Chapter 14
Nyx
Valtor is still laughing when I step back into the ballroom.
The god lounges at the center of the divine table, sprawled across his gilded throne as though the entire room exists solely for his amusement.
Gold gleams from nearly every finger and around both wrists, the jewels catching the candlelight each time he moves.
His enormous white beard spills over his chest, shaking with the force of his laughter.
The other gods are no more concerned by the spectacle than they were before.
Aqualis reclines beside him, swirling deep red wine in her goblet, the liquid occasionally lifting from the cup entirely to circle lazily around her wrist before settling back inside.
Terranis tears absently at a vine creeping across the table, stuffing leaves into his mouth as though they were little more than snacks.
Soryn watches the room with mild interest, silver hair cascading over one shoulder, her star-speckled gown seeming to shimmer whenever she shifts.
At the far end of the table, Eryndor is still writing furiously across one of his tablets, looking up only occasionally to observe the festivities before returning to whatever calculations occupy his endless attention.
Valtor's laughter cuts off mid-guffaw. His head turns toward me. One by one, the rest of the room follows his gaze.
Before meeting the major divines, I would've imagined they experienced emotions only in the most superficial sense. That they acted entirely in their own interests, indifferent to everything else. Like spoiled children playing games with living pieces.
Now I know better.
I watch an entire parade of emotions march across Valtor's face. First surprise. Then disbelief. Then dismay. And finally, disappointment.
The last one is particularly satisfying.
He was hoping I would die, then. On a stupid quest to fetch a flower. I get the sense that Valtor might be rooting for us to lose more than he even cares about rooting for his team to win.
“Your flower,” I say simply, lowering my head and raising it to him when I reach the front of his table. There’s a thick, tense silence in the room, and from the back of the space, I can practically feel Thorian’s gaze locked on me, some of that surprise shared with his father.
Maybe Thorian was hopeful that I would return, but he certainly was not optimistic about it.
“I knew I sensed something about this one,” Soryn says, and when she speaks, it sends the lightest tingle down my spine, like when I was little and my mother would trace the tip of her finger over my back to bring about goosebumps over my skin.
“Keep the flower,” Valtor says, not responding to Soryn. “ I have no use for it.”
I don’t let him see how much that pleases me, getting Soryn’s praise and basically getting him to admit to everyone that he only asked me to get the flower to be an ass.
Maybe that vampire in the garden was the one who actually fought the plant, but I made sure to get the peony before it completely disappeared. That’s something.
Turning, I make the long walk back from the feet of the gods and through the ballroom, where the various other teams and competitors stare at me openly. Some whisper behind their hands. Others wonder aloud how quickly I might die once the Trials officially begin.
“There’s still time to back out,” one of them calls.
The words should irritate me. Instead, they remind me of the vampire in the garden.
He'd said nearly the same thing in the garden.
At the time, I'd assumed he was mocking me, amused by the absurdity of a human woman throwing herself into a competition she couldn't possibly survive.
Yet the more I think about it, the less certain I am.
There had been a strange look in his expression when he'd said it.
One that hadn't felt cruel at all. Almost as though he genuinely wanted me to leave.
Not the Trials.
Him.
The memory rises unbidden. His mouth against my fingertip. The way his eyes had darkened afterward. The rough edge in his voice when he'd told me to stay away from him. It was all so… fascinating. Intriguing. Not to anyone else. Not really. But to me.
It makes no sense that I keep thinking about it.
I barely know the man, yet when I try to dismiss him as a stranger, the word feels wrong. Even before the incident in the garden, I found myself drawn to him. The easy confidence. The crooked smiles.
Then he took my hand.
The memory rises so vividly that my stomach twists.
One moment, we'd been talking beneath the moonlight. The next, his mouth was around my fingertip, and something had changed. Not just in him, but in me.
It had felt like being drunk. Like stepping into warm water after spending years in the cold. Everything else had seemed distant and unimportant. The Trials. My sister. The gods. Even my own good sense.
The realization should embarrass me.
Instead, it unsettles me.
Because Talon could've taken advantage of me if he'd wanted to. I was practically floating. He could've charmed me, manipulated me, convinced me of nearly anything, and I suspect I would've listened.
Yet he hadn't.
