Chapter 21
Dastian
Watching Voren play the gallant knight while Dreven looms like a sentient storm cloud is possibly the best entertainment I’ve had in a century.
It’s almost domestic, in a twisted, macabre sort of way.
Nyssa is sticking to Voren’s side like glue, eyeing the shadows with legitimate suspicion, which is fair considering Dreven is currently wearing them like a bad mood.
“Cosy,” I drawl, as we enter the so-called guest room. It smells of lavender and rot. “Though I reckon the mattress might actually bite back in here.”
Nyssa shoots me a look that could curdle milk, but her amber eyes are still swimming with that volatile light.
“Are you going to stand making remarks, or are you going to be useful?” Nyssa asks, hugging her arms around herself.
“I find my commentary provides essential morale.”
“Whose?”
Dreven brushes past me, a wall of cold authority. “Don’t provoke her, or I will toss you out the window.”
We lock gazes. I have things I want to say to him, but it will have to wait until Nyssa is out of earshot.
Telling her he knows what the Devourer is goes beyond reckless.
Nyssa perches on the end of the bed and bounces a few times.
When it doesn’t collapse, she curls up on the end and then her face crumples.
“God, I stink,” she mutters. “Does this place have working plumbing?”
“What do you think?” I ask.
She sighs. “Then you will have to let me have a shower at my house tomorrow. I can’t walk around smelling like this. Never mind a power blast, I’ll knock innocents out from the noxious gas wafting off me.”
“Be thankful you didn’t have to live back in the day,” I say with a sage nod. “The stench was unbearable at times.”
“Summer,” Voren murmurs, wrinkling his nose. “Dreadful.”
“This isn’t making me feel any better. Shower. Tomorrow. My house.”
“There’s a bucket and well out back,” I offer helpfully.
“No,” she says with a finality that makes me cave. She can go wherever she likes.
Voren lies down next to her, and she doesn’t flinch, but I catch Dreven’s eye and gesture with my head to move back out into the hallway.
He nods, and we leave, closing the door as quietly as the rotting wood will allow.
“Are you out of your mind?” I snap as we head down the stairs. “Telling her you know what the Devourer is, is a bad move, Dre. She is a dog with a bone.”
“If I don’t give her a target, she’ll aim at us.”
“So, you dangle the apocalypse in front of her like a carrot? You saw her eyes, Dre. She’s not scared; she’s pissed off. A pissed-off Nyssa is liable to try and stab the Devourer with a butter knife just to prove a point.”
“Then we ensure she has a sharper blade.” He continues down the stairs, his boots making zero sound on the wood that creaks like a dying ship under my feet.
“Ignorance is not a shield, Dastian. It is a blindfold. We cannot afford for her to be stumbling around in the dark when that thing comes knocking.”
“You’re playing a dangerous game. She’s already unstable. If she finds out exactly what this thing is… we are all in a world of shit.”
Dreven halts in the centre of the ruined hall. “She will handle it. She has to.”
“And if she doesn’t?”
He looks at me, his silver eyes devoid of any comfort. “Then we are all dead anyway, so the point is moot.”
“Cheery.”
“She doesn’t need to know what it is, she just needs to know that she is the one, the only one, who can kill it.”
“With all the power of the Firsts and then some.”
“Precisely. She will fall in line. Her attitude stinks, but at some point, in the near future, she will stop fighting us.”
“Her attitude stinks because we have appeared on her doorstep being complete arseholes. It’s not a massive shock that she can’t stand the sight of us.”
“Maybe so, but it doesn’t change anything.”
“Look, Dre. You are making me be the voice of reason, and I hate that. I’m the one who dives in where angels fear to tread. I’m the one who creates chaos and enjoys the fallout, but this… this is…” I shake my head. I don’t even have words for what this is.
“I know,” he says with a sigh. “But we are running out of time. We have been sidetracked by this slayer and her arrogance towards everything. She is creating obstacles that we have to overcome before she is ready to face the Devourer.”
“What do you think woke it?” I ask, my voice low because nothing scares me except that fucking thing. “Do you think it was her blood?”
Dreven shakes his head. “No, it was awake before we were released from our prison. It was waiting, watching, patient and absolute.”
“And ravenous,” I add. “Don’t forget ravenous.”
“Aethel’s acolyte who broke us out was like a beacon in the void. It knew the second the madman sheared the veil. We have to get to it before it gets to the crown. Nothing else matters.”
He turns on his heel and vanishes into the darkness, leaving me alone and wondering if Dreven knows he has signed the slayer’s death certificate.
Being the sensible one is giving me a headache, or maybe that’s just the lingering stench of Voren’s death magic.
Dreven is right, of course—he usually is, which is the most annoying thing about him—but using Nyssa as live bait for a cosmic horror feels a bit rough.
Even for us. And I’m the one who usually enjoys watching things burn.
The problem is, she burns so bright it’s actually distracting. I haven’t felt chaos that potent since… ever.
I trudge back up the stairs, avoiding the step that sounds like it’s waiting to cave in. The house is settling into a sullen quiet now. I nudge the door to the guest room open with the toe of my boot.
Inside, the mood is calmer than I expected. Nyssa is curled up on the moth-eaten duvet, looking small and suspiciously peaceful given she was leaking raw entropy ten minutes ago. Voren is sitting next to her, staring at the opposite wall with that creepy thousand-yard stare wraiths are so fond of.
“He’s gone to brood in a darker corner, I assume?” Voren asks without looking over.
“You know Dreven. He finds a shadow, makes it darker, and sulks until the world aligns with his mood.”
“He was reckless.”
“He knows. But he thinks this is the only way to focus her.”
Voren nods slowly and falls back into silence. I sit on the floor next to the slayer and lean back against the bed, closing my eyes and hoping that when she wakes up, she will be less grumpy and more focused on what needs to be done.
A god can dream.