When he finishes, he leans in, his nose grazing my neck. “I haven’t scented a woman in so long,” he whispers against my skin. “It’s so different absorbing your aroma like this, through godly senses, not the dulled senses of a man.” Another graze, another inhale, a hand at my waist. “You smell like bliss and ruin at the same time.”
A chill courses through me as I face him, trying to tame my rapid breathing. Other parts of my body respond to his nearness as well, to the lingering heat of his touch, the feel of his breath on my skin. I’m certain he can sense what he just did to me.
“Stop,” I command. “Stop looking at me like that and keep your nose, hands, and all your other bits to yourself.”
“Why?” he inquires with a mischievous bite to his voice. “When you so clearly want me to do otherwise?” He smiles a crooked smile, and I don’t want it to make me swoon inside, but damn him, it does.
“Stop it,”I demand again, pointing a finger at him. “Just get me back to the palace and be on your way.”
“I have to touch you to sift you,” he says, raising a brow. “Am I allowed?”
My stomach twists at that, aware that I’m about to be whisked away from Mount Ulra the same as Colden was, in a flurry of godly design. I find myself stalling while my courage stops being cowardly.
“Why exactly do you call it sifting?” I ask. “I’ve always understood sifting to be a skill created by the Summerlanders. Like what the prince does.”
His face softens with a bit of humor, as though he sees what I’m doing by avoiding his question with one of my own. But if so, he doesn’t mock me.
“I call it sifting because that is what gods do. We move through” —he waves his hand around, as though searching for a word— “a primordial substance. The gods’ quintessence.”
“The aether,” I supply, having read about it.
“Yes. That is the human word for it. But the Summerlanders didn’t invent sifting. They just worked for a very long time trying to learn how to control the aether so it could be used for mankind. Some magi and even some necromancers from the East learned to manipulate the substance. It was a dangerous power in the wrong hands, though, so Urdin—the steadfast bastion of goodness that he was”— he rolls his eyes — “sealed off the Shadow World to keep the necromancers out. The magi simply kept the skill tightly contained, taught only to certain people once the gods were dead, and the aether had no one else to command it.”
My chest tightens with panic. “Thamaos. He will have access to the aether now.”
Neri shakes his head. “No, he won’t. At least he never did before. No one knows why, but the aether denies certain beings its use. There have been many gods over the ages the aether refused to answer when summoned.”
I let out a shuddering breath of relief. “Probably because it recognizes true evil.”
He smirks. “And yet it welcomes me.”
“The aether is how Alexus crossed into the Shadow World, even after Urdin sealed it off from the living,” I say, distracted by remembering his story. “He learned to manipulate it after you all were dead and buried.”
“And once he’s stronger,” Neri says, his voice laced with irritation, “the bastard could use it again, and I wouldn’t put it past him given the situation with your sister.”
My mind roils. “Alexus said what Raina did wasn’t sifting, but now I have to wonder.”
Neri shakes his head. “I traveled with your sister. Her ability is something like realm walking, or perhaps a different form of portaling. But it was not sifting. What Un Drallag did in the grove earlier, that was not sifting either. That was simple propulsion.” He moves closer, his presence overwhelming. “I can show you what siftingis, though. But again, you have to let me touch you. Am I allowed?” he asks again.
“Yes,” I reply after long seconds of hesitation, aware of the obvious nervousness in my voice and in my fidgeting fingers that won’t still. “Is there anything I should know first?”
“It’s only unpleasant if you let go or don’t hold your breath,” he replies. “So do as I tell you, and it’ll be over in seconds.” He slides his arm around my waist and tugs me flush against him.
My initial instinct at the contact is two-fold. Part of me wants to push him away while another part wants to draw him closer. I feel oddly protected in his arms.
Any deliberation is annihilated when a chill wind arrives, snow and ice spinning around us, pressure clamping down like an invisible, wintry fist.
“Hold on!” He lifts his voice over the roaring gusts and drags my hands behind his neck. “Now, deep breath.”
I clamp my hands together, fingers tangling in his hair, and inhale deeply as I squeeze my eyes shut.
“That’s a good girl,” he says against my ear, making me shiver.
In the next heartbeat, the world beneath my feet disintegrates, and I’m suddenly weightless, tethered only to the wolf, held securely in his strong arms.
As he sifts us from the mount, I swear I hear something on the fringes of the wind. A sound that swells and then fades quickly.
A wailing, vengeful bellow erupting from the grove.
