“You speak of your home as if it is nothing but brokenness and despair. That can’t possibly be all there is.”
“It is,” he counters curtly.
“It is not, and I can prove it.” Silence settles between us again. He doesn’t move, doesn’t speak, doesn’t even breathe. This time I am positive that the god has disappeared, but I whisper my plea anyway. “Give me one day there.”
“No.” The single word spoken in the abyss rattles my bones.
Seems he has not left after all, and it’s that thought, that curiosity, that pushes me further. “Are you afraid of being wrong, Dark One?”
“Hardly,” he says with a chuckle, the sound sending an errant shiver down my spine again. “It’s you who should be afraid. The Under Realm is no place for your light.”
It’s my turn to chuckle. “You have made a very big mistake, Your Majesty. You see, I am a stubborn god and you have just challenged me. Now I must go to the Under Realm and I will not rest until you agree. You would save yourself a world of trouble by just saying ‘yes.’”
He is close enough that I feel his chest rumble as he growls.
“I will wear you down eventually,” I declare, reaching out to lay my palm against the hard plane of his chest. “That’s the thing about being immortal. We have nothing but time, Drayven.”
“Do not call me that.” His hand wraps around my wrist, yanking it from where it rests. “I am Death and you will address me as such.” His eyes, now narrowed to snake-like slits, glow in the darkness.
My voice slips into the familiar timbre of authority. The imbalance of power in this dynamic does not swing in his favor, and he will know that without question. “I am the Goddess of Light. What thrives in the dark cowers from me.”
In a blinding flash, the lights return to their full intensity. Drayven drops my hand to shield his eyes from the light—my light. His shadows wrap around him instinctively and I can’t resist reaching a hand through their mist. They tingle, making the hairs on my arm stand to attention, but they do not harm me.
“Hmm,” I muse as the shadows shirk from the golden light that pours from my body. “I will illuminate your realm and you will see what has been right in front of you all along.”
A world full of endless night must contain moonlight and starlight. One step into his realm and I could show him the beauty in the darkness. Constellations and auroras, shooting stars in the fabric of his sky—all of which would steal his breath. I know they exist. I feel them calling to me even here.
He steps closer, forcing me to look up at him. “You intrigue me. There is something about you…” Drayven lifts my chin, tilting it to one side and then the other slowly. “Hmm,” he ponders.
“What?” I ask in a whisper.
“You see something where there is nothing.” His fingers trail down the center of my throat. I hold my breath through their agonizingly slow descent until they rest atop the hollow of my neck. “It will be your demise.”
“I am not afraid of you.” I declare the truth boldly. It’s not thegod who scares me, but the hunger I’ve felt in his presence for hundreds of years. And it nearly brings me to my knees.
“Oh, but you should be, Light.” Drayven bends down, his breath brushing the shell of my ear as he speaks. “You should be very afraid.”
The Dark God of Death steps back letting his shadows conceal him once again. Before the last wisps of his magic vanish from sight, one final whisper fills the hall. “Try to stay out of trouble, goddess.”
CHAPTER 4
SELENE
One year later
“Why does it have to be in his bedroom?”
I stare up at the obsidian and red carvings that cover the gaudy door. Unlike the others in the palace depicting beautiful scenes of the creatures that inhabit our myriad of realms, the Wolf God demanded the rose quartz sculptures on his bedroom door be replaced with this visual atrocity. Mikais has been accused of many things in his eternal life, but no one has ever accused him of having taste.
“For the last time, it’s a meeting not an orgy,” Nina sighs.
“An orgy would be preferable. Significantly lower chance of being exiled.” I roll my eyes as Nina taps a series of coded knocks on the door.
An entire year of her going on and on about how imperative it is that I listen to Mikais’ proposal has landed me in this moment. Despite my protests that I am only here to listen, there will be no going back once I cross the threshold.
No one has seen Arcasia since she gave birth to the prince. Rumors of her imprisonment and Nobus’ dominance over his wife and child circulate through the pantheon, further accelerating the growing movement to dethrone him.
Something about the baby terrifies the God King, and he’s waiting until the prince’s birthday and the bestowing of blessings to decide if he will live or die—an act that I cannot stomach no matter how much I may wish to avoid Mikais’ war.
