Gods and Shadow Creatures - The Library Door
More Gods and Shadow Creatures. This takes place right after this one. I hope you enjoy it! Trigger warning for allusions to [click to reveal]rape.
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Nico felt all the eyes at the table burn into him when he returned to the dining room. The suspicion made him shiver. While he tried to behave as normally as possible, he knew everyone could see him shake. Quickly, he sat down in his seat. He grabbed the dark gray glazed coffee mug and stared into his drink.
He kept his gaze as far away from Clara as possible, not wanting to see any trace of recognition in her eyes. Maris had convinced her he was human, or so she claimed -- Nico didn’t trust her assurances.
The others kept talking, but Nico didn’t hear any of it. Words washed over him in a stream of meaningless noise. Maintaining the barest appearance of normalcy took up all his concentration so that trying to join or even hear the discussion proved impossible.
“Are you sure you’re alright?” Breccan’s voice cut into his thoughts, and he almost dropped his mug. Coffee splashed and spilled onto the table, causing Clara to narrow her eyes.
“Do try not to make a mess,” Egan muttered before taking a bite of cake. He smirked at Nico, as if the situation amused him. It probably did, since he didn’t know about Nico’s past with Clara.
After Nico put down his mug, he stared at the table and grabbed his napkin, using it to wipe down the spill. He watched as the liquid stained the pale fabric of the cloth. It was decorated with an embroidered orange flower much like the some of the ones that grew outside the house. If Nico could concentrate on his surroundings, perhaps he could survive the people around him.
“I think we’ve had enough dessert, and we’re not exactly getting far just sitting here,” Clara said, pushing her chair back and getting up from the table. She looked over to Isabel. “Can you clean everything up while I take our visitors to the library?”
Out of the corner of his eye, Nico saw Isabel nod her head and get up from the table as well. Besides Clara herself, she was the one he avoided most -- the shadows that crawled about her skin felt wrong to him.
“But I haven’t finished my cake,” Egan whined, actually pouting.
Maris shook her head. “What’s more important? Your appetite or the shadow threat?” she said.
Egan took several long moments before he spoke, that pout still on his face. “I suppose our mission is more important, but is it really wise to fight shadow monsters on an empty stomach?” he said.
“Your stomach is hardly empty,” Maris muttered, a hint of derisive laughter in her voice. “And besides, we’re not fighting anything right now, we’re going to a library. Last time I checked, reading doesn’t require that much physical exertion.”
“Do you even read?” Egan said, arching an eyebrow.
Maris ignored him, or tried to. Nico saw her give him annoyed glances, which he didn’t seem to notice. Instead, Egan looked at Breccan with a predatory glint in his eye. While the other god couldn’t touch the man, it still made Nico uneasy.
“Enough vapid banter. Let’s get moving,” Clara said, her lips in a thin line.
Breccan was the first to get up -- Nico watched as he pushed his chair back, his eyes focused firmly on the ground. When he finally raised them, he locked eyes with Nico, for a moment. Something passed in the air between them, a tiny frisson that existed only in Nico’s mind, except that he saw Breccan’s cheeks flush, just slightly.
Shaking his head, Nico got up from his own chair, followed by Isabel. Egan was the last to rise, and he took his time, as if the whole thing was a bother. For a god who had cared enough to visit a mage academy to warn them about the threat, Egan seemed quite reluctant to do any actual work.
“This way,” Clara said, gesturing for everyone to follow her.
Everyone did -- they exited the dining room and traveled down a strange, narrow hallway. Nico could have sworn it wasn’t even there before -- the small party had just exited the dining room with its open door frame into this strange hallway. If Nico weren’t used the odd manner of the divine realm, it would have disoriented him. Was the strange hallway some kind of magic? How it could be, though, when Nico himself had taken Clara’s magic years ago? To him, it was not that much time at all since that had happened, the guilt still a fresh pain in his chest, a fresh knot in his stomach.
The hallway was wooden-paneled like everything else in the house, but the wood looked older, rougher. Dark metal stands in the walls held yellowish candles burning with incongruous blue flames and giving off a peculiar, oddly shadowy smell. To Nico’s surprise, the hallway ended in a wall of pure black. He stopped short -- that dark wall had been crafted from shadow-stuff. The darkness of it moved in a subtly roiling rectangular cloud. Beneath Nico’s feet, the floor vibrated with a strange power that somehow had the same tenor as Isabel’s voice. He could even swear that the door even smelled of shadow power, like the candles did, but stronger.
