And the obsidian-bladed dagger of fate was close enough to the artery that would kill him if he twitched the least bit. He knew it, too, and stayed as frozen as an ice statue. He looked like one, as well. My hand trembled on the dagger’s handle, and his pupils went wide. For the first time, I saw fear in him.
“What is that knife?”
“A kind of obsidian,” I hissed. “Ancient and powerful, and one of three made powerful enough to change destiny itself.” The stories of these blades were as rare as the weapons themselves. One myth said they’d fallen from the stars themselves. One said they were shards of the dragon’s claw that had struck down the first Alpha. I did not know what was true.
I’d found one of the three in the ocean long ago, the blade shattered beyond repair. No one knew where the second blade rested, or if it was whole.
But the blade of this dagger was far stronger than normal obsidian, and it warmed now as it tasted the ice god, like his blood was its favorite meal.
God or not, I would let it devour him.
But first I had to know one thing. “Why did you force her? Why did you use your… tail without her consent?” He was a god, not some man who desired to slake his lust on a woman’s body. Fighting him had taught me that he was not a beast. He had the ability to think, strategize. He had hurt my beloved and needed to die, but first I had to understand what had occurred.
It had occurred to me only seconds into our battle that perhaps I should have asked Rada that before I sent her a hundred miles out to sea. But her words had inflamed me in a way I hadn’t felt in thousands of years.
“My brother. Trapped him. He trapped her.” Even the tiny movements of his jaw moved the knife enough to endanger him. I pulled it out a bit, using the pitiful strength I had to stop the salt blood from flowing too copiously.
“Your brother?”
He spoke a name I’d heard long ago, in stories. “Edan.”
I hissed, “He trapped her. How?”
“I do not know. Fire. He uses fire.”
Oh, damn me to silt.“And you used ice. Why inside her?”
“He was preparing her womb for breeding.”
The strength left my hand, the dagger clattering as it fell to the stone. But the dragon did not attack me. Instead, he collapsed so close to me, my own skin grew slightly chilled. But only slightly.
I pushed up onto both elbows and examined him. “What’s wrong?” But I knew. I could see the streaks of black twisting from the place where I’d cut him.
“I am… I am…”
We both said the word at the same time. “Poisoned.”
ALEXIOS
I’d lived the past five years in terror of this moment. In my imagination, though, it had not been my own voice that ended the friendship between me and my charge. I’d been so careful not to tell the woman who had become my reason for being that the beginning of our relationship was not what she remembered. But I’d assumed the Goddess would speak through me as She’d done in the temple on my island, and in Mirren, and tell Rada about my mission. Reassure her that she was not abandoned.
I’d longed for that, even though I’d known it would mean the end of our friendship. Every time Rada’s eyes had dimmed when I spoke of the Goddess, every shaky smile when one of the Omegas she protected had assured her they would pray for her safety and health, I’d been on the verge of spilling the secrets I’d been given to keep. The Goddess hadn’t forbidden me from telling Rada who I was, but it had been clear from the first day that my mistress was running from the one who had given me this sacred responsibility.
I’d chosen to keep the secret, and now I would pay the price.
“You lied to me.” Her voice was as sharp as any of her knives.
“No,” I began, but that was a lie in itself. I had learned from childhood that lies of omission were just as damaging to the soul. I swallowed and tried again. “I did. I was given a mission, and I knew that if you suspected what that was, you would have left me behind. Or attacked me.”
“I would have.” She turned to face the water, and I knew she was crying in that way that broke my heart every time I’d witnessed it. Silently, the way she’d learned to as a child, in hiding. “So from the very beginning, it was a lie.”
“No,” I whispered. “Our friendship was never—” But she cut me off.
“That’s why you kept calling me mistress. To remind yourself I was a job.”
“No!” I’d done that to remind myself not to fall in love with her, though it had not worked. “You stopped being a mission long ago. Our friendship, the way I feel about you—it’s the most real thing in my life, Mina.”
“Oh, no. Don’t start with the nicknames now,” she spat out. “Unless you’re done being a priest?”
