Chapter Thirty-One #2
“The Sovereign King ferried in healers from across Erus, and the Sovereign King of Sol brought his own personal healers to attend to you,” she continues. “Keeping you alive and safe appears to be the only thing he and I agree on,” she finishes with a dry laugh.
I snap my jaw shut, not realizing I’d left it hanging.
“In other news,” she shifts again, returning her attention to the gardens and I follow her gaze, letting my eyes settle on the swaying leaves of the trees in the distance, “Druka did find information about your sister.”
“Ylara,” I breathe.
She nods. “She hasn’t been seen since the night of your escape.”
My heart wrenches and I grimace.
“Druka believes she’s been locked in obsidian.”
Guilt consumes me, and I bury my face in my hands. It’s swift and relentless, hitting me harder than a physical blow.
“He’s going to break her,” I whisper with dread.
And it will be my fault.
All of this is my fault.
“There’s nothing I can do,” I’m unable to hear my voice over the sound of my own thundering heart. “Gods, Ylara… I’m so sorry.”
Eve straightens herself, wrapping an arm around my shoulders as I focus on deep, even breaths.
“And Vaelyn?” The question is a trembling mess as I lower my hands.
“Business as usual it seems,” Eve answers quietly. “Druka’s informants report he’s been shadowing Netharis as expected.”
A disconcerting mixture of joy and disgust takes root in my stomach.
While I’m grateful Netharis hasn’t punished my twin for his involvement in my escape, I knew this would be the case. Netharis would never punish his heir. My lip curls with the thought.
The repercussions of my choices are falling into place, blow after blow. At the same time, I know the game is skewed—tilted in Netharis’ favor. It doesn’t matter what my choices have been, unless they align with his wants, nothing will ever be easy.
“My dagger…” My voice trails off, my mind a thousand miles away.
“I have it.” Eve nods. “Along with your things from the temple.”
Nodding, I sigh. “Thank you.”
Eve purses her lips, huffing a sigh as she shifts to face me, leaning her hip against the banister. “Druka agrees the connection between you and the king is not demonic.”
My brows raise. “Oh?”
If it’s not a demonic channel, what in the nine hells could it be?
She hesitates, as if she doesn’t want to say whatever it is upon her tongue.
“I have a theory, and if I’m right, it’s not my place to tell you what he is,” Eve says softly. “That’s between you, him, and Nektos.”
?????????????
Unlike the doors, the significance of my seat at the dinner table is not lost upon me. I’ve been seated on Ryc’s left at the head of the table. Beside him—the seat typically reserved for the queen. The message hits me all too keenly, as I’m sure it does for the rest of the room.
Arguing about it now would achieve nothing, aside from creating a spectacle. Instead, I paint a soft, pleasant smile on my face. A practiced smile I’ve worn a multitude of times in the past.
To my relief, Eve is seated on my left, and beside her Lilith. Fenryn is seated on Ryc’s right, beside him Tanila, and beside her the male I assume is her father, Rowen.
As wait staff move around the table, filling our glasses with red wine, Ryc reaches, placing a hand over mine in my lap. I turn, finding him staring at me again.
“I know how this looks.” He sounds apologetic as he shifts his gaze toward the center of the table. “It’s to keep you safe from Rowen. If I present you as claimed, he is less likely to be aggressive.”
“Aggressive?”
Beside me, he nods. “He and Tanila know about your lineage.”
“You told them?”
“No. But I made a choice.”
My eyes narrow. “What do you mean, Ryc?”
“I am glad to see you’ve fully recovered, Vestaris,” a female voice trills with a false kindness across the table.
My eyes swing to its source, Tanila.
She laughs, a musical tinkling sound. “Forgive me, I don’t expect you to remember our hasty introductions. I’m Tanila Grayflame. I triaged your wounds at Ryc’s request a couple nights ago.”
Because of course Tanila would have the healing innate.
Which means she’s seen my silver blood.
Well, shit.
Ryc shifts his weight beside me, leaning on his arm against the armrest, moving closer—a territorial display, I realize.
“You’re lucky I was here,” she offers with a smile. “I don’t think you would have survived waiting for Drunina’s arrival.”
“I am indebted to you. Thank you,” I return, attempting to sound genuine over the building anger in my chest.
“You should have let me die.”
“That will never be an option.”