“It’s made of shadows, yes, but don’t worry -- the door won’t do you any harm. None of you are any threat to me,” Clara said, her voice steely. She focused for a painful moment on Nico, and he doubted Maris’ claim that she had convinced the other woman he was human and not a god in disguise.
Nico stepped back a few paces, not wanting to be near the door, even though he would have to pass through it within moments.
“I’ll active the door to the library now, and we shall all pass through it. If you try to pass without proper activation, it will attack. The second someone tries to activate the door who is not worthy, it will also attack. If a worthy person opens it and her companion is not worthy, it will still attack. A nice guarding system, yes?” Clara said. She smiled with a little too much relish for Nico’s comfort.
The woman muttered a spell in a low voice. Nico couldn’t understand the words and they held no intrinsic power, but the door responded. Inside the dark rectangle, the shadow clouds swirled faster and faster, an ominous whirling. They gathered into two distinct bunches with a thin line of bluish light between them bisecting the door from top to bottom. Nico squinted against the brightness, as did Breccan, though Maris appeared unaffected. Egan actually rolled his eyes, but Nico could see the fear in them as he had before when the other god had first met Isabel.
Clara stopped muttering, and that line of light expanded, compressing the shadow clouds. Soon, the shadow stuff disappeared, leaving only the painful brightness. Without saying anything, Clara stepped forward and into the light. Maris stepped through after her, followed by Egan -- Nico had to admit he was a little surprised the door let him through. Breccan bit his lip and seemed reluctant to go forward.
“Don’t worry, the door will think you’re worthy,” Nico said, trying to smile at the redheaded man.
Nodding once, Breccan stepped forward and disappeared like all the others. Of course the door had accepted him -- Nico knew it would take someone as good and pure of heart as he was.
Taking a deep breath, Nico forced himself to take a step. He needed another deep breath to force the second step, and yet another breath to force the third step. After that, it became easier to walk towards the intimidating bluish brightness. Nico stepped so that he was a mere inch from the door.
When he took the next step, a sudden wave of darkness blew him backwards, sending him tumbling head over heels in midair.
The world spun around him, and, for a moment, Nico didn’t know where he was. To save himself, he activated his divine powers, landing on his feet The whitish glow emanating from his person clashed with the blue hue of the door, now restored -- the wave of darkness had, apparently, vanished into the air.
His heart thundered in his chest -- if Clara saw him as he was right now, it was all over. She would figure out Maris’ betrayal in keeping his and Egan’s true nature from her.
“You,” a voice of steel hissed, harsher than anything a shadow woman could produce. It reverberated to the core of Nico’s very being. Every inch of him froze -- his blood no longer flowed through his veins.
That was Clara’s voice.
She raced through the the door, followed by everyone else. Once they were all in the hallway, the shadow stuff started returning from either side of the door, shrinking the rectangle of blue light into a thinning line and then into nothing.
Clara turned her glare on Maris. “Did you know what he was?” she said.
Maris returned the glare with a steady gaze of her own -- despite the revelation, she appeared at ease. She put a hand on her hip. “I knew what he was, yes. You wouldn’t be glaring at me like that if you thought I didn’t know,” she said.
“Do you know what he did?” Clara hissed, her body bristling.
Egan arched an eyebrow. “Just what did you do?” he asked. Nico noticed he still appeared human.
“Nico didn’t do anything,” Breccan said, shaking his head and looking right at Nico with wide eyes.
He turned his face away from the redheaded man, so he couldn’t see the guilt in his eyes.
Clara barked in laughter, a harsh, grating sound that made Nico wince. “You’re besotted, aren’t you? Nicolai isn’t as sweet as you think he is,” she said.
“Nicolai?” Breccan asked.
“The one you know as Nico used to go by a different name years ago. Not a very convincing alias, if you ask me,” Clara muttered. “I figured out who he was almost the moment I saw him, just from how he moved. I didn’t even need the name.”
Nico’s stomach sank amidst his confusion -- if she had known, why had she let him sit at her table and let Maris believe she thought he was human? Though he had stopped glowing, he didn’t bother to take human form again -- his secret was blown, so there wasn’t any point.
Maris frowned. “Why didn’t you say anything?” she asked.
