It was because of the bargain. Which meant— “What is your power?”
I asked because I had to know. After what I’d just experienced, the untethered darkness of my own power… I had to know. No matter how afraid I was. I’d lived in darkness for four hundred years. At least if I knew, I would have a chance at understanding that darkness. Maura had resurrected me. But this man was my maker.
A small, self-satisfied smile curved the Dark God’s disgustingly perfect mouth. He held my gaze as he leaned back, resting against one of the posts at the end of the bed, and stretched his legs out before him. He managed it all with preternatural smoothness. He did not have to look behind him to make sure that he was indeed about to lean back against a wooden post and not thin air. I was the one who shifted out of the way so that his long legs would not brush up against mine.
He noted my movement, tracing the lines of my body back up to my mouth, where it lingered just a little too long.
“You have already experienced it,” he said.
My mind whirred into action. He could transport me to his dark realm. The humans thought it was below the ground. Heaven was up, hell was down. I knew it was not as simple as that. Twice, he’d tugged me from this reality into his. But that could not be the extent of it… nor were the cold winds that I felt in the moments before he appeared. Those could just as well be a manifestation of my own power; an alarm of sorts, tied to our mind connection.
Unless his power was manipulation… but he seemed to use his words to do that, just fine. Oh…
No, it couldn’t be. It was ridiculous.
“The Dark God’s power is making people aroused against their will?”
For the first time, a smile flashed across his face. The bored, unimpressed expression of aloofness he wore was handsome. But when he smiled… gods, I knew I wasn’t supposed to invoke them, but there was nothing else I could think of… his smile was devastating.
I thought the expenditure of power had completely wrung me out. But a feeling lit up my stomach. Not new in its existence, but in its provenance. Him.
He dragged his tongue across his lower lip as the smile faded.
“I cannot make anyone feel something that does not already exist within them.”
But he could make them feel.
“I awaken the darkest parts within you. The secrets that you try to hide, even from yourself, are mine to see and amplify. I look at you and I see your darkness, Koryn. I see the desire you try to hide.” His smile disappeared completely as he spoke. “If you imagined my hands upon you, it is because that is precisely where you want them.”
The long fingers I’d felt inside of myself had not been Garrick’s but his. Mine… but my fantasy about Garrick had transformed into one of the Dark God. Now he was telling me that fantasy was all mine.
That’s what he’d done while holding my hands. He’d taken the hate I bore for him, the secret hope that his death would somehow save me from an eternity I did not want, and used it to whip my power into a frenzy.
But that desire was already there inside of me. In answering my questions, he’d confirmed my worst fears about myself. I wasnot so different than the other witches. Maybe I’d fought harder, longer. But I was a creature of death and darkness, too. The Dark God had just confirmed it.
A new feeling chipped away at the ineffectual ice I used to try to protect myself. Sadness. I was sad for myself.
But I did not have the luxury of feelings. They made me lose control. I had to keep control. The Dark God could see anyone’s darkest desires.
It was a mind gift, like Garrick’s, but different and infinitely more dangerous.
Another realization struck me, a single piece of the disastrous puzzle that was my life slipping into place.
“That is how you knew Maura was creating a talisman,” I said. But he could do more than that. “Did you… did you make her murder that fae woman?”
His power was darkness. He was the god of death, creator of the witches, and keeper of my afterlife. I should not have asked. Not when it suddenly felt like so much hinged upon the answer.
The Dark God did not ask who I meant. I had a feeling that he was keeping watch on everything happening in Balar Shan, and maybe beyond, as well.
“I saw her darkest desire,” he acknowledged. “But her darkness needs no amplification.”
I pressed my eyes closed. Weakness be damned. He could see all the weak, broken, dark parts of me already. There was no use trying to hide from him.
My power should have been depleted, but even now I felt it stirring again in response to the flux of emotions. I spread my palms against the quilted coverlet.
“You said that the talisman she seeks to create will change the balance of power in Velora forever,” I said from behind the safety of my closed eyes. “You want me to stop her.”
“I want you to be ready for what is coming.” And then into my mind,“Despite what you might think, I hope it is another thousand years before you join me in darkness. I will have you forever, Koryn. I am content to wait.”
