He stepped toward her slowly. Carefully. Afraid she might shatter if he moved too fast.
“Your mother’s bloodline belongs to the first fae—those created by the God of Mortals. Creator of the seasons. Divinity of Spring.” His eyes held hers, catching the red glow of the spider lilies. “Perhaps if she had been with another of my brothers, you would have been born a demigoddess like her and your godmother. But to make you, she sought a power of unfathomable origin, older than divinity and greater than the fabric of the realms.”
He saw the realization enter Alora’s eyes before he said it.
The world went quiet, the wind falling still. Rune’s mouth went dry to even say the words. Something in his chest shook and air left his lungs as his vision spun. He immediately jerked forward, taking Alora’s elbow as she fought to breathe.
“Which one, Rune?” she asked desperately, her voice becoming shrill. “Tell me who.”
He closed his eyes.
The name was like claws down his spine.
“Vorak, the Devourer of Worlds,” he confessed faintly. “Sovereign of the Seven Hells.”
Alora’s knees buckled.
He caught her before she fell, one hand gripping her arm as the other steadied her waist. Her breath came fast, shallow. The weight of truth pressed against her chest and against his. She stared at the ruins like they might say the words he couldn’t.
“When he wakes, even the gods will kneel,”she murmured, staring blankly at the stones. “That is what Segrith told me.”
Rune’s jaw clenched, shadows twitching at his heels like restless wolves. The Primordials were beyond their power. It would take all of his brothers to fight one and he doubted it would be enough.
“The Dominions…” Her throat worked around the words. “They are waiting for the first king to return.”
He growled, the vibration deep in his chest. “Impossible. Vorak is imprisoned. He cannot reach into the Mortal Realm.”
“Can’t he?” Alora snapped, a tremor of fear and fury in her voice. “I am standing right in front of you. I exist because he made me!”
It was more than that.
The ruins whispered around them. Wind slithered through the broken stone, Blood Blooms pulsing in time with Rune’s mounting dread. And beneath it all, something stirred.
The simple fact that they were growing here meant Vorak’s dark magic had taken hold of this realm…
“Absorbing life,” Alora said, catching his thought. “He is the source of the Sleeping Curse, isn’t he? Vorak is absorbing the lifeforce of my people.”
Rune was stunned silent. He was regaining the strength to escape.
“What else did you see in the mirror?” she demanded next.
The vision of him dissolving to ash flashed in his mind.
Rune turned away, dragging a hand through his hair. He couldn’t let her feel his fear.
But it echoed inside of him. The same magic that once split the Netherworld open like a wound. The same force that had wrapped around his throat.
The hour of the end is nigh.
A shiver took hold of his spine and he clenched his teeth, shadows lashing with fury at his own cowardice.
Vorak was bound, forgotten, and buried by time and silence.
Or so Rune had believed.
Until now.
Untilher.
