Kayen spluttered as he woke up, his mouth feeling dry, his throat feeling worse. He was thankfully lying in his own bed, with a glass of water nearby. Also nearby was a familiar face.
“It happened again, didn’t it?” Kayen asked. “Everyone else is safe, right, Phovos?”
Phovos didn’t answer. It took Kayen a moment to realise why. The familiar face sitting next to him wasn’t Phovos at all.
“You’re not her, are you?”
“Nope.”
“You’re…” Kayen tried to think of the right word to describe this being. “You’re a goddess, right? The… One above the others.”
“My name is Kinisis. Have we not been properly introduced?”
“Not really. I’m Kayen.”
“Nice to meet you, Kayen.”
Kinisis’s voice certainly sounded godly. The verbal version of being wrapped in velvet and silk. But there was also a hidden harshness that Kayen couldn’t quite place. That also didn’t explain Kinisis’s appearance. She looked just like Phovos, but without the reptilian scutes that ran down Phovos’s chest and with far silkier skin. There weren’t any scars either. The most telling difference though was the darkness in Kinisis’s eyes. A black nothingness, punctured with stars.
“So, uh, why are you here?” Kayen asked. “And why do you look like Phovos? Or why does Phovos look like you?”
Kinisis smiled. Something told Kayen that he probably wouldn’t get many answers out of her. “Well done for not dying.”
Kayen shifted his weight, pulling the blanket closer to him. Someone had cleaned up all his glass related injuries. He’d been kidnapped by a dark being, sealed inside water and glass and left to die. But he’d managed to break free. He didn’t remember much else.
“Uh, thank you… But why are you here?”
Kinisis shrugged. “Well, I have good news and bad news. The good news is that Kenon won’t ever kidnap you again. The bad news is that Arkarin has… to put it in nice terms, dumped you and disappeared.”
Kayen shrugged. “That’s understandable.”
“In fact, Arkadin has… Well…” Kinisis frowned. “He has kinda disappeared completely. Just faded off into nothing. I know most things but where Arkadin has gone, I can’t tell you. But he has basically abandoned his duties and gone away.
“And honestly, I think I know why. He was always driven by guilt. And that guilt, I guess, finally pushed him over a ledge that none of us could see. He had so much guilt already that, between you nearly being killed and him being the reason I exiled Kenon, he couldn’t take it any more.
“We’ll cope, of course we will. Kairos isn’t happy about picking up Arkadin’s work and Epani isn’t happy about the membrane patrols she has to do now, but we’ll be fine. Those two never did that much work anyway.”
Kayen didn’t know what to say. He tried to digest what Kinisis was telling him, but he just couldn’t understand any of it. After a while, all he could do was utter one sentence. “Why are you telling me this?”
Kinisis smiled. “It’s quite simple, my dear. We can cope without Arkadin, but the universe needs his specialised skills.”
Kayen blinked. “Do you… want me to go and find him?”
Kinisis patted Kayen on the shoulder as she got up. “Yes, please! When you’re back to full health, of course. And feel free to take your little team with you.”
Before Kayen could protest, Kinisis faded away, leaving nothing but a cloud of sparkles and a weird, vanilla-flavoured scent…