Page 59 of Torn

The moon drizzles across the rooftop, glazing the surfaces and clinging to light fixtures. The hour submerges him in a lunar wash of stoic and soft colors.

…it’s easier to blame everyone else for holding you back. It’s easier for the God of Anger to be angry at everyone else, than to be angry at himself.

She’s right. She’s so right that her words fling him into the past, into his childhood.

If that’s what deities can call it…

16

Anger

There’s a star that flashes too harshly in the sky. It’s nailed there, a dark stub drumming within an even darker canopy, punching a graphite sheen through the heavens. It thrashes above the Peaks, wrestling against its restraints.

In this immortal realm, the star isn’t pale or serene. It’s a furious black diamond. An angry one.

Once the five members of the Fate Court glance in the star’s direction, the flashing ebbs, restricted to a vexed but disciplined pulsation. It’s a militant star, able to contain itself, if required.

It’s enough to impress the rulers. They’ve gathered in a glass dome surrounding a central stargazer—the human term istelescope—the funnel supported by coiling posts, the dais painted in constellations.

From this vantage point, the Court is pleased.

Beside them, the Guide of Anger nods in confirmation. “That is him.”

Him, the next rage god. The next archer waiting to be birthed. The next one ordained to serve destiny.

When the Guide extends his upturned palm and beseeches the firmament, the metallic black star fizzes out momentarily. A ray spears from the sky, a stellar seedling appearing in the mentor’s cupped hand.

That harsh vessel resumes flashing overhead, albeit less ornery, its womb emptied and the contents transferred into the Guide’s grasp. A birthed deity for its superiors to admire.

To empower. To train.

***

Anger’s limbs are too short and gangly. He hates that.

How long must he be this size? It’s weak to be this size!

Irritated, he thwacks the mirror in his room, shards crackling onto the floor. His Guide observes this meltdown, just as the mentor has observed copious amounts of meltdowns from his charge. He shakes his head warmly, then reminds Anger of this privileged existence.

The immortality. The magic.

The lush hills and coves of the Peaks. The cottage on stilts, propped over a swell of water, where Anger lives.

The power of his bow, forged of iron, which had been his choice. His own choice at such a tender age.

Blessings and duty. That’s what the Guide preaches, which only makes Anger angrier. He’s about to pound his foot, producing a ravine in the floor.

But then, his mentor utters a new proclamation. “I promise, you’ll get taller when you stop doing that.”

Stop throwing fits? That will make him taller?

Anger halts, thinks. And he makes a conscious effort to keep his boots planted on the ground.

When the Fate Court visits him later, they grin and shake his hand. He puffs himself up, because he can be a worthy deity. He can restrain himself, rage god or not.

The Court members bow their heads, and they don’t look at him as if he’s too small, too feeble. They look at him as if he can do anything.

As if he can grow up.

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