If anything, he'd looked more disturbed by what happened than I was.
And then he'd practically fled.
“Nyx.”
Thorian’s deep voice pulls me from my thoughts, and I realize I’ve arrived back at our table. He rises immediately, his dark gaze sweeping over me as though checking for injuries. The scrutiny should be practical, yet it leaves me strangely aware of myself beneath his attention.
In the span of the past ten minutes, I’ve had two separate men make me aware of myself, the heat of my skin, the need bubbling under the surface.
Other than the occasional crush on a stable or delivery boy, and the very vivid images of the naked men, I’ve never felt anything like this.
I’d always wanted it. I would giggle with Lyra about eventually finding a husband, or even several.
Perhaps it’s leaving home that’s made me feel opened to the possibilities. Or maybe it’s the fact that tomorrow I may die.
For the briefest of moments, only a fraction of a second, I allow my mind to wander through what I might do with Thorian, or, even, shamefully, that vampire in the garden, if given the chance. If this truly is my last night in this life, like everyone around us seems to think.
“I’m glad you survived,” Thorian goes on, and I realize that he’s not gesturing for me to sit, but taking my arm, leading me from the room.
My face flames from my imaginings of him.
He either doesn’t notice or doesn’t care, simply dropping his voice and saying, “Let’s take an early leave, retire early to bed.
We’ll have a long day tomorrow, with the start of the Trials. ”
“Okay,” I manage, doubling my pace to keep up with his long strides.
Once again, just like before, Thorian moves through the place like he knows precisely where he’s going. And he likely does. This is his fifth or sixth time staying in this castle before competing in the Trials. If the trials have been at this location each year. I don’t even know.
Once we're far enough from the ballroom that no one can overhear us, Thorian stops and turns to me, his eyes serious. "What happened in the gardens? I assumed you'd realize how dangerous it was and come back empty-handed."
My mind goes over the fight. The plant. Talon’s sword. The flower. The finger sucking.
“Nyx?” Thorian prompts, his curiosity deepening. I sigh, thinking of our conversation before, when we agreed to share information that could be pertinent to our partnership.
“One of the vampires…the blond one? Talon? Came to my rescue out there.”
Thorian blinks at me. “Are you sure?”
“Yes,” I say, nodding, knowing how it sounds. “When I tried to take the flower from the plant, it tried to kill me. He arrived and fought it off.”
As I tell the story, and near the part where he noticed the blood on my finger and I so willingly let a vampire drink from me, I decide that it’s not actually that pertinent for Thorian to know. For some reason, that particular detail feels more personal.
“It doesn’t make any sense.” Thorian shakes his head and runs his hand over his face. I notice bags under his eyes that weren’t present a few days ago. Clearly, being my partner is affecting him. “What angle is he playing at?”
“Perhaps there was no angle,” I argue weakly. “Perhaps he just had the urge to help a lady.”
Thorian scoffs, “Right. You and I both know it makes no logical sense for anyone to help a competitor in the Trials. Let alone a vampire.”
I open my mouth to respond to that, suddenly feeling like that response is too harsh, despite my own anger at vampires after how Lyra was taken, but there’s a noise at the end of the hallway, and Thorian takes my arm once more, pulling me the rest of the way to my room for the night.
“So I trust no one?” I question, when he opens my door. Inside are several beds, clearly designed for a team to stay in together.
“No one,” he confirms, giving me a look like I’m crazy.
My stuff is piled at the foot of my bed. His stuff is nowhere to be seen. I can’t decide if that is a good sign or not.
“You’ll be alone tonight,” Thorian says, as though he can hear my thoughts as they happen.
“Why?”
He hesitates. “I thought this would be best.”
I nod, even though I still don’t entirely understand him.
“But I won’t be far. I’ll know if anyone tries to bother you.”
I feel my eyes widening. “Do you think they would?”
Thorian shrugs a shoulder, his jaw ticking as he crosses the room and closes the curtains. I try not to stare at his back as he does, try not to track the motion.
“I can’t rule out that someone might try. It’s not like the gods are going to punish anyone for thinning the herd before the Trials begin, and we’re far enough from any law enforcement that the incentives not to murder are rather low.”
Thorian finally looks up at me, his expression serious. “And maybe Talon changes his mind. Decides to come back for a drink.”
