If she thought that he could hate her, she didn't understand. Maybe Akheron didn't understand, either. Maybe he'd been too simple in explaining how he felt, what he meant. Maybe simplicity, a reliance on the assumption that they were connected in a deeper way, had been too much. She clearly didn't know what he was trying to say. And if she did, she was choosing to ignore it. If he hated her for how she made him feel it was never her, it was always the way he felt. Always the way he looked at the world, the way he considered everything. There was a certain window through which he'd glimpsed his life, now, and it changed everything. Perspective. If he'd hated her for how she made him feel, that was his failing. Not hers. He'd told her once that he would never share his hate. But he had shared it. With gods, with men, and with every soul who crossed his path.
It was time to stop lying to himself. It had been time, for a long time, and he was only just seeing it now.
He couldn't help but feel like a fool.
"Do you want me to despise you?" Akheron asked, a sigh of pain passing through his lips - he wouldn't block it out, not when she delivered it to him so sweetly. "That's the wrong question. Of course you don't. But I'm not Moros. I told you I couldn't share my hate, I wouldn't share my hate, but I was wrong."
And all that time he'd spent insisting, praying for death, he'd been wrong. It wasn't her fault, all that time he'd spent alone. He could have told her that she twisted his stomach into knots, could have told her that he wanted to drink in her hate as often as he could. Could have bathed in her river for a thousand years or more to prove his commitment to her. He'd lied to her children, her children whom he loved despite their hatred for him. Lied to preserve her place in their hearts, lied to keep her from harm.
It was within his power to do that, and he had.
Akheron wasn't sure what else he could have done.
"You're asking the wrong question of the wrong god," Akheron went on in a pained tone, his side aching with the need to be free of her torture. "You should be asking yourself why you lied to your children. You should be asking yourself how much you need a god who isn't there when you need him. You should be asking yourself why you're so afraid of me that you're willing to dismiss me, say I'll despise you and let me waste away. I don't care if it's cheating or not, knowing the inside of your heart. But here we are. And you still haven't asked yourself any of those questions."
A grimace, as he felt her vise grip tighten.
"I don't care if you answer them or not. But you aren't going to send me away on the assumption that my mind is broken, just like his, and refuse to take a hard look at yourself. It's not, and you should."