“I accept.”
Arati smiles. “I knew you would. As much a menace as you’ve been, my dear niece, your passion and depth of love have earned my respect. There’s fire in you where fear should be. Let’s hope you don’t regret that later.”
This memory shifts abruptly, billowing and changing until I find myself once again at the edge of a sea of clouds. Only this time, I’m looking down below with a hollow ache in my chest as the dark silhouette of something circles far below.
Round and round it goes.
In this memory, I sit up and pull out a knife. And when I cut my hand, instead of crimson, golden blood seeps from my broken skin as I let it drip onto something I can’t see.
It reminds me of another vague memory. My golden blood—no,ichor—swirling into a bowl along with the golden blood of Arati as words I know too well slip from my lips.
"I swear this oath in my own blood, that should I survive my fall to mortality…”
I jolt back to myself with a gasp, my pulse racing despite my empty, burning chest.
“Fuck,” I mutter, my grip tight on the scythe still in my hands.
“What was that about?” Douglas asks, sounding disturbed.
I don’t have time for questions. I need to track down my guys and tell them that once again, I have royally fucked up.
Because I made another oath.
I exchanged a fuckingblood oathwith the queen of the gods, and I have no fucking clue what I swore to do or not to do. Breaking a blood oath means your essence is wiped from every plane of existence for all time, and yet I agreed to it—and now…
“Where are they?” I blurt.
Asher Douglas grunts. “For the record, I told them not to piss you off by going.”
“Goingwhere?”
“No fucking clue. They said something about getting something from a Dagon. Pretty sure someone mentioned your heart, which makes no fucking sense.”
Oh, my gods.
If they survive Dagon, I’m going to fucking kill them.
33
EVERETT
“I cannot believeI actually miss hearing youscútráchaeinside my head,” Silas mutters. “It would be useful right now to telepathically communicate with Crypt, but gods only know I have enough moronic input bouncing around in my skull.”
“And then there are all those pesky voices you have to deal with,” Baelfire shoots back, gripping his own head with a growl as we stalk through this snowy, tree-filled landscape.
I don’t bother jumping into the usual banter. We’ve been away from Maven for almost an hour, but already, it feels like my lungs are slowly collapsing. I pause in our trek to brace my frost-covered hands on my knees, trying to breathe as I spiral.
What if the wards on the castle fail, and all the people clamoring to see a demigoddess in the flesh manage to get inside? What if she realizes we excluded her from this and thinks it’s because we doubt her abilities?
I remind myself that this is necessary. We needed to get her heart as soon as fucking possible, because the thought of her holy magic suddenly running out and her dropping dead again is strangling me.
Unless…
What if it’s already happened, and this time I’m not even there to hold her while she dies?
Oh gods, oh gods, oh gods, oh?—
“Hey. Breathe,” Baelfire says, gripping my shoulder to pull me upright. “In. Out.”
