Chapter 7
Thavros
When I slowly drifted into consciousness the next morning, the image of the mysterious woman was still in my mind. It was as if I knew her.
Except I didn’t know her. Not really. Not outside dreams. Yet somehow it settled in my bones with profound truth, like it belonged to me. Like she did.
The dreams had started weeks ago. It had become hard to focus on anything else. It was her, always her. Her eyes. Her voice. Her fingers were trailing across words I hadn’t been able to decipher in decades. But this time… this one felt different, like it was real.
I dragged a hand over my face, trying to rub the sleep from my eyes and the ache from my chest. My limbs felt heavy, like I’d been dropped back into my body from somewhere far away. My tongue was thick, my mouth dry.
I turned toward the statue.
There she was. Just as she always was. Stone-still. Eyes downcast. Hair swept back from her brow like the wind had caught it mid-motion. Her hands open like she was about to reach for something—someone.
My heart kicked once, hard.
I’d dreamed of her lips moving, of her gentle touch and careful gaze. I’d dreamed of her smile.
“Just a dream,” I muttered to myself. I sat up slowly, joints cracking, breath coming easier as reality settled into my bones. “Just another godsdamned dream.”
Yet as I stood and glanced down at the scrolls before me, I froze.
There was a scroll unrolled across the table, held in place by my ink jar and an old carving tool. My notes were where I’d left them—half-scribbled thoughts, broken sentences, dead ends. But beneath them…
There were words.
They were mine, but not really.
The scroll was in the graceful flowing script of Godling, a language known only to their direct descendants. I’d looked at these scrolls my whole life without an ounce of understanding. Their meaning was lost to me because I could not read Godling.
My breath caught.
My fingers trembled as I reached for the parchment. The translation. There, beneath the lines of Godling, the translation was in my handwriting, but I still had no understanding of the language. How was that possible?
I looked at the statue again. My pulse was in my head now, hammering.
“She was here,” I whispered.
The door to the war room opened as Ulgar stepped in.
“Sir, I have a message from your brother. He and his mate are preparing to emerge from the mating cave. They will join us tomorrow. They have also asked that a great Yule Feast be held in the hall to celebrate their mating and the return of the magic.”
I straightened. "Khuldruk and Callie will emerge tomorrow?"
"Yes. And Yule is in about a week’s time. Shall I tell the kitchen?”
“No, I will talk to them and start the preparations.”
Ulgar dipped his head in a nod.
"Thank you. You may go."
I sank into my chair, my eyes drifting back to the statue before me. While I was glad for my brother's emergence, the timing could have been a little better.
Frema was away on a training mission. I still had no idea how the old magic was returning... and now there was this statue.
My gaze drank her in again. The expression of wonder carved across her face. The delicate rise of her finger. Her form was still stone, and yet… I couldn’t shake the feeling that she was watching me, too.
I’d thought I was losing my mind. Maybe I still was. But there it sat on my desk—
A scroll written in Godling, perfectly transcribed in my hand.
I had no explanation for it.
And Gods help me; I wasn’t sure I wanted one.
But as I looked out the window, I saw the sun rising in the east. If my brother were truly emerging tomorrow, I needed to be prepared. His chambers would need to be aired out and readied. When he and Callie returned from the human realm, they went straight to the mating caves.
And the feast... even still over a week away, we would need to begin preparations immediately.
Even as my mind tallied the growing to-do list, it kept drifting back to the statue beside me—and the single, impossibly translated line of Godling before me.
I closed my eyes tight and drew in a slow, steady breath. Then I stood, readying myself to face the day’s work.
Part of me considered sending a rider to fetch Frema. But she’d said she would return by Yule, and she was in the field training orcs who’d awakened to newfound strength in the wake of magic’s return. No, I’d have to do this one on my own.
By the time the sun dipped behind the mountains and the long shadows stretched across the great hall, I was exhausted. Meetings. Preparations. Questions from the council. Every moment I wasn't needed, my thoughts drifted back here—to her.
To it, I should say. A statue. A relic. A trick of my dreaming mind.
Still, I hurried through the final duties of the day like a soldier racing toward a familiar battlefield. My feet knew the way even if I pretended I wasn’t rushing.
And now, finally, back in the quiet of my study, I let the mask slip.
The statue remained where she had always been, unchanged. Awe still carved across her features, her hand still slightly raised as if she’d been about to reach for something—someone.
I crossed the room slowly, as though afraid a single sudden movement would undo whatever magic I thought I’d seen. My gaze flicked to the scroll on the desk. The translation was still there, each line of elegant script undeniably mine... and yet I don't know how.
I hadn’t written alone last night. I knew that.
But knowing and believing were entirely different beasts.
I sank into my chair, elbows on my knees, and stared at her. Waiting. Hoping. Dreading.
What if it really had been a dream?
It must have been.
As I sat lost in thought, my gaze shifted, being pulled to the crystal embedded in the table below me. It shone brightly… too brightly. It was as if it was catching the rays of the sun, only the sun had set long ago.
My heart leapt, beating hard against my ribs. The magic was doing something. Changing. Stirring. Could it be?
As I turned, my eyes drew in the beautiful statue beside me, just in time to see the rise and fall of her breath. Slow. Shallow. Alive.
I froze. Terrified that any slight movement might shatter the moment. Might undo it. The statue was breathing … She was breathing.
