Apologies

Arawn woke up with a groan. He didn’t like this. It had been several days and he still felt as though Anu’s death had taken a great deal of his power with him. He was hungry in a way he hadn’t been in centuries. Tired in a way he didn’t remember ever being, but it was getting better.
He shuffled down the hall to the dining room in the Conna castle. Fedelm looked up as he entered and worried her lip.
“Are you feeling any better?”
He chuckled, “A little. Though I am a far cry away from my usual self.”
He sat at the table and slumped against it. Had he always been this heavy? He wished he at least had the energy to go and see Sirona, but he could still feel her. It was faint, but he was confident that he could find his way to her without a problem.
“I wanted to tell you that I’ll be leaving soon.”
She looked at him, “You’re returning to Berth?”
“I plan to leave Conna and Berth entirely.”
Her eyes widened and Soren lowered his gaze to his meal, remaining completely silent.
“Leave?” Fedelm asked, her voice almost hysterical. “B-But where will you go and… Why?”
He smiled, “I’ll still be around. Now that Anu is gone, there is no need for me to be here. Use my name as you wish to keep your new lands together.”
“But…”
He chuckled seeing her expression, “Maybe now that everything has calmed down a bit, you’ll get around to finding a consort.”
Her eyes widened, “What… does that mean?”
“That you deserve a man who admires your strength and seeks to support it.”
Fedelm seemed stunned as he glanced at Soren and smirked, “You’ll take care of her, Captain Duran?”
He looked between Arawn and Fedelm before meeting Fedelm’s life, “With my life.”
Her face turned bright red as Arawn finished eating and excused himself.
He returned to the room he’d taken and grabbed the few things he’d left there. As expected, Fedelm had followed him.
“I just don’t understand,” she said, looking up at him. “I…”
“Fedelm,” Arawn said looking at her. “Do you know why I chose you?”
She swallowed, shaking her head. He sighed and slipped his bag over his shoulder.
“When I saw you in the garden that day, I thought it was a terrible fate for you to be married to that idiot. You were too beautiful, too smart, too powerful to end up as that man’s pretty, young wife.”
Her eyes widened.
“I may have helped you, but I did not make you queen,” Arawn said, “A bit of advice, a bit of encouragement, that was all.”
“You taught me a great deal.”
Arawn shrugged, “Perhaps, but it is because you wanted to learn. Don’t discredit yourself, little gem. Enough people will do that for you.”
He sighed, “I admit to having done it as well.”
She frowned, “What… do you mean?”
“I seduced you, Fedelm, for my own ends. Just as I seduced Sirona.” She paled. “Though I became quite fond of you, that does not change that my goal was to craft you into a queen that could unite the continent, you did not need my help to do that. Perhaps a direction to go, but the rest was done by your will.”
He chuckled, “Captain Duran joined your knights because of your strength. He has no faith in the cult of Arawn.”
He turned to the exit before cupping her cheek, “Take care of yourself, little gem.”
“Is it because she’s a mage?” Fedelm asked suddenly.
Arawn chuckled, “Fedelm, would you truly want a man like me?”
Fedelm frowned.
“If I were not a god, would you want me?” He searched her face, “Think hard about what I am asking you. For all the ways I have treated you, would you have accepted such a thing from a mortal man?”
He watched her turn over his question. When she averted her gaze, he understood that she understood. There was a strange shift and resonance in her belief.
She sighed, “It would seem that… my faith has never been wasted.”
Arawn lifted her head on the edge of his hand, “Neither has mine. Call if you need, but I have a feeling you won’t.”
He left her there, standing in the doorway of the room, and headed out to the streets. A stable boy offered him the reins to a horse and he turned back towards Berth with all speed. He could feel the land opening and relaxing as he crossed the ground. Anu’s fury, arrogance, and violence had turned it dormant. Perhaps, one day when he was better, if he could get better, he would spend some time restoring the land to the way it had been before.
It had been centuries since he’d done anything like it, but with Anu gone, he did not need to conserve his power or remain on high alert at all times.
He was just as free as she was dead.
It was a bit of a relief to walk away from Fedelm. He knew she would mourn and be angry, but she would understand one day. She may even thank him one day. Leaving her and finally telling her the truth had been easier than he expected.
He could only hope that Sirona would take it well and they could start over.
He wasn’t sure what he would do if Sirona decided to spend the rest of their mutual lives ignoring him. He supposed he could go and live with Taran or drift around the continent alone, but he didn’t want that.
It took three days before he caught glimpse of Druid’s great tree and felt her presence more clearly.
He wondered if she knew why he was coming.
He halted the horse and dismounted, grunting at how uncomfortable riding was now. He didn’t remember being this achy before and hoped it wouldn’t be something that would last for long.
As he approached the back gate, he saw her in an odd parody of their first meeting. She was kneeling in the garden, harvesting squashes in complete silence.
“Sirona.”
She turned to him and stared at him for a few moments before her eyes widened. She rose to her feet and crossed the garden to stand just inside the gate.
“What… happened to you?”
He chuckled, “Can we talk? I imagine it will be a very long story.”
She looked away and nodded before opening the gate and allowing him into the garden. He followed her into the house and sat at the table beside the window.
It didn’t look as though Sirona had changed a single thing in the house. He almost expected Druid to come downstairs.
“I am sorry about Druid,” Arawn said. “He wasn’t meant to get involved with this.”
“He said that he always knew,” Sirona said as she poured herself a cup of water. “He said… a lot of things at the end, but none of that is why you are here now or relevant to what’s happened to you.”
He took a deep breath and faced her, “At the risk of being destroyed, I have to tell you the truth.”
He had meant for it to be humorous, but as a bit of color left her face, he supposed it had been in poor taste given what happened to Druid.
He was already off to a bad start.
Sirona frowned, “The truth.”
He started from the beginning when he and Anu first made the pact and the troubles they’d had getting along before the pact was made. In the beginning, he thought he’d be able to kill her on his own, but as she grew more powerful, it was clear that he would need some help.
“Then, I found you in Druid’s garden, an impossibly young deity here in Berth.” Arawn smirked, “With so much potential that it had been as if you were sent from the stars.”
“Deity?”
Arawn nodded.
She dropped her gaze, thinking back to Druid’s words. It seemed that he’d known then. Why hadn’t he said anything.
“A demigod to be specific.”
Sirona frowned at him but nodded, “You never mentioned Anu or any of this to me.”
“No,” Arawn conceded. “I had intended to use my usual tactics to control you.”
Sirona looked at him and chuckled, “You’re… a bit too flighty to try and control anyone.”
He smiled, “That is part of the illusion. Teaching you to use your powers, honing them, was all part of that.”
“Why tell me this now?”
“Because it didn’t stay that way.” He sighed, “Feelings and dreams I had long since thought were dead started taking over. I realized how lonely I had been all of these years by how much I didn’t wish to be away from you.”
She gasped as their gazes met. Her heart clenched with hope, and she held back the words that wanted to spring from her mouth.
Arawn’s stomach fluttered. He felt completely out of sorts as he said the words he had never said to anyone.
“I fell in love with you.”