“Coffee?”
“Tea,” she says with a smile.
I nod and move to the kitchen again, to make her anything her heart desires.
Chapter 34
Nyssa
Dreven disappears into the kitchen, his shadows trailing behind him like obedient smoke. The sounds of a god rummaging through my cupboards for teabags feels absurd, almost domestic, but after everything, absurdity is my new normal. My skin still hums from yesterday, that ancient power coiling low in my belly like a serpent waiting to strike. It’s not painful anymore, just insistent, reminding me I’m no longer the Nyssa who sharpened blades and patrolled alone.
The kettle clicks on, and I hear the clink of mugs. Part of me wants to march in there and take over, reclaim some scrap of control, but I leave him to it. Instead, I cross over to the window, peering out at the misty fields. The village looks peaceful in the grey dawn light, oblivious to the storm brewing. Rynna’s probably still sleeping off a hangover, and the Order’s likely sipping their morning brews, none the wiser that their prized slayer is learning all about their treachery.
Dreven reappears with two steaming mugs and hands one over without a word. The tea’s perfect. Strong, milky,with a hint of sugar. I take a sip, the warmth spreading through me like a temporary truce.
“Thank you for staying,” I say quietly. “I don’t think I’d have slept as well if you hadn’t been here.”
“You’re accepting help,” he states.
I don’t say anything. There is nothing to say. If I deny it, we both know it’s a lie. If I admit it, I will feel like a failure. I’m supposed to be the strong one. The one who slays demons and protects everyone. Instead, I feel like these gods are circling the wagons and protecting me. I should’ve been patrolling last night. Not them. I sip my tea, staring into the steam rising from the mug as if it holds answers hidden in the swirls. Taye would probably say it does.
Dreven stands there, silent as a crypt, watching me with those silver eyes that seem to peel back every layer I’ve got left. It’s unnerving how he sees right through the armour I’ve spent years forging. But then, after everything they’ve cracked open inside me, maybe that’s the point. No more hiding.
“Admitting I need help doesn’t make me weak,” I say finally, more to convince myself than him. “It just makes me recalibrated. Or something.”
He nods once, the barest movement, like he’s weighing my words against some ancient scale. “Strength isn’t solitude, Nyssa. The anchor holds the ship steady, but it doesn’t sail alone.”
I snort, setting the mug down on the windowsill with a clunk. “Poetic. Didn’t peg you for the nautical metaphors type. But fine, point taken. Last night proved that much—demons don’t clock off just because I’ve been fucked into oblivion.”
A faint smirk tugs at his lips, gone in a blink. “They never do. But you slept deeply enough to rest. That’s more than you’ve allowed yourself in days.”
Nodding absently, I glance out the window again, spotting a few villagers trudging up the road towards the shops. No screams, no chaos. Voren and Dastian must’ve kept things tidy.
“Reckon the others are sulking without me?” I ask, trying to keep my tone light, but it comes out edged with something raw. That bond pulls at me, a subtle tug in my chest urging me back to Marrow House, back to them.
“Sulking requires a level of emotional fragility neither of them possesses,” Dreven replies, though a glint of amusement flickers in his silver eyes. “Dastian is likely bored, which is infinitely more dangerous, and Voren is preparing the way.”
“So, what’s the plan? I twiddle my thumbs until dusk and then march into hell?”
“Live your day,” he instructs, the shadows around him rippling, eager to swallow him whole. “Eat. Read. Do whatever it is slayers do when they aren’t hunting. Tonight, we enter the crypt. You need to be mortal one last time before you take up the Crown.”
He pauses by the door. For a second, the ancient, terrifying mask slips, and he just looks like a man who doesn’t want to leave. “Do not go near the Order today. If they sense the change in you, we could be delayed while they tie you down to investigate.”
“I wish you meant that figuratively, but I’m not sure,” I mutter.
He doesn’t smile, but the shadows swirl around his ankles like an affectionate pet before he dissolves into the dark corners of the hallway. Just like that, I’m alone again.
The silence in the cottage hits me harder than ahangover. I finish my tea and stare at the empty spot where a god just vanished into thin air. I walk slowly to the kitchen, knowing I have to clean up last night’s mess, but to my surprise, it’s been done. The kitchen is spotless, and my laundry is in the dryer.
“You are too good to be true, really,” I mutter and place my mug in the sink. I brace my hands on the counter, staring out at the grey Irish morning.
Live your day.Easy for him to say. He doesn’t have to pretend he hasn’t just discovered his entire lineage is a lie while his body hums with the energy of the Firsts.
Restlessness claws at me. I want to go to the pub. I want to find Rynna and shake her until she listens, tell her everything. But Dreven’s warning rings in my ears. If Taye gets one look at my aura right now, she’ll probably have a seizure or ring the alarm bells. I can’t risk it.
Instead, I retrieve my whetstone and sit at the kitchen table. The rhythmic noise of steel against stone is the only thing that makes sense. I sharpen every blade I own, focusing on the edge until it’s keen enough to split a hair. Tonight, I enter a realm of gods, and suddenly it becomes painfully obvious what I have to do.
Getting dressed quickly in my standard uniform of leggings, tee and hoodie, I pull my boots on and leave the house, tucking my blade into the small of my back. Dreven said not to go to the Order, but I need to know what I’m walking into without the sarcasm, the cryptic bullshit and without them dumbing it down for me. I need to hit the Order’s library and find out what the hell I can on the Pantheon realm. Forewarned is forearmed.