I had no explanation for any of this. I was not sure if one existed, but I needed her to be real in a way I couldn't yet articulate.
Finally, as I begged my eyes not to be deceiving me, she turned to me, her eyes open. The moment our gazes locked, it felt like the earth shifted beneath me. She was here. It wasn't a dream.
"Hello," I said, softly, barely daring to breathe.
The corner of her mouth lifted. "Hello."
"How is this possible?" I asked, lips parted in awe—not just of the magic, but of her.
She was… awesome, in the most genuine, most sacred sense of the word.
"I don't know."
"What is your name?" The question tore out of me, desperate for a morsel—any crumb of who she was, or how she came to be, or why I felt this.
Her head tilted slightly, a small crease forming between her brows. "I don't know."
"You don't know your name?"
She shook her head, a flicker of concern darkening her features.
I hated it. Hated even a shadow of uncertainty on her face.
I wanted her to feel safe. To feel wanted.
My hands ached to reach for her—but surely that would be too much. Too soon.
And yet, I was drawn to her like gravity. Like fate. Like something older than my bones.
For a long moment, I just watched her. Unable to take my eyes off her, I was afraid she would slip away again, and I would be left questioning my own sanity.
"You're real?" I fought the urge to reach for her. I want to see for myself if she was real, but touching her seems wrong. Touching perfection might mess it up, and I would do anything to stay in the presence of this goddess.
"I'm not a figment of your imagination."
"It seems impossible. You came to me in my dreams."
"You dreamed of me."
I dreamed of her, yes, but dreams don’t leave behind translated scrolls. Dreams don’t watch you with eyes full of stars and sorrow. Dreams don’t breathe.
"Yes," I confess. "It would seem that you have filled my senses both sleeping and awake. In fact, I was fairly convinced I dreamed you last night. The only proof I had was the text you translated last night. How did you do that?"
"I don't know." Her brows once again furrowed in thought. "But somehow I feel like you are someone I've always known." She shook her head and looked away. "It's odd. I have no sense of who I am or why I'm here, but I know it is for a purpose. I'm sorry, I'm not certain that makes sense."
He gazed at her, thinking how hard it must be to be lost to all of it. "But you could read Godling. How could you read that text?"
"I mean, I suppose I must be a Godling, but I have no proof of that, only my ability to read the text. I could read a couple of the texts on your table last night. What are you working on?"
What was I working on? The question should have been simple, but nothing about her presence made anything feel simple. The scrolls, the research, the return of magic—secrets I’d buried even from most of my clan. But now… she was part of it. Wasn’t she?
She walked over to the table covered in scrolls and journals. "Would you like to translate a bit more?" she said as she reached for a scroll.
As she did, her hand brushed mine. My entire body lit up as magic zipped through me.
It was all encompassing, from an ache in my teeth to a bite and a familiar hardening in my pants.
Neither reaction was appropriate to the goddess before me.
I quickly pulled my hand back, trying to regain my composure.
I watched in rapt attention as her graceful hands brushed along the paper until she came to the scroll of Godling. I wanted nothing more than to take her hand and hold her to me, seeing if she felt like stone or if her skin held the softness I was aching to hold.
Quickly, I sat back in my chair. These were not the thoughts to have about the goddess before me. I should not defile her, even in my thoughts. If she wanted to be defiled, I would happily—no. I would not even think about that. But Gods... if she ever asked me to…
Her gaze came to meet mine again. This time, though, the heat that simmered there was palpable. Closing my eyes, I took a deep breath, trying to stop the thoughts of ravishing her right here on this very table.
"Are you frightened?" she asked, her face concerned. "Please don't be frightened of me."
"No, I am not frightened," I said in a low, gravelly voice. "I fear frightening you. You… you overwhelm the senses."
She looked up at me with a look I couldn't quite read until the corners of her lips tipped up, revealing the most beautiful smile I'd ever seen. "I'm not frightened of you," she said.
"Good, I will never harm you nor allow any harm to befall you."
"I know," she said, as simple as breathing. "I have no reason to be as certain of that as I am, but I trust you."
Those words settled in his soul like a warm blanket, shielding me from the cold mountain air.
"Good."
"Would you like me to translate more of the scroll?"
"Please."
And so we worked. She read the Godling, and I transcribed it as she spoke. We'd had these ancient scrolls for longer than I could remember, but I never dreamed I would be able to read them, let alone that she would be the one to unlock them. This magical creature. Here. With me.
There was a whisper of warning in the back of my mind. That something was off. But I silenced it. The only thing that I wanted to have hold my attention was her.
Slowly, she looked up at me with an odd expression.
"What is it?" I asked, my chest tightening.
"I feel strange."
Her movements were slowed. It was as if I could see it happening, the slip. She was fading away right before my eyes.
"Don't go," I said as I finally reached out and touched her softness, only to feel it turning to stone beneath my fingers.
She straightened. "I don't want to go," she said, searching my eyes for an answer I did not have.
In the space of a breath, she was gone. A statue once more.
Her scent still lingered in the air. An impossible mix of worn books and spring rain.
My hand lingered on her cheek, warmth already faded. I pressed a kiss to her forehead, only feeling the cold stone beneath my lips.
She would come back.
I would wait a thousand nights if I had to.
She must come back.