“I wanted to see if you would try to hide what he was from me. I wanted to know if I could trust you,” Clara said, betrayal flickering in her eyes. “Evidently, I can’t, but I hope you at least didn’t know what he did to me.”
“I only learned of that when he left the table,” Maris sighed, looking Clara right in the eye.
Nico leaned against the wall of the hallway, under one of the blue-flamed candles, shaking and in need of support.
Egan walked over to where Nico stood and leaned against the wall himself. “You need to pick your partners better,” he whispered in his ear, low enough none of the others should be able to hear.
“What did he do to you?” Breccan said. He looked between Clara and Nico, his eyes shining with a sick mixture of curiosity and dread.
“What gods always like to do to mortals,” Clara muttered, her lips in a thin line.
Breccan’s face paled, and he seemed to look at nothing at all. “No,” he whispered, almost to himself. “He wouldn’t.”
Looking at him, intolerable pain shot through Nico’s chest and threatened to tear him apart. He bit his lip to keep from crying out -- the horror on Breccan’s face was too much to bear.
“I don’t want to work with you, Maris,” Clara said, “but you’re one of the few taking this shadow threat seriously.” After a long pause, she continued, “I will work with you and the rest of your party, even if the rest of them might be gods in disguise. I will not, however, work with him.”
Maris nodded. “I understand.” She turned to Nico. “I’m not sure you can stay with us any longer. I’ll let you keep your room in my house, for now. But you might have to move out.”
Nico’s throat tried to close up on him. He nodded once at Maris. “I -- understand as well,” he managed.
In truth, being allowed to stay at Maris’ house was more than he had expected. He didn’t think he deserved even that much, not after what he had done not that long ago. His stomach twisted, and he had trouble staying upright.
“I’m sorry,” he murmured to nobody in particular, though it would do little good.
Clara stared at Nico. “I suggest you walk down this hallway and get as far away from my house as possible while the rest of us head back into the library. If you go straight, you’ll get back to the regular part of the house soon enough,” she said. “I assume you can find your way out?”
“Alright,” he murmured.
Without another word, he turned around and headed down the strange hallway. He couldn’t look anyone in the eye, and walking proved difficult on unsteady feet. Nico’s guilt wrapped around every inch of him, a physical force.
It wanted to destroy him, and he wanted to let it.
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Nico felt all the eyes at the table burn into him when he returned to the dining room. The suspicion made him shiver. While he tried to behave as normally as possible, he knew everyone could see him shake. Quickly, he sat down in his seat. He grabbed the dark gray glazed coffee mug and stared into his drink.
He kept his gaze as far away from Clara as possible, not wanting to see any trace of recognition in her eyes. Maris had convinced her he was human, or so she claimed -- Nico didn’t trust her assurances.
The others kept talking, but Nico didn’t hear any of it. Words washed over him in a stream of meaningless noise. Maintaining the barest appearance of normalcy took up all his concentration so that trying to join or even hear the discussion proved impossible.
“Are you sure you’re alright?” Breccan’s voice cut into his thoughts, and he almost dropped his mug. Coffee splashed and spilled onto the table, causing Clara to narrow her eyes.
“Do try not to make a mess,” Egan muttered before taking a bite of cake. He smirked at Nico, as if the situation amused him. It probably did, since he didn’t know about Nico’s past with Clara.
After Nico put down his mug, he stared at the table and grabbed his napkin, using it to wipe down the spill. He watched as the liquid stained the pale fabric of the cloth. It was decorated with an embroidered orange flower much like the some of the ones that grew outside the house. If Nico could concentrate on his surroundings, perhaps he could survive the people around him.
“I think we’ve had enough dessert, and we’re not exactly getting far just sitting here,” Clara said, pushing her chair back and getting up from the table. She looked over to Isabel. “Can you clean everything up while I take our visitors to the library?”
Out of the corner of his eye, Nico saw Isabel nod her head and get up from the table as well. Besides Clara herself, she was the one he avoided most -- the shadows that crawled about her skin felt wrong to him.
“But I haven’t finished my cake,” Egan whined, actually pouting.
Maris shook her head. “What’s more important? Your appetite or the shadow threat?” she said.
Egan took several long moments before he spoke, that pout still on his face. “I suppose our mission is more important, but is it really wise to fight shadow monsters on an empty stomach?” he said.
