Chapter 28
Nyssa
The words hang in the air between us like a guillotine blade, and I’m standing directly underneath it, waiting for the drop.
I stare at him. “Your father. The thing that’s currently trying to eat reality is your dad?”
Dreven’s expression doesn’t change. He stands there, all shadows and leather, looking like he’s just told me the weather forecast rather than dropping a bombshell that should by all rights make me drive my blade through his chest.
So why aren’t I?
“That’s a significant detail you forgot to mention,” I say, my voice deadly calm. The calm before I absolutely lose my shit.
“It changes nothing,” Dreven says, but there’s a tightness around his silver eyes that suggests even he doesn’t believe that.
“It changes everything!” My voice cracks on the last word, and I hate myself for it.
I grip my blade tighter, the runes burning hot against my palm.
“You want me to retrieve a crown that belonged to your genocidal father before he turned void-eating? Are you out of your fucking mind? And by the fucking way, how did he go from Wraith King to Devourer?”
“His mum,” Dastian says slyly, like he was waiting for this moment to drop a grenade.
“Mum?” I croak.
“Aethel,” Dreven grits out. “Not my mother.”
“Technically—”
Dastian doesn’t get to finish his sentence as Dreven goes Shadow God on our arses. I throw myself sideways as shadows explode outward from Dreven like a detonation. They slam into Dastian, hurling him across the hall, where he crashes through a conjured table that dissolves into sparks on impact.
“Must we?” Voren snaps, ice crystallising in the air around us.
I’m already moving, my blade up and ready, because if there’s one thing I’ve learned over the last decade, it’s that anything with supernatural power having a tantrum is bad for everyone’s health.
The shadows crackle around Dreven, coiling and snapping at the air.
His eyes have gone completely black, no silver left, just shadow.
“Dreven,” I say, keeping my voice level despite my heart trying to hammer its way out of my chest. “Stand down.”
He doesn’t even look at me. His attention is fixed on Dastian, who’s picking himself up from the wreckage with a grin that suggests he enjoyed that far too much.
“You want to go again?” Dastian taunts, red-gold energy crackling between his fingers. “Because I’m happy to—”
“Shut up,” I snap at him, then turn back to Dreven. “Both of you, stop acting like children, or I’m walking out that door, and you can all eat each other for breakfast and remain crownless.”
The shadows hesitate, flickering. Dreven’s gaze finally shifts to me, and the intensity in it almost makes me take a step back. I hold my ground, blade still raised, pulse hammering in my ears.
“Walk away, then,” he says, his voice like gravel dragged over broken glass. “See how far you get before the Devourer finds you. See how long your village, your sister, survives.”
“That’s not fair,” I spit back, hating that he’s right. Hating that I’m trapped in this nightmare by my own bloody conscience.
“Fair?” His laugh is bitter, devoid of humour. “Nothing about this is fair, slayer. Do you think any of us wanted to be locked away in the first place? Then thrust back out into this realm where all hell is breaking loose?”
“Well, I wouldn’t say all hell—”
“Just wait,” he growls, interrupting me.
I swallow and take a deep breath, trying to be the bigger person here. “Let’s all just calm down and rewind a second. Aethel was your mother?”
“She birthed me, nothing more.”
“And she killed your father? The Wraith King? To gain power over Voren’s dad?”
“Yes.”
“So why not just tell me this to begin with? Why did we have to end up in a near-death experience over it?”
“He was worried that if you found out his parents were both murderous, you’d murder him,” Voren says helpfully.
I give Dreven a look that I would give a kicked puppy.
He doesn’t appreciate it.
“I don’t need your fucking pity,” he growls. “I need you to drag the power of the Firsts out of the depths of your fucking soul to get your hands on that crown.”
“And then what? Give it to you? You can’t touch it.”
“Who said it was for me?”
His gaze locks with mine, and I daren’t breathe.
My stomach drops. “For me.”
It’s not a question. It’s a horrible, dawning realisation that settles over me like ice water.
Dreven doesn’t confirm or deny it. He just watches me with those black-shadow eyes, waiting for the pieces to slot into place in my thick skull.
“You want me to wear it,” I whisper. My blade feels heavy in my hand suddenly. Too heavy. “And what happens to me when I put it on?”
The silence that follows tells me everything I need to know.
“You don’t know,” I say flatly. “You have no fucking idea what it will do to a mortal.”
“You’re not entirely mortal,” Dastian points out. “The blood of the Firsts runs through you. That’s the only reason we think you might survive it.”
“Might.” I laugh, but there’s no humour in it. “That’s comforting.”
Dreven takes a step towards me, and the shadows retract slightly, pulling back into him like obedient dogs. I take a step back, keeping my blade between us. Not that it would do much good if he really wanted to hurt me, but it makes me feel better.
“You’re asking me to put on a crown that might kill me, to fight your father, who’s currently eating reality, all so I can... what? Save the world? Both worlds?”
“Yes,” Dreven says. “And he’s not my father. Not anymore.”
“And if I say no?”
“Then we all die. The mortals, the gods, everything between. The Devourer will consume it all until there’s nothing left but void.”
I look at Voren, then Dastian. Neither of them contradicts him. Brilliant.
“So basically, I’m fucked either way. Either I might die putting on this crown, or I die when your dad eats me along with everything else.”
“There is a third option,” Voren says quietly.
“Oh? Please, enlighten me.”
“You survive putting on the crown. You harness its power. You stop the Devourer.”
I let out a laugh that borders on hysteria. “Right, because that is the option that we all want, and we know how that usually pans out.”
“Maybe so,” Dreven says. “But you are not just a slayer, Nyssa. You are the slayer. The one we’ve been waiting for.”
“Waiting for?”
“Since the Firsts combined their power to lock us away. All of this playing out now isn’t a coincidence. It’s fate.”
“Oh, fuck off with fate,” I grumble. He can’t throw words like that around.
They mean too much. They are too heavy, too full of implications.
“What you’re saying doesn’t make sense. The Firsts combined their power into one slayer.
That power was passed down. I’m not some special creature that suddenly has more of that power, because we have all had all the power. ”
“No,” Voren says. “It has been diluted over the generations. Until now. It was waiting for the vessel. The one who would be strong enough to handle what’s coming.”
“And that’s why the Devourer has made its move. Because you were strong enough to kill Aethel. But you are also strong enough to kill it. It’s a matter of time and planning,” Dreven says.
“Time and planning? On who reaches the crown first?”
“The Devourer doesn’t want the crown, Nyssa. It has no use for it. It just wants to consume everything in its wake. The more it devours, the stronger it becomes. It is leaving the two most powerful realms for dessert.”
“Earth and Pantheon,” I mutter.
“Precisely.”
“So it’s consuming realms as we stand here chatting?”
“Minor ones, yes. But the ripples are being felt. The Tidewraith, the abominations, these are all responding to the coming of the Devourer.”
“How long until it reaches us?”
Dreven shrugs. “Who knows?”
“Let’s assume soon,” Voren adds.
The decision is made before I even take my next breath. I’m the slayer. The one that stands between it and the innocents. How can I walk away knowing I will be dooming entire realms to non-existence?
“You reckon the power of the Firsts was diluted, but somehow it is lurking in my depths?”
“Yes,” Dreven says.
“Then how do I access it?”