That night, Val and Tavras were trying to play a casual game of cards before bed. Already, her thoughts drifted to their meeting with Arius in the morning.

It might be in ill-taste to bring him up to Tavras, but he already knew the truth about the situation. Val did not see why she could not talk about it. “Honestly, I am a little concerned about Arius tonight.”

“He does not deserve an ounce of concern from anybody,” Tavras spit while lying his card down forcefully. “Why would you even bother with thinking about him?”

“What if Evalaite does not let him break up with her tonight? You know how she is manipulating him, you said.”

Tavras shook his head. “He is going to manage with her quite fine. It will end with Evalaite’s head rolling on the floor, or her innards spilled out, or all of her bones crushed. She is going to be dead, and it will be a good riddance from this world!”

While Val played her cards calmly, Tavras punctuated his statements with the occasional angry slam. He had every reason to not like his ex, but wishing her dead seemed extreme.

“I don’t know. Arius seemed pretty amicable when he left. He even let you know about his planned break up because he claims that the two of you are soulmates or something. I know you hate him, but I doubt that he would kill Evalaite.”

A big sigh hefted out of his chest. “Look. Arius has been away from the Summit for a long time. The change that I told him to check…. Evalaite was moved onto the tenth seat of the Pantheon. How do you think that a sex goddess would get a place on the Pantheon?”

Her face started to fall. While she did not want to say anything that would hurt Tavras any further, she made the only logical guess. “Um, did she sleep her way to the top?”

With a sneer, Tavras said, “Oh yeah. She cheated on Arius while he was away with none other than his daddy, the God Supreme himself.”

Val felt her eyes draw wide, and she looked away. There was simply nothing to say to that. Val was too stunned by how abhorrent that sounded.

How could Evalaite be so cruel? The act of leaving Tavras and manipulating Arius had seemed bad enough. Not only did she cheat on Arius, but she also had made it seem like she had slept with his own father. The God Supreme should never do something like that to his son, so Val knew that Evalaite’s power was pervasive and perverse enough to use on Suvier.

“It’s your turn,” Tavras said, annoyed that Val had stopped playing their game.

She laid down any old card. “How could she do that? I know Evalaite is a terrible person, but she has to have some moral limit.”

“The real question is ‘why’ would she do that.” Despite the way that he had prodded her on, Tavras now took forever to gaze down at his own cards. “Evalaite’s plan was to use Arius to kill his father or his father to kill him.”

As he continued, Tavras started to grow upset. “One way or another, she wanted to eliminate one of my powerful enemies, as if I wanted her to do this! In her own distorted mind, she thinks that she is helping me. All I wanted was for her to stay on my Paradise forever.”

After a long pause, the emotion dried away in his voice in favor of rote analysis. “By her actions, I would assume that she has finished playing with Arius on that end, so she probably would let him break up with her. At the same time, she issued her own death sentence.”

Closely observing his face, he seemed sad. While Tavras might have said ‘good riddance’ at the prospect of her death before, it looked like it troubled him more than he wanted to let on.

Without knowing what to say, Val simply said, “It is your turn to play a card.”

Tavras laid one down as random as her last had been.

Paying more attention to the game, Val got to trump both of their previous moves. She ignored the fact that her last card had been against the rules.

While she did not like to think so poorly of Arius as to kill his girlfriend when she barely knew him, he also had a bloodthirsty reputation for a reason. Supposedly his presence in mortal wars saved more lives than he killed since people would stop fighting upon his entrance. Among immortals, he had killed a significant number of gods and demigods despite being only a century-some old. Very easily, he could add one more death to his legacy.

In silence, Val and Tavras continued playing their game.

Then, he shot up and slammed his hands on the table. The cards fluttered against the table at the same time that the chair hit the floor. “Arius is littering in my godsdamn ocean!” Tavras turned around and headed for the door at once.

“Wait, what?” Val hopped up and tried to follow him. “Why does it matter if Arius is littering in the ocean?”

“He is doing this just to spite me.” Tavras opened the door to the apartment and looked back to Val. “You stay here.”

The door slammed in her face much to her annoyance. With a scowl, she flung the door open and ran after him.

Val’s heart beat faster out of excitement. If Arius were littering in the ocean and he knew that Tavras could feel that, maybe he was trying to summon them—both of them. Something exciting could be happening tonight. Maybe he had finished with his break-up and wanted to move on to more fun things like testing her abilities. If either of them wanted to turn this into a fight, Val could try to calm them down. Either way, she needed to be there.

"Go back," he snapped while heading out of the town.

"No. I deserve to come along."

"I think this is past your bedtime."

"I am not a child!" Val insisted.

Once they had made it beyond Suvier's walls which enclosed the town, Tavras gave up on arguing with her. "I am going by myself." With those last words, he released the water from his flask and pulled the humidity from the air. Tavras took off in explosive strides of water that left Val wet and alone at the gate.

"Tavras," she growled.

This was not fair. Val wanted to come along. When she was about to lean against the humming wall to a sulk, a realization dawned on her. "This is not fair," she whispered.

Divine Judgement flashed to her mind as she called her power forth. A newfound strength rushed through her body. Looking down to her body where a white light rippled through her clothes, Val felt like she could do anything. She took off in a run fast enough to follow the scar that Tavras had left through the forest. Before long, she found the raging water that consisted of him running.

"You cannot leave me behind!"

Tavras looked to her, nearly causing himself to trip on a tree if not for a quick slash of water that cleaved it down. His face did not look so surprised. "Did you use Divine Judgement for this? Did you seriously do that, Val?"

"What?" she asked with a sheepish smile. "It was not fair for you to leave me behind."

"Curse you, Val. I did not want you to see this."

"You did not want me to see what?" she asked.

Once they had slowed upon their approach of the beach, Val realized exactly why he had wanted to go alone. While she stayed frozen with her feet barely touching the sand, Tavras strode onwards.

"Arius," he roared, "why are you littering in my godsdamn ocean?"

On the beach, Arius stood dry with a red haze engulfing him. His blood red eyes dazzled as though rubies had captured the moonlight, though that failed to capture the deadly aura about those eyes.

Across from him, dripping wet, Evalaite's hair covered her like a veil. Her scanty dress could be seen through to see the curves of her body. Luckily, her sopping hair provided some coverage for her breasts and nipples. When she lifted her head up enough to be seen, a wild smirk accompanied the flashing whites of her eyes.

Nothing fun was happening here. Apparently, Val had followed Tavras out here just to witness their break-up or, by the look of Arius's state, a murder.