Page 15 of Torn

“You’re a stogy houseguest.”

“And this isn’t your house.”

“You need to break Merry’s heart.”

Anger hurls the cup across the crypt, the vessel detonating on impact, jagged bits of glass shattering to the floor like translucent daggers. “What the Fates!”

“And by that, I mean really break it. Make it count,” Malice says. “Get her to love you, get her hopes up, and then rip out her soul, nice and slow.” He stops rocking and muses out the basement window while flicking his fingers, the elongated nails as acute as claws. “It’s terrible, isn’t it? Humans don’t value the moon as much as its counterpart. They can stare right at the moon, but they’d prefer to go blind admiring the sun—something that doesn’t even want to be seen. The sun is just so very sunny. Then again, watching mortals go blind might be fun.”

“Just out of curiosity, are you insane?”

“That’s beside the point.”

“Deities don’t have hearts.”

Malice swings his gaze back to Anger. “Literally or metaphorically? Do tell.”

“I don’t have to tell you anything. Or were you deported before learning the basics?”

“I was a promising archer once, but they discharged me before I had the chance to actually perform as one. For millennia, the Court has kept our people on leashes, insisting on perfection and subservience without failure.”

“At the request of the stars,” Anger defends.

Malice scoffs. “The stars aren’t biased, and they don’t dictate everything. They create flawless figures, but they also create imperfections. So what? Some of us play hooky from one day of training, or we go for a joy trip to the mortal realm without permission, or we dig too deep in the Archives. Is that a crime? According to the Court, it is. Well, fuck them.

“I want my place back. I want my power back, and so do you. And we can have it. As to your point, I think we both know deities have hearts. You’re an example. Every dipshit misfit in this city knows the circulating story of you. We all know your defiance was out of affection for the former Goddess of Love. You spent your life pledged to the Court, and one gaffe sends you packing without a second chance.”

“I wasn’t partying past curfew,” Anger remarks dryly. “I was endangering our very existence by not reporting Love’s attachment to a mortal. His ability to see us, to see beyond the myth, gave him the power to destroy us all.”

“Ah-ah-ah.” Malice shakes his head. “Quit the lame exposition, mate. You summoned the Court before any of that happened—period. You did your job.”

“Not perfectly.”

“Did you hear what you just said?”

Anger pauses. He’s not sure what to make of that challenge, only that it causes his joints to lock, his teeth to clench. True, he’d belatedly carried out his assignment. And then he’d been degraded, cast aside in spite of his history of worthy deeds, of mastering fury in the mortal realm.

One delayed report of Love’s actions. That’s all it had taken.

Look where all of it had gotten him. Look at all he’d lost.

His power. His purpose. His community. His home.

And her.

The demon archer goes on about thwarting the Fates’ authority by reinstating himself, flaws and all, sans their approval. Incidentally, he’s not the only one hankering for a little justice. According to Malice’s spiel, the desire for reprisal has begun to simmer amongst outcasts.

Though he’s less invested in communal redress, more invested in himself.

“You get my drift,” Malice says. “I know you do.”

Anger does. “Where does Merry’s heart fit into your sermon?”

“There are a few legends, as there usually are amongst the stars. What if I told you that I’ve done my homework? That if a deity breaks the heart of another deity, the heartbreaker becomes immune to the Fates. That the heartbreaker retains whichever power of emotion he or she was born with. What if I told you that? Hmm?”

“This is assuming all deities have the capacity to love, which they don’t. It’s unheard of outside that one particular goddess you’ve mentioned.”

“And yourself.” But when Anger refuses to confirm, Malice just beams. “And there might be one more exception.”

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