“Your stomach is hardly empty,” Maris muttered, a hint of derisive laughter in her voice. “And besides, we’re not fighting anything right now, we’re going to a library. Last time I checked, reading doesn’t require that much physical exertion.”
“Do you even read?” Egan said, arching an eyebrow.
Maris ignored him, or tried to. Nico saw her give him annoyed glances, which he didn’t seem to notice. Instead, Egan looked at Breccan with a predatory glint in his eye. While the other god couldn’t touch the man, it still made Nico uneasy.
“Enough vapid banter. Let’s get moving,” Clara said, her lips in a thin line.
Breccan was the first to get up -- Nico watched as he pushed his chair back, his eyes focused firmly on the ground. When he finally raised them, he locked eyes with Nico, for a moment. Something passed in the air between them, a tiny frisson that existed only in Nico’s mind, except that he saw Breccan’s cheeks flush, just slightly.
Shaking his head, Nico got up from his own chair, followed by Isabel. Egan was the last to rise, and he took his time, as if the whole thing was a bother. For a god who had cared enough to visit a mage academy to warn them about the threat, Egan seemed quite reluctant to do any actual work.
“This way,” Clara said, gesturing for everyone to follow her.
Everyone did -- they exited the dining room and traveled down a strange, narrow hallway. Nico could have sworn it wasn’t even there before -- the small party had just exited the dining room with its open door frame into this strange hallway. If Nico weren’t used the odd manner of the divine realm, it would have disoriented him. Was the strange hallway some kind of magic? How it could be, though, when Nico himself had taken Clara’s magic years ago? To him, it was not that much time at all since that had happened, the guilt still a fresh pain in his chest, a fresh knot in his stomach.
The hallway was wooden-paneled like everything else in the house, but the wood looked older, rougher. Dark metal stands in the walls held yellowish candles burning with incongruous blue flames and giving off a peculiar, oddly shadowy smell. To Nico’s surprise, the hallway ended in a wall of pure black. He stopped short -- that dark wall had been crafted from shadow-stuff. The darkness of it moved in a subtly roiling rectangular cloud. Beneath Nico’s feet, the floor vibrated with a strange power that somehow had the same tenor as Isabel’s voice. He could even swear that the door even smelled of shadow power, like the candles did, but stronger.
“It’s made of shadows, yes, but don’t worry -- the door won’t do you any harm. None of you are any threat to me,” Clara said, her voice steely. She focused for a painful moment on Nico, and he doubted Maris’ claim that she had convinced the other woman he was human and not a god in disguise.
Nico stepped back a few paces, not wanting to be near the door, even though he would have to pass through it within moments.
“I’ll active the door to the library now, and we shall all pass through it. If you try to pass without proper activation, it will attack. The second someone tries to activate the door who is not worthy, it will also attack. If a worthy person opens it and her companion is not worthy, it will still attack. A nice guarding system, yes?” Clara said. She smiled with a little too much relish for Nico’s comfort.
The woman muttered a spell in a low voice. Nico couldn’t understand the words and they held no intrinsic power, but the door responded. Inside the dark rectangle, the shadow clouds swirled faster and faster, an ominous whirling. They gathered into two distinct bunches with a thin line of bluish light between them bisecting the door from top to bottom. Nico squinted against the brightness, as did Breccan, though Maris appeared unaffected. Egan actually rolled his eyes, but Nico could see the fear in them as he had before when the other god had first met Isabel.
Clara stopped muttering, and that line of light expanded, compressing the shadow clouds. Soon, the shadow stuff disappeared, leaving only the painful brightness. Without saying anything, Clara stepped forward and into the light. Maris stepped through after her, followed by Egan -- Nico had to admit he was a little surprised the door let him through. Breccan bit his lip and seemed reluctant to go forward.
“Don’t worry, the door will think you’re worthy,” Nico said, trying to smile at the redheaded man.
Nodding once, Breccan stepped forward and disappeared like all the others. Of course the door had accepted him -- Nico knew it would take someone as good and pure of heart as he was.
Taking a deep breath, Nico forced himself to take a step. He needed another deep breath to force the second step, and yet another breath to force the third step. After that, it became easier to walk towards the intimidating bluish brightness. Nico stepped so that he was a mere inch from the door.
When he took the next step, a sudden wave of darkness blew him backwards, sending him tumbling head over heels in midair.
