Pet: Revelations - Chapter Twenty (Patreon)

Iris

Ezra is doing much better since I last saw him. Physically, he looks almost fully healed. Only a few black veins remain. But the color has returned to his cheeks, and his eyes look less tired as he sits with Sky and me near the pond.

I feel more comfortable around them than I do with Remus these days. Remus is eerie, constantly watching me and attempting to tell me what to do. I have accepted it for what it is and decided to stop fighting him after what happened on the ship. I’ve mourned the loss of what could have been, and now, just as I always have, I must adapt.

I have no choice.

“So you’re saying there are portals outside of this palace in the sky that lead to other places on this planet?” Sky asks, pulling me from my thoughts.

We both sit on the bench close to Ezra, while he keeps his legs dipped in the water with his head tilted back to enjoy the sunlight. Even as he sits here, he already looks better than when I saw him this morning.

I nod, looking at Sky. My body always relaxes when I look at her calming expression. It knows she is human, and that I have nothing to fear. Unlike when I am close to Remus.

“Yes, Remus called this place Euoua, and we went through one of the portals to a city. It looked nothing like this. Here, what I assume is a city barely surrounds the rest of the palace. But in all, Eoua is surrounded by clouds. I swear this place is floating,” I say, laughing.

It’s incredulous to think about, but we literally traveled through a rift in space to get here. I wouldn’t put anything past this world at this point.

Ezra chuckles near the pond, pulling our attention.

“This place is a puzzle put together by Celestivine to exist,” Ezra says.

He slowly lies back, closing his eyes before crossing his arms over his stomach.

“Now it’s Remus’s turn to add another piece to it,” he says.

“What are you talking about?” I ask, shifting to move closer to him, but Sky grabs hold of my arm, holding me back. When I look at her, she gently shakes her head.

“He’s been speaking like this since he woke up. But he won’t give any details,” she says. I look back at Ezra, remembering how he was acting when I saw him first. It seems all of us have been manipulated by Remus, each of us more terrified of him than speaking to one another.

“If Remus hasn’t told you, I won’t be the one to do it—”

“Since when did you become so obedient? Remus also told you not to go through with your plan involving the rebels on Earth, and you did anyway. Why are you suddenly so terrified of him? I thought he was your brother—”

“Already stirring up trouble when you don’t even know the full extent of where you are?” We all tense, turning to see Xion walking towards us. My eyes widen, and I step back as a twinge of fear settles in my stomach.

Ezra was my only ally on Xyrannis for a reason. Xion was willing to allow Remus to forget that I ever existed, as long as she got to keep her peace. She didn’t care about Remus or me. And judging by the way she looks at this moment, she knows about Noah.

Her eyes are dull, her hair wiry and dry, and her lips are chapped. I’ve never seen a Celestivine look so human. She’s even lost weight, dark circles forming under her eyes from a lack of sleep or constant tears. The last I saw her, she looked invincible. Now, she looks like the wind could take her away.

I don’t know that I can ever pity her, though. Her refusal to help forced all of this to go in a worse direction than it could have.

“Xion—” Ezra starts, but she holds her hand up, stopping him.

“Don’t get up,” she says, walking past Sky and me. She pauses, keeping her eyes down as she speaks to me.

“I know what you did to protect my brother… both of them,” she says. I inhale deeply through my nose as a single tear rolls down her cheek. “Thank you.” She doesn’t say anything else as she moves past us, sitting next to Ezra. She pulls him into her arms, sobbing quietly. From Noah’s death, or that Ezra is alive, or maybe both.

Sky and I look at one another, nodding in silent agreement that we should give them space. I don’t know what’s been happening between the three Celestivine siblings since our departure from Xyrannis or our arrival here, and even though I want answers, I won’t ruin this moment between them to get them.

Sky and I remain quiet as we exit the garden. But I make a point of looking around, basking in its beauty. I was here when Remus brought it to life. Every piece of it is part of him, and it makes me feel infinitely better each time I set foot in it. It was a gesture that reminded me of the version of him on Xyrannis I had come to know. A version of him that was curious about me and my reactions to the world. A version that listened and specifically found things that I enjoy to make me feel somewhat better. The version he's becoming now doesn’t listen. He demands and expects me to listen. Because he is beginning to see me as something other than his equal.

Logically, I know it is silly to see myself as his equal. He is a god-like being that can literally manifest walls at will. But the fact that he saw me as his equal, as someone he wanted to be by his side, is what made my heart soften even more.

I miss that.

“This is a fucking mess,” Sky says, pulling me from my thoughts as we walk up the steps.

I scoff, nodding.

“We are once again at the mercy og gods,” I say bitterly, moving to the balcony that overlooks the gardens. Xion and Ezra remain where we left them below. Xion leans against her brother as they both look into the pond. I can see that they are talking, but I don’t know the tone of the conversation. The only clue that I have is when Xion straightens up slightly, leaning forward so that she can look at Ezra before wiping his tears.

“Emotionally unstable gods,” I murmur as I am reminded of the baggage that has come with this new world.

“That’s not what I meant,” Sky says next to me, leaning against the balcony. I slowly look away from them to Sky. Her expression is intense, her light brown eyes focused on them as she speaks.

