Chapter Sixty-Four
Kyan
‘YOU SHOULD CHECK THE TORC,’ NICOLE SAID WHEN KYAN came back inside with a concerned Remi. ‘It’s yours.’
He pulled it from the bag inside his jacket and Bells grabbed one of the plush red pillows from the couch, placing it on the coffee table. Callum was still out watching Ronan elsewhere in the hotel.
The artefact near hummed in his hands, but he couldn’t tell if it was the memories of what it represented, or the thought of what might be hidden inside.
‘Should you try it on?’ Nicole asked.
The neck piece was a series of interconnected ropes of metal, wound together then stacked and capped at the two ends with great circular terminals, decorated with delicate winding vines and stars.
With a breath, Kyan pulled off his jacket, body tight. Then, before he could think too much, he slotted the torc around his neck.
The moment the weight of the terminals sat on his collarbones and the rest settled against the back of his neck, cold and roped, the memory of its forging returned to him.
The great form of the being that had carved it.
The steady presence of his mother and the lush cape she’d shrugged off in the heat of the gods’ mountain forge.
The times he’d worn it in battle, the terminals a steady weight on his collarbones, reminding him always of his duty to his people, of the history, and the honour of wearing it. It ripped through him with emotion that felt so much clearer after his night with Nicole.
Nothing else happened. No unravelling, no clues as to the supposed blood inside.
Nicole’s eyes were now dark and fascinated, her lower lip wet from where she’d bit it in concentration. He pulled the torc off and placed it on the cushion, like a royal bed, the gold winking in the lamplight.
He was momentarily reminded of the Wake’s symbol.
The circle.
‘It feels …’ Nicole began, mesmerised.
‘I know,’ Kyan said.
The thief would have known it was special from the moment he picked it up. No wonder he didn’t want to hand it over.
‘I can’t smell or feel if there’s any blood in it.’ Nicole touched the terminals.
He marvelled at the way it looked in her gentle researcher’s hands – a piece of his earliest life, his people’s. History he was able to share with her that he never thought he could.
‘Unless it’s hidden in these end pieces?’
‘I don’t know. They’ve been soldered on, so short of ripping them off, I’m not sure how we’d find out,’ Kyan said, allowing himself to perch on the couch beside Remi, Dylan still cross-armed and frowning.
‘We’re not tearing it apart,’ Nicole said, flashing Kyan a reassuring look he was grateful for.
‘Maybe we need to take it to … my sister,’ Kyan said quietly, testing the words and finding them unnerving.
The Tène shifted on Bells’ wrist, its ribbon-like neck twisting to inspect the torc, as if alerted by the presence of its previous treasure.
It purred slightly – a metallic yet dragonesque sound – and then, fast as a whip, dived off Bells like a golden comet and nuzzled into the torc.
Dylan cursed. ‘We need a warning on that thing.’
It purred again and Kyan didn’t miss Bells’ disappointed exhale.
The Tène twined itself around the terminals with a series of clicking sounds. Then one of the terminals dropped off onto the cushion, the gold wires it had capped spilling free. The Tène slithered between them before tugging something out – its little jaws wrapped around—
‘The vial,’ Bells breathed. She knelt beside the table to peer closer as the creature dragged out a thin vial, barely thicker than the metal wires but just as long, made in a material that looked like bendable glass.
There, on the velvet cushion amid an unwound artefact, was a vial of pure goddessblood.
‘Incredible,’ Remi breathed.
Dylan shook his head. ‘How is this possible?’ He looked like he couldn’t cope with a single other revelation, and Kyan couldn’t blame him.
For years Kyan had worn this ancient piece of art, unknowingly guarding a vial of the most precious substance in … the universe?
‘Is that glass?’ Nicole asked, baffled.
‘Likely made by Credne,’ Kyan said thoughtfully, ‘he was the artisan god of the Túatha Dé with his brother Goibniu. They had all sorts of inventions. Bendable glass wouldn’t surprise me.’
‘But that means the blood was put into your torc before you were given it,’ Nicole realised. ‘They would have designed the torc to withhold it, so it didn’t break or grind the glass and spill the blood.’
‘It makes sense,’ Remi said. ‘You’re an Empyreal. They would have wanted you to guard, or use it. Right?’
Kyan nodded, but two things had bothered him since they’d spoken with the Druid.