My jaw clenches.
“You’ve thrust me into this political game without consideration of my wants.”
“Do you want to die?”
No, I don’t want to die. But Netharis isn’t going to relent.
Glancing right, Ryc leans back, raising his glass of wine to his lips.
“You wanted protection, and I’m delivering, little demon.”
The way I could slap the smirk of his face—
I don’t know what I’m supposed to do.
Tanila is dangerous. That much is easy to see.
The secret of what I am now sits in the center of this table, larger than the gold candelabra adorned with black tapered candles.
She’s more than dangerous, she’s a threat to the little life I’ve tried to establish here.
She’s about to blow everything wide open—if she and her father haven’t already.
The urge to send my shadows across the table to snap her neck and pierce her heart is one I struggle to rein in.
Killing her and her father is an enticing option that buries itself into my chest where it festers.
Can I bear the damning consequences?
I glance at Ryc beside me.
Can I do that to him?
“I’d like to ask you a few questions,” Tanila says and Eve shoots me a concerned glance.
I swallow hard.
Ryc offers a gentle squeeze of my hand.
“Of course,” I reply, thankful my voice doesn’t waver.
My whole hidden existence sits on the edge of a blade poised to fall.
Gods damn Nektos, eight legs and all.
“Why have you come to Ollora? What business does a demigod have here?” she asks, reaching for her glass of wine.
As much as I want to, I can’t lie. She’s seen my blood.
Honesty doesn’t feel like the appropriate response, but what other choice do I have?
“To seek a simpler life,” I answer, giving her the truth.
She laughs with disbelief. “A simple life? And so you involve yourself with Alaryc?”
She doesn’t call him Ryc?
“Tanila, take the loss with grace,” Fenryn drawls with a tired sigh. “Even if she wasn’t Celesta’s daughter, you would have been made to step down once he found her.”
“Fine enough, but why hide her?” Rowen finally speaks, his voice smooth and deep. “You should have captured her and presented her before us. Instead, you hide her, betraying your duties as Sovereign King.”
Ryc chuckles. “I’ve no proof she’s a winged fae,” he says with a shrug. “I’m not going to capture and present a female on speculation alone.”
He’s lying.
My wings were visible the night Celesta pulled me into the living realm. He’d seen me then. It takes more effort than it should to keep the surprise from my face.
“And you would attest to that before Eloric?” Rowen pins his dark stare against the Sovereign King beside me.
He nods. Once.
“You’re welcome to question the High Priestess in the meantime,” Ryc says with a small smile. “Though I’m not sure now is an appropriate time considering the recent tragedy of Celesta’s devoted.”
Artemise, naturally, would lie about what she knows in order to honor Celesta’s wishes—to keep me hidden. To her, Ryc was already one too many Sovereign Kings knowing the truth of the matter.
Sulfur stings my nose in the same instant I’m blinded by hellfire. As I lower my hand, I find the blood-red stare of my father sitting across the table with a wide grin on his face.
Every pair of eyes in the room swivel to the god of death now sitting at the end of the table.
My entire body tenses, every muscle coiling in tight as Ryc’s grip becomes iron. My innate rolls within me, shuddering against every bone in my body, urging me to flee. Panic and fear flood my chest, my heart beating wildly between my ribs.
No one says a word.
No one moves.
No one dares breathe.
He’s wearing his human glamour. Dark styled hair, piercing red eyes, dressed in dark red and his wings and tail hidden away. He looks no more demon than I do.
“Please, don’t let me interrupt your conversation,” he muses, his lips curling into a wicked grin. “I’d like to hear more about how you plan on using my daughter.”
“Netharis,” Rowen says, wide-eyed, lowering his gaze to the table.
“No more to say on the matter, Rowen?” He glances about the room then nods.
I blink.
Rowen and my father know one another?
“I did not know she was your daughter, my liege,” Rowen says, his eyes remaining downcast.
My eyes grow more round than the moon.
“Rowen is contracted?”
“It would seem so.” Ryc responds, sounding disgusted.
“She may look like her mother, but I assure you she is a demon,” he laughs, plucking Rowen’s untouched glass of wine from the table.
He raises it in a toast, swinging his attention to me.
“To the happy couple. Reunited once again, I see.” He flashes an even-toothed smile.
Happy couple? Reunited?
What?
