I lie on the ground, panting. “That seemed too easy.”
“Too easy?” Dastian croaks.
I look up at him, and he looks frazzled. They all do.
“Yeah,” I say anyway. “Too easy. How do we know we got it all?”
Dreven stares at the seam where the shadow meets the stone. The dark ink of his power looks thin, stretched tight over the containment.
“We don’t,” he admits, his voice rough. “We trapped what came for the light. If it split itself, we caught the hungry part.”
Voren walks to the edge of the seal. He places a hand on the frost-barrier. “It feels heavy. Dense. We definitely caught something significant.”
I stand up, brushing grit from my leggings. My knees shake, but I lock them. “Significant isn’t ‘all’.”
“No, but it’s… significant,” Voren says. He keeps his gaze on the swirling darkness trapped under the ice and shadow.
Dastian shakes his hands out. The sparks are gone. He looks pale. “Well, we bought time. That was the point.”
I look at the box. It vibrates against the soles of my boots. A low hum comes from inside, angry and muffled. The snake in my soul settles down. It feels satisfied, which worries me more than the noise.
“Time to do what?” I ask. “Wait for Tabitha to stab us in the back? Wait for the ex-slayers to rebuild their syphon?”
“Time to fortify,” Dreven says. He turns to me. “You rule here now. You need to make sure this realm obeys you.”
“Delegating?”
“Not delegating,” Voren says, finally turning. His pale blue eyes fix on me. “Dominating. You trapped a god-eater, Nyssa. Act like it.”
“Well, that’s easy for you to say. You are a god. I’m just me.”
“Dammit, Nyssa!” Dreven yells at me, making me jump. “When are you going to accept who you are?”
I glare at him. “Never if you keep shouting at me!”
“This has gone on long enough,” he growls. “Accept who you are and not just with words that are meaningless.”
“I have some words for you,” I growl back. “Fuck you.”
I spin on my heel and start walking. I have no idea where to, and I don’t care.
I’m done.
Chapter 25
Dastian
“Well done you,” I drawl, watching Nyssa stalk off into the darkness.
“Nyssa!” he roars, fully unhinged now as he storms after her.
Voren and I remain where we are, staring at each other. “He is a real idiot sometimes.”
“Sometimes?” Voren remarks with an eyeroll. “He is more like his fucking father than he thinks.”
“And his mother,” I add under my breath, a throwback from when Aethel had ears everywhere and took it upon herself to cull free speech when it was about her. Tyranny doesn’t really cover her reign.
“Dreven is terrified,” he states simply.
