waistline casually glides lower. I take my fill of Pandora with my hands, my mouth. I commit the scent of her to memory as if I could bottle it for personal use, and for once, she doesn’t pull away first. She waits for me to feel satiated enough to retreat a step, and it feels like a blissful eternity before I finally garner the willpower to do so.

I should tell her what she means to me—the depth of my growing affections.

But I’m a coward at heart and tell her instead, “I won’t be long.”

+

It’s true. Knowing all the times I’ve frequented the Temple of the Shrine, I expect to be back to Pandora before the hour is up.

What’s not true, however, is that Pandora believes I’m visiting the goddess of love—when Venus is the only deity I’ve outright scorned and sworn to myself never to visit.

I don’t care if it’s cheap or petty, because anything bearing that Deragon monster’s name, even coincidentally, is out of the question. It does not matter how badly I want things with Pandora and I to work out, I will never give Venus an ounce of my honor. I’d rather face death.

And so, I prepare to do just that.

It’s the middle of the week, and people typically wait until the sun is at its peak before visiting the god of the underworld. Sure, they make the journey to visit their beloved dead, but they need that extra reassurance to fully commit to entering Pluto’s sanctuary. I’m a man of little fears and plenty of structure, however. Coming here is almost second nature, and knowing who awaits me on the other side of the door, I have no trouble sinking deeper into the temple’s depths. A group of patrons even offer to let me enter first, fearful of what lies in waiting beyond the chamber’s shadowy exterior.

My last thought before accepting a chalky chewing tablet from one of the temple attendants and tiptoeing into the darkest part of the Mosacian continent is selfish.

What lies can I spin to have Pandora surrender to this attraction once and for all?

+

People would assume that convening with death would take the wind out of one’s sails entirely, but for me, it’s quite the opposite. Death is a constant I can rely on. I don’t fear the end or the fact that, one day, it will come for me too. Instead, I choose to use pieces of my life, provided by this temple, to reacquaint myself with it.

And with my late sister.

She never ages—frozen in the state of being she was when she passed. But each time I visit her, her voice possesses such a mature soul . There’s no other way to describe it, perhaps because that’s all she is in the aftermath of death’s dominion, merely a soul. She isn’t the mortal body or her personal conditions that so many people felt the need to comment on. She’s simply her .

When the tablet I consumed loses its potency and my sister fades into the fatal gloom, I walk out of Pluto’s chamber feeling refreshed. Still, the burst of adrenaline and optimism doesn’t get me higher than the third flight of stairs before my lungs start to blaze in my chest. For the sake of pragmaticism, I use the uphill trek to come up with something to say, something convincing. Something that isn’t outright tacky but affectionate enough to keep Pandora from stewing on it too deeply.

The goddess of beauty showed me every version of you that I’ve become entranced by.

The goddess of sex filled my head with the filthiest realities I want to replicate with you.

The goddess of prosperity showed me a luminous future for us, one wholly separate from the damage of your past.

The goddess of love—

All ability to compose a decent story abandons me the moment I step outside.

Because the steps are empty, and Pandora is nowhere to be found.