I look down the hill where Nyssa disappeared. My gut twists. I promised her tonight. I promised her normal. But gods don’t get normal, and neither do slayers who play chicken with the ocean.
“We need to get her back,” I say, turning to the others.
“No,” Tabitha snaps. “If you interrupt her now, you break the only tether she has left to her humanity. Let her say goodbye. Just be ready to catch the fallout when the Devourer comes knocking. Because he isn’t waiting for an invitation.”
“Goodbye,” I mutter. “Once she sets foot into the Pantheon, she isn’t coming back.”
“One way or another, it ends with her,” Tabitha says.
One way or another.Then we have to make sure it ends with her standing. No matter what it takes.
Chapter 14
Nyssa
Typically, I find Rynna in the pub. The old tavern that has stood the test of time in BlackFen Edge.
The Black Dog smells heavenly of home-cooked food and a log fire. It’s comforting in a way that makes my chest ache. The warmth of the room hits me after the freezing Atlantic that tried to claim me twenty minutes ago.
I scan the room. It doesn’t take long to spot her. Rynna is holding court at a corner table, a pint in one hand and a packet of cheese and onion crisps in the other. She’s laughing, head thrown back. The guy she’s talking to is Dave, the butcher’s son, who looks like he’s trying to solve a physics equation just by looking at her cleavage.
I weave through the crowd. The floor sticks to my shoes. Normal. This is normal. I force my shoulders to drop, dragging the mask back into place over the humming, golden fire in my blood. The Crown feels heavy on my head, unseen but persistent, like a migraine with an attitude problem.
“Buy a girl a drink?” I ask, sliding onto the stool opposite her.
“Jesus, Nys! You move like a bloody ghost.” Rynna squints at me, her grin slipping just a fraction. “You okay?”
“Peachy,” I lie, flashing a smile that feels too sharp for my face. “Just the usual impending doom and paperwork. Dave, unless you’re planning to solve the mysteries of the universe or buy the next round, jog on.”
Dave blinks, his brain taking a solid five seconds to process the dismissal. He mutters something about sausage deliveries and scarpers back to the bar.
“You’re mean,” Rynna says. “I was getting a free drink out of him.”
“I’ll buy you a drink. Two pints of Guinness,” I call out to the barman, who nods. I turn back to my sister. She looks vibrant, messy, and blissfully unaware that I’m currently wearing an invisible crown made of death and bad decisions. “So, vampire staking. You handle it okay?”
“We already talked about this. It was fine.” She pauses, her eyes narrowing as she studies me. “You’re glowing.”
My heart stops. “What?”
“Your skin. You look like you’ve had a facial. Or sex. Definitely one of the two.” She smirks. “Those too-hot-to-be-fair boyfriends of yours treating you right?”
“They aren’t my boyfriends,” I say automatically, grabbing the pints as they arrive and sliding one over to her. “They’re… colleagues.”
“Colleagues who look like they model forSin and Salvation Weekly,” she snorts, taking a long drink, foam clinging to her lip. “Right. Colleagues.”
I grip my glass, the cold condensation grounding me. The snake on my head shifts its weight, reminding me that I don’t belong in this warm, sticky pub anymore. I belong to the tides and the light and the coming war. But for tonight, for one pint, I’m just Nyssa.
“Drink up, Ryn,” I say, clinking my glass against hers. “To sisters.”
“To sisters,” she echoes, unaware she’s toasting a goodbye.
The Guinness tastes like iron and earth, grounding me better than Voren’s frost ever could. I take a long pull, letting the bitter foam settle on my lip, watching Rynna demolish a packet of crisps with the enthusiasm of a starving badger.
“So,” she says, licking her thumb. “Are we going to talk about the fact that you look like you’re carrying the weight of the world, or are we pretending this is just a casual pint?”
“Pretending,” I say immediately. “It’s my favourite coping mechanism.”
“Fair enough.” She points a crisp at me like a weapon. “But if those brooding models hurt you, I will stake them. I don’t care how pretty they are. Or how much they look like they could snap me in half.”
