“You should rest.”
“It’s not that bad,” Ivy insisted, clearly lying. She was sweating hard, desire wafting off of her in waves.
She wobbled toward the edge of the nest. Vale considered restraining her, then decided against it. The void had obviously taken a liking to her for some incomprehensible reason. It would not harm her.
Vale set off down the path that the void had cleared for him. Interestingly, it led him straight back to the silver pool. He stood in front of it, annoyed.
“You might have told me when I was here mere minutes ago,” he said aloud. “I carried the mortal all the way back. What was the point?”
The void gave no answer.
Ivy stumbled behind him, panting. She was so unsteady on her feet that Vale almost regretted making her walk. He had hoped she would give up and head back to the nest.
“The void will not harm you, even if you are left alone,” he said reluctantly. “You should have…”
He trailed off. Something was pulsing inside the pool.
He stared into its silvery depths. The pool throbbed thrice more, then something he had never seen before happened:
A white crack appeared in the ground.
The air shivered. For the first time in decades, Vale felt what the void was feeling.
Fear. Deep dread. Something was poisoning it.
Then the void left his mind, and Vale reeled.Poisoninghis void? There was only one explanation, whether she was aware of it or not…
He turned to Ivy. “Did you find your ring?”
Ivy blinked rapidly. There was no sour guilt in her scent, only the heady desire that was becoming difficult to ignore.
“My…” She touched her finger, where a ring might have rested. “No. But—but it showed me footprints. Back to the pool. Do you think it’s in there?”
A hundred possibilities flashed through Vale’s mind: a cursed ring crafted to poison the pool as he carried her into his void. Or perhaps the ring was just an excuse to come back here with whatever magical horror she had been hiding.
Vale turned his face to the dark, shimmering sky and waited.
No answer came. But no vines came shooting out of the ground to ensnare Ivy, no bones forming a cage to trap her inside. If she were truly a threat, the void would tell him.
Especially since it was sotalkativenow.
Ivy peered at the crack next to the pool. “Is that bad?”
“Yes,” Vale admitted. “Something has happened to the pool. Whatever happens to the pool will affect the entire void. I must contact my brother before it worsens.”
“Yourbrother?” Ivy whirled on him, the movement so fast it made her stumble. She grabbed his robed arm, her fingerssinking into the muscle underneath. Ivy trailed off, staring at his arm in a way he had not been looked at in a very long time. The scent of desire thickened, and Vale was appalled to realize it was not entirely coming from her.
Calm yourself, he thought. He extracted his arm from her hold, and Ivy gasped as if coming up for air.
“Your… brother,” Ivy repeated, wiping her sweaty hair from her face. “Is it the one who took a sacrifice centuries ago and made her a god?”
Vale held back a rare laugh. Mortals lived such short lives that these stories got distorted over mere centuries.
“Ruby was never a sacrifice,” he said. “And she madeherselfa god.”
He moved to step into the pool.
“Wait!” Ivy cried. “Take me with you.”