“Ezra isn’t one of them. Not fully anyway. He is half Celestivine, half Leviathan,” she says. Remus mentioned it briefly, though he didn’t elaborate at the time what he meant by it. Now, Sky has offered the information without being prompted.

“How do you know?” I ask.

Sky takes a deep breath. “Ezra told me.”

“Remus told him the truth. And he’s been beating himself up for it—for all of this. He thinks it is his fault,” she says.

When Ezra woke up from his coma, he said everything was a lie. It was the same thing Remus said to me when he plucked me from the surface of Xyrannis. Whatever it is that Remus told him has really struck deep.

“How…would being half Celestivine make any of this his fault?” I ask.

Sky’s expression shifts as she looks away from Ezra to her palms. She slowly squeezes them closed, watching the motion as if it is the most interesting thing she’s seen today. She’s anxious, debating whether telling me this will be helpful or harmful.

I slowly reach for her, placing my hand over hers, and she looks at me.

“We’re friends, remember?” I say. Even though I speak the words, I can’t bring myself to smile. I don’t know what her telling me will do.

Sky closes her eyes, pulling in a deep breath.

“Because their mother manipulated Xion and Remus for Ezra’s sake,” she says.

She opens her eyes.

“Their entire vendetta across the galaxy—their purpose in life was so that Ezra could have an empire to rule so vast that Celestivine, like the one who found them, could never find him. He is…nothing here. Nothing but a physical mistake their mother made,” Sky whispers.

My eyes widen as everyone’s emotional state becomes clear—including Remus’s. I slowly pull my hand away, holding myself to prevent the shiver that races over me as I recall the way he spoke about Ezra on the ship. I didn’t see it for what it was at the time—resentment.

I look back to where Ezra and Xion sit. His head now leans against her as his shoulders shake. His pain is clear now that I know the reason behind it. And what’s even more terrifying is that the Celestivine who did discover them, who attacked Ezra first and in cold blood, is Xion and Remus’s father. That’s why he attacked Ezra first. He was trying to kill him.

The stain on their mother’s history.

Ezra’s mood now makes sense. He is lost in a world he knows nothing about and barely belongs to. He is more like Sky and me than he is his own siblings.

A bitter ache forms in my chest for him. I wish I could feel happy in this moment. They are as broken as they left our world. But I am forced to think of the way Remus once spoke of his siblings. His care for them seemed genuine. So genuine in fact, that he destroyed an entire mountainside for them. But if what Sky says is true, that level of devotion was a manipulation by their mother, forced upon them so that Ezra, the child she must have had of her own volition, could thrive.

“That is fucked up,” I say.

Sky scoffs, looking at me.

“I see Remus is still keeping you in the dark about his side to this,” she says.

“What—”

“No. You, of all people, know you cannot ask me that. You are at the mercy of gods. I am at the mercy of everyone Ezra is. My place here is even more insignificant,” she says, looking back to Ezra.

“Then why tell me this in the first place? You knew Remus had kept this much from me,” I say.

“Because…I care about him. And he is so lost right now that even I can’t keep him afloat. He needs his family. He feels like he doesn’t deserve them, but he needs them,” she says.

My eyes widen as I watch Sky speak for Ezra. After everything I watched her go through in his name, she still watches him with a soft expression and a fierce determination for his well-being.

“Do you…love him?” I ask.

Sky laughs, lowering her head.

“What is love in a place like this? Can our definition even be tied to it?” she asks.

I think of everything that both of us have been through. Even after I was taken from Earth, I was able to find space in my heart for Remus in my own way. There is no playbook on this and no examples before us. She is right. Our definition is tied to what humans have experienced in our lifetimes together. But now, we are part of lifetimes we were never supposed to know existed.

“I’ll talk to him,” I say.

“To who?” Sky says, lifting her head. Her eyes are glassy, but she won’t let her tears fall.

“Remus. You’re right. They need each other. He needs them as much as they need him,” I say.

“How do you plan on doing that?” she asks.

My nails dig into my flesh as I recall the way he shouted at me on the ship. The surge of energy I felt was unnatural. It somehow traveled through my body, releasing onto the glass. He is past the point of speaking about things.

“I don’t know. I’ll talk to him. I’ll convince him that they need him. And that he needs them. He can’t do this alone,” I say.

I bite my bottom lip as I try to quell my anxiety. Sky risked a lot by telling me any of this. She is right; she is in a worse position than me, and still she pushed that fear aside for the one she cares about. I must do the same. My fight for Remus hasn’t ended just because we’ve left Xyrannis, or because he thinks it’s over. His mother’s manipulations extend past forcing Remus and Xion to conquer worlds. It has something to do with Remus specifically as well. I didn’t quit when he came close to killing me on Xyrannis, and I won’t quit now.

I reach for Sky’s hand, squeezing it in mine. This time, I can smile. I feel a conviction that I thought was lost. And I have her to thank for it.

“Don’t worry, I’ll talk to him,” I say.

Sky returns my smile briefly, her gaze flitting behind me. Suddenly, she rips her hand from mine, her gaze narrowing as she looks behind me. I feel the warmth of the presence as it settles behind me, the electrical tingle that washes over my flesh from his proximity, allowing me to know exactly who it is.

“And just what is it that you will be talking to me about?”