Chapter 28 Gods and Their Games #2
I’m so busy gaping at it, I almost miss his next strike. My sword arm goes up to block, metal clashing, but my alarm and the power behind his attack causes me to misstep where the stair drops. My foot slips.
I would’ve tumbled and hit the ground hard if it weren’t for his quick hand snaking out to snatch my wrist, jerking me forward where I crash into his solid chest.
“Let go,” I hiss.
“Why, so you can run away again?” He’s close. Too close. I feel the heat from him. The scent of leather and sea salt. He stares at me, midnight blue glittering with amusement. “You’re far too interesting to let go of.”
My heart hammers against my ribcage, a wardrum in the sudden silence. His breath is whisper-soft over my cheek.
“What are you doing?” I can hardly form the whisper in my suddenly dry mouth. A dream stirs at the apex of my mind.
You can’t love me. You can’t save me, Nymph.
Mine.
Mine.
Mine.
I want to scream.
He leans in, his lips an inch away from my ear. “You wanted the truth.”
I try to swallow around my dry tongue to no avail. Useless. Instead I nod, unable to meet his gaze.
“The Mad Queen’s monsters have one vulnerability—the everflame.”
“Nymphfire?” I manage slowly.
He nods, pulling away and letting me go. The absence of his warmth is a knife I try to deny.
“The everflame is said to be what helped forge the Midnight Crown. Mór breathed it into the Fiernaid when she made your race, stole what she needed from my father’s vault in Skoyr. The Mad Queen is a child of Harial, my trickster brother.”
“She’s a demi-goddess?”
“Yes. When she took the throne he came to her with two gifts to protect her kingdom. Gifts that could only perish by the everflame, which is why no one has won the games. The flame only exists within your hidden race and upon Skoyr. Ireus guards it ruthlessly now. He won’t risk another godly family winning all three crown pieces and forging them together. ”
“So…in the cave, when you saw my flame….” Something cracks in my chest, a recognition, finally an answer. “You were never going to let me stay, were you? Even if I’d had the crown piece to hand over.”
He has the decency to look guilty, though the expression is fleeting.
“I’m nothing but a tool to you, am I? A weapon to get what you want.” It’s worse than I could have imagined, this feeling.
I start to turn away but he catches my arm, his touch hot as ember. “You were. When I first met you, you meant…nothing to me. Less than nothing.”
Ouch, okay.
I make a sound, half snort, half sob. Ridiculous but well deserved agony corrupts the very core of me. “Thank you for letting me know,” I snarl, a wounded creature who only has her teeth, her bite, to defend her heart.
Another yank, but he holds fast, his eyes blazing pools of starlight.
The runes beneath his sleeves glow a furious blue.
His fingers lift, weaving through my braid.
“It has been a millennia, Nymph, since this heart beat for anything other than ambition and fury. Fury for anyone who dares stand in my way.” He looks gutted—more tormented than I feel.
A look that could chip away at my anger if I allowed it to.
“I don’t understand—”
“Just listen for once.” The rough callus of his thumb glides across my lips.
He lets his hand slip down to caress my throat, touch the soft dip where my pulse thunders.
“I’ve always loved the oceans in this realm, even before I was exiled here.
There was something about the water—so vast and endless, so unforgiving.
‘The sea has no mercy for the wicked or the woed—'”
“‘—She will reap, and reap, and reap what she’s owed,’” I finish softly, a passage from a book in Blossom House’s very limited collection. Maybe the only good one.
He gives a slow but steady nod. “I knew you would be my undoing when we stood in that field, when you held Harlow’s life in your hands and I tasted the rage bleeding off of you like a honeyed wine in the air.
Talon of House Sól. Warbringer. It was my title.
My purpose. Mortals making each other bleed.
Giving into their wrath. Their base instincts.
Their hate. I’d seen it a thousand times.
I expected no different from you. But then you stilled your hand. You let him live.”
I think back to that day…a day that feels like it was a lifetime ago. I’d been ready to kill Harlow. I wanted to see the light leave his eyes, but the thought of dooming the slave nymphs to worse, of not even trying to help them was unbearable.
“You put the mere hope of freedom for others before your own bloodlust and wellbeing. Not just then, but for Rowan every step along the way. For me the night we fought the kepra. You can’t fucking swim yet you scaled a godsdamned foremast during a storm to rescue Sabre.
You aren’t just brave, Vale, you’re good.
Too good for this realm. Too good for the fate you’ve been saddled with. ”
My eyes flutter closed. I pull in a ragged breath, thinking of Máma sinking into the depths. Remembering what my own selfishness had cost me. I brought this fate upon myself.
I almost say it aloud, that he’s wrong, but as I open my eyes to say so, I can’t bring myself to do anything other than stare at him.
We study each other under the starlight and mist in a moment that seems to stretch on forever, yet not nearly long enough before he lets me go and backs away a few paces.
“I’ll do it,” I finally whisper, staring down at the scuff marks on my boots. Counting the unsteady beats of my heart.
“What?” His deep voice warms the air.
“I’ll fight her damn monsters. That was your point, afterall, wasn't it? With that…moving speech. You know I’ll do anything for the people I want to protect, even if it kills me.”
When he doesn’t answer I let my gaze trail up to find his incredulous stare. The downturn of his lips, anger that forms a gentle crease at his brow.
“That was your takeaway?”
I nod, letting a pulse of annoyance course through me. “Brave, self sacrificing. Perfect attributes for the weapon you need. Let me guess, if I don’t do as you ask, Rowan will pay the price?”
He blinks slowly at me before shaking his head. “You’re not fighting, Nymph. I’ll find another way.”
“Really? In a few week's time? That’s insanity. I’ll fight and we will win. When we do, you will take Rowan and I back to Helgate and let us go with our fair share of the tribute prize.”
His hand lifts to rake through his raven hair as he begins to pace.
“No. Not only will the games themselves be lethal but we cannot draw Ireus’ eye to you again.
Not after—” He pauses and his gaze flits down to the open neckline of my blouse.
I know, instinctively, he’s thinking about the rune beneath, a mark that is never far from my own mind.
“I can’t say for certain. I could be wrong, but if I’m not, it means my father would hunt you to the ends of every realm.
He would not rest until the last of house Aethelmaer is dead. ”
“I’m not—” I clutch at the skin. “That’s impossible. My máma is a full blooded nymph. My father was a mortal man.”
“How certain are you of that? Did you meet him?”
“No, he left before I was born. Went back on his ship, she said.”
“She’s lied once, Vale. Don’t you think there must’ve been a reason for it? In this case a good one. She was suppressing your magick to keep you safe from m—” He pauses. “My father.”
I go cold. “I don’t want to talk about this anymore.”
His face softens, “Nymph, you can’t avoid—”
“I can. I can and I will.” I swallow and move to thrust my mother’s blade back into his hand but he stops me, his voice cool and cryptic once more.
“Keep it; it is your moeir’s, afterall. Your well deserved inheritance now that she’s gone. You may need it where we are going.”