Heat immediately floods my face.
“You make it sound as though I’m a bottle of wine.”
One corner of his mouth twitches. “A particularly appealing bottle of wine, perhaps.”
I stare at him.
“Was that a joke?”
“No.”
“Right.”
His expression sobers again.
“Or he comes back for something else.”
The words send an uncomfortable flutter through my stomach.
“What?”
Thorian is quiet for a moment, considering. “I’ve been turning it over in my mind, and there are only two reasons he would've rescued you. The first is that he intended to gain your trust, catch you off guard, and drink you dry.”
My stomach drops. “And the second?”
Thorian comes closer until he’s standing in front of me. He simply studies me. His gaze travels over my face before returning to my eyes, and his expression softens.
“The obvious answer,” he says. “A man being charmed by a beautiful woman.”
I scoff, suddenly completely flushed with heat. I don’t like how aware of myself Thorian makes me feel, and it’s especially so with how close he’s standing right now. With the knowledge that it’s only he and I in this room, the door closed, nobody the wiser to what we might do.
Back home, there could be societal consequences to relations before marriage.
Potential husbands might be turned off by the idea of a lady who had her fun before the wedding.
But here, and now, it’s like Thorian said.
We’re far from enforcement of the usual rules.
And I’m risking my life tomorrow. Taking mortality in my hands.
Would anyone really blame me for spending one night with a man, even if only to know the taste of it?
To have a taste of him. His large hands, his rough scruff against my cheek.
When I imagine it, it’s like I can feel the heat of his chest against mine, the slick of our skin together.
All I have to go off is the time I walked in on a farm hand and servant girl in the barn, and what Lyra and I have gleaned from various romance books pilfered from my mother’s collection.
“Well, it must be a trap, then,” I blurt out, no longer able to take the tension in the room. I realize I’m breathing hard, my face hot, my mind running away with itself. “I may not be homely, but I’m certainly not some sort of great beauty.”
This I know to be true… surely my family’s fall from grace wouldn’t have discouraged a man from me if I was pretty enough? I’d heard nothing could stop a man from stealing the hand of a beautiful woman once he saw her, yet no men were knocking at my door.
Thorian lets out a breath. “You don’t have to be modest, Nyx. We’re both aware of your beauty.”
I hold his gaze, staring back at him, and he laughs. “Or, maybe it’s just me. You are beautiful. It’s worth being aware of. There’s…an allure about you. Heads turn when you walk into the room. Surely you’ve noticed?”
Of course heads turn, but I assumed that was due to the more recent ridiculousness of my situation.
Or due to my mother’s actions, our family’s fall from grace.
The thought that Thorian thinks me beautiful is warming and distracting, but doesn’t speak to the rest of the male population.
Or even those who will try to kill me tomorrow.
“It could be a benefit,” Thorian muses, his hand scrubbing at his chin, “all the other men falling over themselves for you.”
“I do not possess the kind of beauty that men fall over themselves for.”
Thorian goes on, as though I haven’t spoken at all, “As long as you don’t get distracted. As long as you remember your sister. The spoils of the Trials are far more useful than beauty will ever be.”
“I hardly think you’re one to talk,” I mutter.
He stiffens. “You’re implying I’m beautiful?”
“Well, you’re a demi-god. Surely you already know you possess… unearthly beauty.”
He grins.
Then, because I’ve just called him beautiful, I add, “And I hardly think you’re one to lecture a woman on the value of her beauty.”
“Fair,” he says, with a slightly amused sigh.
As he makes his way to the door, I realize that, more than anything, I want him at my side. Near me, at least, before what is surely going to be the most difficult day of my life. Although such a thing would be improper for me to suggest.
Now, if he suggested it?
“Good night, Nyx,” Thorian says, his deep voice rumbling through my nerves. He lingers at the door, his gaze sweeping up and down my form before finding my face again. It’s as though I feel the physical touch of him looking, along the bridge of my nose, over my jaw, fluttering across my cheekbones.
“And, for what it’s worth,” he says, pulling his gaze from mine forcibly, “you absolutely possess the kind of beauty men fall over themselves for.”
With that, he closes the door, and I’m left with nothing but the faint, wanting throb between my legs and the sound of his footsteps trailing away down the hallway.