“No promises,” Voren says with a smirk that suggests he’s enjoying this far too much.
Arsehole.
Chapter 27
Dreven
Nyssa stalks back towards Marrow House, her spine rigid with barely contained frustration. The blade still glows faintly in her hand, reacting to the residual magic clinging to her skin from the fissure. She won’t know it’s there, but I notice everything about her, which is becoming a problem I can’t afford.
“You’re staring,” Voren murmurs beside me.
“She’s volatile,” I reply, not bothering to deny it. “Someone needs to monitor her.”
“Is that what we’re calling it?” Dastian adds, falling into step on my other side as we follow her up the hill. “Because from where I’m standing, you’re one heated glance away from pinning her against the nearest vertical surface.”
I don’t dignify that with a response, though he’s not wrong. One taste of her wasn’t enough. The truth is, Nyssa Vale is a complication I didn’t anticipate. She was supposed to be a tool—sharp, effective. But tools don’t argue back. They don’t smell like rain and defiance. They don’t make my ancient, carefully controlled power respond like a beast straining against its leash.
“We need to move faster,” I say, forcing my thoughts back to the matter at hand. “The Devourer won’t wait for us to coddle her sensibilities.”
“About that…” Voren trails off, his gaze pinning mine. “We need to tell her.”
“She will kill us, starting with me, and then what?”
“The realms die, and we are none the wiser,” Dastian says matter-of-factly.
“And dying after several centuries doesn’t bother you?”
“Oh, it bothers me. I intend to finish what I started with her in the lake, even if it kills me.”
“She, you mean,” I grunt. “Even ifshekills you.”
“You are too cautious, old friend,” he murmurs, serious for once in his fucking life. “She will kill us if we don’t tell her.”
“I am not your friend,” I point out. “Not anymore.”
“Oh, okay, diva-Dreven. Being elevated after Mummy’s death to the god King didn’t go to your head at all, did it?”
“Fuck you,” I snarl. “I am no King. The realm is not mine.”
“Not yet.”
“Not while we stand on mortal soil, arguing about a slayer who is the only creature who can get her hands on the anointing crown.”
“Then what are we arguing about?” Dastian asks, spreading his hands wide. “We tell her the truth, or we all die anyway. The maths isn’t complicated.”
“She’ll understand,” Voren says quietly, reading my hesitation with the accuracy of someone who’s known me for far too long. “Eventually.”
“Eventually won’t help if she stabs me in the face when she finds out the rest of it.”
“Then don’t give her the chance,” Dastian suggests, hiseyes glinting with mischief. “She’s far less stabby when she’s distracted.”
I shoot him a look that could freeze blood. “Your contribution to this crisis has been noted and dismissed.”
“Suit yourself.” He shrugs. “But when she finds out—and she will—don’t come crying to me when she’s using your intestines as decorative bunting.”
The three of us reach the front door of Marrow House just as Nyssa disappears inside. I can feel the pull of her, like a compass needle drawn to magnetic north. Every instinct I possess screams at me to follow, to ensure she doesn’t do something reckless in the next thirty seconds.
“She’s going to do something reckless,” Voren observes, reading my expression.