The world spun around him, and, for a moment, Nico didn’t know where he was. To save himself, he activated his divine powers, landing on his feet The whitish glow emanating from his person clashed with the blue hue of the door, now restored -- the wave of darkness had, apparently, vanished into the air.
His heart thundered in his chest -- if Clara saw him as he was right now, it was all over. She would figure out Maris’ betrayal in keeping his and Egan’s true nature from her.
“You,” a voice of steel hissed, harsher than anything a shadow woman could produce. It reverberated to the core of Nico’s very being. Every inch of him froze -- his blood no longer flowed through his veins.
That was Clara’s voice.
She raced through the the door, followed by everyone else. Once they were all in the hallway, the shadow stuff started returning from either side of the door, shrinking the rectangle of blue light into a thinning line and then into nothing.
Clara turned her glare on Maris. “Did you know what he was?” she said.
Maris returned the glare with a steady gaze of her own -- despite the revelation, she appeared at ease. She put a hand on her hip. “I knew what he was, yes. You wouldn’t be glaring at me like that if you thought I didn’t know,” she said.
“Do you know what he did?” Clara hissed, her body bristling.
Egan arched an eyebrow. “Just what did you do?” he asked. Nico noticed he still appeared human.
“Nico didn’t do anything,” Breccan said, shaking his head and looking right at Nico with wide eyes.
He turned his face away from the redheaded man, so he couldn’t see the guilt in his eyes.
Clara barked in laughter, a harsh, grating sound that made Nico wince. “You’re besotted, aren’t you? Nicolai isn’t as sweet as you think he is,” she said.
“Nicolai?” Breccan asked.
“The one you know as Nico used to go by a different name years ago. Not a very convincing alias, if you ask me,” Clara muttered. “I figured out who he was almost the moment I saw him, just from how he moved. I didn’t even need the name.”
Nico’s stomach sank amidst his confusion -- if she had known, why had she let him sit at her table and let Maris believe she thought he was human? Though he had stopped glowing, he didn’t bother to take human form again -- his secret was blown, so there wasn’t any point.
Maris frowned. “Why didn’t you say anything?” she asked.
“I wanted to see if you would try to hide what he was from me. I wanted to know if I could trust you,” Clara said, betrayal flickering in her eyes. “Evidently, I can’t, but I hope you at least didn’t know what he did to me.”
“I only learned of that when he left the table,” Maris sighed, looking Clara right in the eye.
Nico leaned against the wall of the hallway, under one of the blue-flamed candles, shaking and in need of support.
Egan walked over to where Nico stood and leaned against the wall himself. “You need to pick your partners better,” he whispered in his ear, low enough none of the others should be able to hear.
“What did he do to you?” Breccan said. He looked between Clara and Nico, his eyes shining with a sick mixture of curiosity and dread.
“What gods always like to do to mortals,” Clara muttered, her lips in a thin line.
Breccan’s face paled, and he seemed to look at nothing at all. “No,” he whispered, almost to himself. “He wouldn’t.”
Looking at him, intolerable pain shot through Nico’s chest and threatened to tear him apart. He bit his lip to keep from crying out -- the horror on Breccan’s face was too much to bear.
“I don’t want to work with you, Maris,” Clara said, “but you’re one of the few taking this shadow threat seriously.” After a long pause, she continued, “I will work with you and the rest of your party, even if the rest of them might be gods in disguise. I will not, however, work with him.”
Maris nodded. “I understand.” She turned to Nico. “I’m not sure you can stay with us any longer. I’ll let you keep your room in my house, for now. But you might have to move out.”
Nico’s throat tried to close up on him. He nodded once at Maris. “I -- understand as well,” he managed.
In truth, being allowed to stay at Maris’ house was more than he had expected. He didn’t think he deserved even that much, not after what he had done not that long ago. His stomach twisted, and he had trouble staying upright.
“I’m sorry,” he murmured to nobody in particular, though it would do little good.
Clara stared at Nico. “I suggest you walk down this hallway and get as far away from my house as possible while the rest of us head back into the library. If you go straight, you’ll get back to the regular part of the house soon enough,” she said. “I assume you can find your way out?”
“Alright,” he murmured.
Without another word, he turned around and headed down the strange hallway. He couldn’t look anyone in the eye, and walking proved difficult on unsteady feet. Nico’s guilt wrapped around every inch of him, a physical force.
It wanted to destroy him, and he wanted to let it.