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 aretheslayer. 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 hadallthe 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.”
