If I’d had the strength to laugh, I might have.
Gadriel was as depraved as he was predictable. The chain at my waist was crafted in the same style as my old consort chain, only this one wasn’t gold. It gleamed dark, made of iron. A tassel hung from one of the rungs, but it wasn’t crimson, and it wasn’t silk. It was metal, woven from hundreds of tiny interlocking rings. They clinked softly as theybrushed together, and from the center of the tassel hung a pronged stone, set into a black-glimmering pendant.
A faceted piece of the stone.
If I had felt even the faintest flicker of my Wrath before, it was gone now. All that remained was the sensation of the walls pressing in around me. Somewhere deep in my mind, I saw something. Maybe it was the last shred of my divinity, a final cry for help, or a warning of what was to come, but I saw the branches of my ossiraen beginning to wither, turning dry and brittle. Whatever this artefact was, it was all wrong. It felt as though the world had been turned inside out, day made night, fire turned to ice.
“It’s perfect,” Gadriel uttered, his eyes lingering on the chain. “Now release her.”
At once, the knights freed their hold on my arms and ankles, and I dropped. But Gadriel was already there, catching me before I hit the floor. My body hung limp as he cradled me under the shoulders, holding me upright. With a slight pull, he drew me back to look at me, though my eyes were half-lidded, too heavy to stay open. Lifting me into his arms, he settled my head against his neck, my legs dangling loosely over his other arm.
“There’s something else I want to show you,” Gadriel whispered. “But not until morning.”
The prince of Hyrall began walking, retracing the path we’d taken to get here. Sir Karst and Sir Regis soon took the lead, walking ahead of us. All the while, Gadriel whispered softly in my ear, words woven from delusion and imagined triumphs. I could barely process them. I wasn’t sure I wanted to.
He carried me back to his quarters, and when we arrived, the drawing room was different. A bed now stood at the center of the space, four-postered and draped with sheer silk curtains, as though it had always belonged there.
Gadriel laid me down gently and pulled the sheets over me, as iftending to something fragile. But it wasn’t with kindness. It felt like possession disguised as care. And it unsettled me more than if he’d dropped me on the floor.
I would get out of this. I had before, and I would again. No matter what Gadriel planned, no matter how tightly he thought he held me, I would find my way back to Torhiel.
“Goodnight, Odessa,” Gadriel said quietly, pausing at the doorway. “Tomorrow, everything begins. My reign, our glory. You’ll never slip from my grasp again.”
Then Gadriel turned and left, locking the door behind him.
A presence tugged at me,pulling me from whatever fog of sleep and numbness I’d sunk into. I could barely manage to open my eyes. The chain around my waist was still there, just as heavy as it had been the night before. But something roused in me. A feeling I recognized. There was a flicker of divinity, a trace of Vengeance. It was faint, but Iknewit. It called to me. I was drawn to it instinctively, like the way a flower leans toward the sun, or a fish finds the pull of current.
It felt likeRaithe.
“Raithe?” I managed to rasp, my heart catching in my chest.
“I was wondering when you’d wake,” a deep voice answered. But the moment the words reached my ears, I knew it wasn’t Raithe.
I tried to lift my head, to open my eyes, but everything felt far away. My body was heavy and my limbs felt barely my own. It took everything I had just to mutter, “Why are you here, Hadeon?”
“Unpleasant, isn’t it?” he replied, his voice drifting through the room. “Perhaps you’ll survive long enough to adjust to it.”
The stone’s weight at my waist lightened, just enough for me to force my eyes open. In the pale dawn light, I saw him. Hadeon stood beside the bed, cradling the black pendant at my waist in his hand, hisbrow creased in thought. And for a moment, just briefly, he looked beautiful again. His skin was pale as porcelain, his copper hair was smooth as silk. And his eyes were so golden they made me ache. That color brought everything back, memories of Raithe, of what I’d lost. I had to look away before I started to shudder.
“Where is he?” I asked.
“I expected your first question to be why I did it,” Hadeon said, dismissing me, turning the stone over in his hand. “If you had embraced your godhood long ago, I doubt you’d be in this position now.”
I said nothing while I stared at him, disdain plain in my eyes.
He held the pendant up slightly. “A rarity,” he murmured. “A stone capable of suppressing a god’s power. In all my centuries, I’ve only encountered one other like it. And it makes me wonder, perhaps something greater than the gods must be at work to forge such a thing.”
“A form of balance,” Hadeon added. “To keep the scales from tipping too far.”
Hadeon released the pendant, letting it fall back against me as if it meant nothing at all. “But as you’re beginning to understand, even a relic designed to bind a god has its limits. Strength like ours only bends for so long.”
The moment Hadeon’s hand left the pendant, the weight came rushing back. Only then did I understand just how effortlessly he had carried it.
“The mortal prince, I’ve only heard Vengeance rise like that a handful of times. So pure, so absolute. It’s rare to witness something that unbridled.” He paused. “I couldn’t tear my eyes from it.”
But I couldn’t follow Hadeon’s words anymore. The weight from the pendant was pressing in on all sides now, and it was the only thing I could think about.
“Hadeon,” I managed to say. “Just a moment longer.”
