She blushed. “Your brother?”
“You are familiar with the Seven Gods of the Seven Gates.”
She blinked. “Of course. Belief is highly regarded in Argyle. We know that each god rules a Realm and is responsible for a facet that created our world. Though we aren’t familiar with their names.”
“Well, Eitan is the god of the Mortal Realm, and his abilities lie in the creation of nature. The sun and the moon and the seasons, primarily spring.”
“And my mother is from the Spring Court…” Alora’s eyes widened.
“Yes.” Rune clenched his jaw. “But that doesn’t explain your ability tosiphonmy power.”
She took a hesitant step toward him, shadows following her like loyal hounds. “Rune… I’m sorry?—”
He lifted his gaze to hers, and everything inside him—rage, desire, fear, awe—bent toward her like a tide pulled by a new moon.
“Don’t come closer,” he whispered.
Her breath shook. “Why?”
“You’ve not yet acclimated to my magic. It’s untamed and reacts to your every emotion. If you touch me right now, I may crumble under your might.”
He watched her swallow hard, watching the war in her eyes. She was frightened of herself. He was frightened of what he might do to keep her.
Alora wrapped her arms around herself, luminous and trembling, shadows folding over her shoulders protectively. “What are you now?”
A question he had not let himself wonder.
Rune looked down at his hands first. Hands that once carried night itself were now… human. No ink swirling beneath the skin. No smoke threading between his knuckles. His claws had been replaced with dull nails. His body was cold, bones frail.
He meant to punish her, yet he was the one stripped bare.
A tremor slid through his spine with an unfamiliar sensation. A feeling he hadn’t felt for an age.
Frailty.
His reflection in the mirror behind her showed a face he barely recognized. Long black hair. Dark mortal eyes. No glow. No power.
He pushed to his feet and the world tilted for one humiliating heartbeat. The movement sent a sharp ache across his shoulder blades. A deep, familiar wound that never quite healed. The absence of his shadows made the old pain howl.
The world pressed harder against him. Or it had merely shown him what it meant to be mortal. His legs trembled as he braced himself against the wall.
He could feel everything. Pain. The cold. The weariness. It was suffocating.
Panic roiled in his chest. He crushed it immediately, but Alora saw the tightening of his jaw.
He wiped the clammy sweat on his brow and laughed airily.
“I am,” he took a breath, “exactly who I have always been. The King of the Netherworld. The God of?—”
The words dug into his tongue like shards of glass, lodging in his throat. The vow to never lie to her seared in his veins. His lungs rattled with a shaky exhale.
“I am still… Rune.” He winced and swallowed, closing his eyes briefly.Rune. That was the name he had long accepted and it would always be true. He stepped toward her, not too close, not with the room still spinning beneath his feet. “I do not cease to be myself simply because the shadows have… taken a temporary leave.”
Yes.
Temporary.
He clung to that word like a raft.
