Gameboard of the Gods (Age of X, #1)(135)

“He doesn’t sleep much,” Darius explained. He led her upstairs to a room on the third floor. A sign outside read OLAF SANDBERG.

Olaf had the look of someone who’d aged before his time. He sat at a table in his room, talking to himself as he slid around puzzle pieces on a screen. “Red line matches red…start with the corner, then find the others…can’t match blue with yellow….”

Darius took a chair on the opposite side of the table. “Dad,” he said gently. “I have someone who wants to talk to you.”

“That’s nice. Very nice.” Olaf’s eyes never left the screen.

“She wants to talk about Mom and Ilias.”

Olaf’s hands faltered on the screen, and pain crossed his face. “Over and done, over and done.”

On impulse, Tessa set up her camera on a nearby table. It wasn’t ideal, but she thought this might be worth recording for Justin. She then sat in an empty chair between the two men, more than a little unnerved by Olaf’s disposition. She was no interrogator, nor did she even really know why she was here. She let Darius take the lead and witnessed a remarkable change in him. The frantic desperation was gone, replaced by a calmness and heartbreaking affection for his father.

“Dad, she wants to know about the goddess you’re always telling me about. The one you made the deal with.”

“Over and done,” repeated Olaf, his voice shaking.

“Did she kill Mom?”

“No.” The old man’s head shot up, and he doled out glares to each of them. “No one took her. She gave herself up. Do you understand? No one took her. She was strong.”

Tessa wasn’t sure about that if she’d killed herself. Darius’s resigned expression said he’d heard all of this many times and was simply trying to draw out his dad’s story for Tessa’s benefit.

“She gave herself up for Ilias,” said Darius, seeking confirmation.

“She wanted a life. It should’ve been enough.”

Tessa hadn’t wanted to get involved, but again, her mind was trying to understand. “Your wife wanted a life?”

“No! Of course not.” Olaf paused to slide some more puzzle pieces around. “She did. The dark one.”

“The goddess?” asked Tessa.

“She wanted a life. That man said it had to be Ilias’s, that that was her payment. But why should it matter?” He looked back up again, desperation in his eyes. “Why should it matter? Isn’t any life enough? We repaid her.”

Tessa felt as though she too were sliding pieces of a puzzle around, trying to make sense of this scattered information. “What did you repay her for?”

“For Ilias.”

“Because she gave him to you,” said Darius, prompting him.

Olaf dropped his hand and spread it flat on the screen. “But he was never ours. They got a fortune. They got that poor plebeian boy’s life to make Ilias. But it wasn’t enough. They wanted Ilias to serve, but he wouldn’t, so they took him back.” He took a deep breath. “I should’ve joined Siiri. Maybe we owed another life. One for the plebeian boy, one for Ilias. If we’d both given ourselves to her, she might have let Ilias go free.”

There was more here than Tessa could understand. Suddenly, a memory tickled her brain: Justin, brainstorming with her in his study. A bunch of plebeians die the same year some perfect patricians are conceived. Is that a coincidence?

“What was Ilias’s score?” she asked.

“He was a nine,” said Darius.

“Cost a fortune,” lamented Olaf. “And it was so much more than money. Much more. They wanted him to serve her.”

Tessa tried to think like a servitor. “You mean to join her cult?”

“Ilias laughed that man away. Should he have? I don’t know.” Olaf stared off into space. “Maybe he took the high road. She didn’t deserve him. She’s evil and twisted. We said we’d let them teach him, but we didn’t. We shouldn’t have promised him to her, but we didn’t know what would happen. We didn’t realize what would happen to that boy.”

The nouns were hard to follow. “The plebeian boy?” Tessa asked, trying to clarify.

“He was innocent, but we didn’t care. What was a plebeian to us? But now I see the blood on my hands.” He turned his hands over and studied them. “We both did. But Siiri set herself free. It just wasn’t enough to save Ilias.”

Tessa began stringing together his narrative, patching it with all the things she’d heard Justin and Mae tossing around. “So…this goddess and her people…you made a deal to conceive Ilias through illicit genetic manipulation—”

“No. Magical manipulation,” said Olaf. “She needs no lab.”

“Um, okay. So, then they took money for it and a plebeian sacrifice….” Tessa paused at that, overcome by how awful it was. “And they also wanted you to raise him in her service. But you didn’t, so they came back and…took him.”

Tessa felt sympathetic enough toward the old man and his son that she couldn’t say the word “kill.” She also decided not to say anything more about Siiri Sandberg. Somehow, Siiri had known this cult was after Ilias and had killed herself in the hopes that she could pay the price for her son. Apparently, this goddess’s followers had required premium genes.