“What does it have to do with the Gate?” Alora asked next.
Rune had questioned this too. Why there?
“Perhaps because my Gate is the doorway into my Realm. It is a land of wickedness and darkness, where demons are born and shadows form. It’s where I belong.”
Alora stared at him with dread. It was the same look mortals wore when they first beheld him. Where once it fed his pride, instead it hollowed him to see it from her.
Her slender neck bobbed with a swallow. “Then… how did you come into our world?”
“We arrived here over a millennia ago,” Rune continued, looking out at the horizon. “I and my brothers entered your Realm through our own Gates to shape all that you see. Once ourtasks were complete, the Gates opened and each god left … one by one. Until I remained.”
His chest compressed a moment with an odd feeling. He didn’t care that he was the last. What did it matter when no one was left to contest him?
That had been his goal before.
World conquest and bloodshed.
A means to gain the power he needed to revive his bride.
But here Alora was, a gem in the moonlight, looking so pure it made him want to corrupt her. By whatever strange miracle, she was alive now and he wished to take her with him to the Netherworld. But Rune couldn’t bring himself to admit the answer to opening his Gate rested in her hands.
And if she died before that…
The Netherworld Gate would remain closed forever.
If any of the lesser demons who preferred the Mortal Realm suspected that, they would turn their blades on Alora before the next sunrise.
Sal’vathar had meant his words as a warning. Or perhaps an invitation. Replace her and find another. Rune’s jaw tightened. As if therecould ever beanother.
Alora looked at him now with so many questions he could see spinning behind those eyes.
He couldn’t let her know.
Not yet. Not while she still feared him.
Not while her feelings hovered on the cusp of something fragile. They could easily break as she had…the moment she saw him for what he truly was.
For a brief moment last night, they were able to forget. At least Rune had, when he allowed the shadows to touch what he craved.
Alora blinked, her brow furrowing as she glanced at the bowl on the table.“They grow where darkness festers, and calamity looms…”
“What?”
“That was written on the page Segrith had taken from my mother’s journal.” Alora inhaled a shaky breath. “But…the Gate was not the first place those flowers appeared.”
He stilled. “You’ve seen them before?”
“No…” Her eyes widened as her thoughts raced.
He caught snippets of her memories. Fae rumors, songs, warnings on where not to venture, pictures of the spider lilies.
“Segrith said I needed to return the spindle to the pedestal to understand myself and what brought about the curse. What if it’s all connected?”
His jaw clenched and he glanced down at the glowing flower on the table. “If you are asking to leave?—”
“I am not asking anymore.” Alora held his gaze head on. “I need to find out the truth. If not for my sake, then for Argyle.”
“You are not leaving me,” he growled.