Finishing the glass in a single tilt, he slams it down, rattling the silverware and dishes. A dry, scathing laughter follows.
“You’ve skirted me for centuries, nyraphim.” He points a finger at Ryc. “But she doesn’t have the time you need to convince her to Join you.”
My head whirls to Ryc beside me.
Nyraphim?
Ryc keeps his eyes focused on Netharis as I stare.
A light wielder capable of seeing the creatures stalking in the veil—capable of besting Death Bringers—how did I not think nyraphim?
Ryc is a creature of the heavens.
Pulling my hand away from his, I shrink against the other side of the chair. Slowly, he turns, his gold eyes pinning against mine. Molten pools of gold that threaten to steal my breath as I drown in them.
“Remember to trust me, little demon,” he urges gently. “I will explain everything I know later.”
“What do you want, Netharis?” Ryc demands turning those mind-emptying eyes away from me.
“I want what belongs to me,” he says, leaning back in his seat, crossing a leg over his knee. “I would take her, but laws of the primordials and all, bothersome things they are. I have enough problems with Gaia currently.”
Netharis huffs a tired sigh.
“Return to me, Vestaris,” he says, softening his tone. “Come home and all will be forgiven.”
A bold-faced lie dressed up to depict him as a caring father.
“No.” My fists tighten into balls in my lap. “I refuse.”
“Your presence in the living realm damns every living, breathing creature. It bastardizes the natural order.” He continues as if he were trying to convince a table of students, “Demons don’t belong in the living realm.”
“I do not belong to the hells.”
“A demon that doesn’t belong to the hells doesn’t exist,” he smirks. “You’re contracted to me. You belong to me. Your soul is mine.”
There it is.
The truth of the matter.
I will never be able to escape my father as long as my contract exists.
Netharis turns to Rowen.
“I’ll make you an offer,” he begins, his voice sanguine as he points to me. “Her death for the High Throne.”
Rowen shifts under the weight of Netharis’ stare, but holds his ground.
“Isn’t that what you want?” Netharis smiles, “I can give that to you. Once you return her to the hells.”
The rage and fear that slams into me from Ryc through our channel forces me to take a ragged breath. Ryc stares at my father, his gold gaze unwavering, his jaw clenched tight.
This is an impossible situation.
Ryc cannot protect me from the god of death.
“I will take no deal you offer, devil,” Rowen says, his voice calm, despite how rigid he appears in his seat.
With a callous shrug, Netharis’ eyes move to Tanila.
“What about you, Tanila?” he croons with a sly grin. “Kill Vestaris, and I’ll give you whatever it is you most desire… which…” his eyes narrow, and he chuckles, “looks like is the Sovereign King of Erus.” Netharis laughs, pulling himself away from the table, shaking his head. “Aim higher, Tanila.”
Tanila begins to stammer, her face stained with red as she quickly lowers her gaze to her hands in her lap.
“Think about it, darling, and get back to me,” he muses in playful tones as he moves to stand beside his chair. “I always deliver on my promises. Don’t I, Rowen?”
Rowen purses his lips, swallowing hard as he stares at the place setting before him. Slinging an arm over the back of the seat, Netharis props himself casually against it. Behaving as if he were a casual friend joining us for dinner, despite the tensioned atmosphere of the room.
“The integrity of mortals is a fickle thing,” he says, curling his fingers to inspect his nails. “But I’m sure I’ll find one who will take me up on my offer. And who knows, maybe your friends will become more eager following the eclipse.”
Knowing Netharis as I do, his words are a veiled threat.
“Do anything to harm them, and I will give Celesta what she needs to free herself of you.” I fling myself upright, rage overriding my fear.
Netharis laughs with his surprise, brows raised. The sound crawls along my skin, causing it to pebble.
“If you’re foolish enough to do that, then you deserve the chaos she will unleash.” His eyes narrow as he huffs his disapproval through his nose. “You have until the eclipse to return to me, otherwise I’ll turn Ollora to ash.”
Hellfire swirls around him, and in a flash he vanishes.
Gone.
No trace he’d ever sat at the end of the table threatening the lives of tens of thousands of mortals, aside from the stench of the hells lingering in the air.
As I sink into my seat, the table erupts with panicked questions, guards rush into the room, and all I can focus on lies upon the table, beside my plate.
A gilded knife, gleaming in the light.