If goddessblood was needed to survive a Fomóiri-killing transformation and had been hidden in his own torc, why didn’t his mother, or the gods, tell him what it was for?
And why, when he transformed to kill the Fomóir that killed his family, had he not needed it?
They didn’t go right to their room.
Kyan sat with Nicole at the bar downstairs, his back against it and body towards the rest of the room, to watch it, and her.
Part of him still rebelled at the idea of being seen, even knowing Luca was still successfully playing with any cameras they encountered.
Still, as long as they were mindful, it would look like Kyan was doing his job and getting close to her.
The thought of the Wake intruding on this moment when she was so vulnerable turned his stomach.
The dark bar with its guttering candles and luxuries lit her and the blood shimmer of her dress like a faceted ruby. The scent of her strong, sweet, dessert wine and dusky natural perfume nearly made his head spin.
‘Let me know if you hear Bells or Dylan,’ she said quietly. ‘I just need to shut it off for a minute.’
‘I will.’
She unbuttoned the cuff of his shirtsleeve and pushed it up to get to the warm skin beneath, where she ran her fingers up and down the raised veins in feather-soft strokes.
Kyan forced his body not to react as her eyes closed briefly in a kind of grieving relief, lashes dark against her flushed cheeks as she mentally muted the world and used him to ground herself.
The wine had stained the seam of her lips. For a while, she stared unseeing and sipping, letting her mind work and work until he could see she’d disassociated, as if her researcher’s mind couldn’t take any more information.
Eventually, her gaze returned to normal and slid to him, her fingers stilling. She moved closer and her eyes, her gorgeous dark eyes, were so tired.
His heart strained as if it could get closer to her.
She stood for a few moments between his legs, cradled in his arms, her head tucked against his neck and collar with a satisfied sigh as her body grew more relaxed.
‘Come on,’ he said softly.
She didn’t move for a long moment, then nodded wearily.
He fought the urge to carry her through the bar and upstairs, then stalk to her father’s door and demand more answers.
She was his priority, and that talk was hers to have.
Even if Kyan knew he’d be discussing it with Callum as soon as possible.
Inside their room, Nicole grabbed her notebook and Verin’s old book from her bag. ‘We should plan.’
They’d already decided to keep the goddessblood vial in the torc for now. It had been safe in there for thousands of years, after all. They just needed somewhere to keep it …
He paused. ‘Do you want to talk about your father?’
‘What’s there to say?’ she asked, sniffing.
He could see her grappling for the control her Empyrean urges offered: the calm, the confidence.
But she couldn’t suppress her emotions without consequences.
‘He helped found the Wake. The thing that killed Mum. That binds every Empyreal. He’s a god. And I’m – I’m—’
‘You’re an Empyrean mythographer who’s going to save the world.’
Her eyes closed and silver lined her lashes.
He cupped her face, stroked her cheeks with his thumbs. ‘But it’s okay to be tired and confused and overwhelmed.’
She shook her head softly.
‘You don’t have to have everything figured out,’ he said, kissing the side of her mouth.
‘I do,’ she whispered, eyes opening and full of overwhelmed tears, clutching her notebook.
The gold of the Empyrean in the brown of her irises was like a flare in the dark.
‘Because if I haven’t thought of everything then these things happen.
We get blindsided again and again. Your face.
’ She took his wrist in her grip, a tear skating down her cheek that broke his heart.
‘Your face when the Druid told you she was your sister … you were heartbroken. And I hate it. I hate not knowing things.’
‘No more for tonight,’ he said, unable to resist holding her any longer.
He scooped her up and set her on the bed. She slumped back against the sheets as he pulled off her heels.
‘We have our plan,’ he said as he cut around the heavily carved four-poster bed to get to her, kicking off his shoes and dragging off his jacket – the torc glinting in the low light on the bedside table.
‘And we have two of the artefacts and know where to look in Skye for the harp and the weapon that should kill Alexander. We’ll find out how to break these oaths and your father can share information with us that will help us destroy the Wake.
‘Logan is gone, and you’re safe. Everyone is safe. This is just a surprise.’
He scooped her close and turned the lights lower. Her heart was racing beneath his fingers.
‘In just over a week?’ she whispered.
Nine days until the Wake came knocking.
‘We’re close, Nicole. Tonight, just sleep. Then we’ll find the Druid, and she’ll tell us everything this time.’