Tiredly, I rubbed my eyes, closing another heavy, ancient tome and pushing it aside. I wasn’t just reading shit on Nyx anymore. I was going back to records from the creation of Avalon, focusing on the written accounts of the Priestesses. If I was going to find any real reference to God Runes, or even the skull itself, I could potentially see it being referenced by those closest to Nyx outside of the Queen or Daughter.
Priestesses were basically like human nuns, only with literal magic, and they were trained warriors. Only females were brought into the Priestesshood, and it used to only be witches—Nyx’s first creation. But since the war of the Old World, it opened to all creatures—but still only females.
And they were a wealth of knowledge. They detailed everything. There was even a small novel about the upbringing of Pandora.
But stillnothingthat would help me.
I pulled another thick book towards me, a breath leaving my lips in a huff. This one, to my utter irritation, was about the Fae. A brief history of their High Rulers. Faery existed long—and I meantlong—before Nyx started walking the realms, and it was probably why they were still so pissy about her saving their asses with her Goddess magic. I didn’t know much about their historybeforeNyx, but I knew they predated her arrival in the human world by a thousand years at least.
That meant a lot of time with only High Queens and no interaction with demons or the creatures of Nyx. Once upon a time, even the Underworld had its own real leader, but they were long gone, too.
I refocused my energy on searching for anything relating to Queen Titania. But most importantly, Emris.
The first hundred or so pages were just a long history of her rule specifically. What she did, what she didn’t do. How Titania mated a male from every court upon her ascending the throne—and here I thought Ivy would have too many mates. It made eight for Titania, and well, every Queen before her. But it was meant to be a sign of unity, of giving each court a representative in the High Palace. Or something like that.
I could see why Nyx mirrored her Queen after the Fae, and why Titania allowed for the inclusion of Faery into Nyx’s Domain.
Then I got to the family tree. Sitting back, I stared at the page in disgust, especially the image of the male who set this all in motion.
“What are you looking at so disdainfully?” the Elysian King asked, appearing from the shadows somewhere to my left. I glanced up, taking in the dark suit—black jacket, black vest, black dress-shirt. The male looked like he was on his way to a funeral, not joining me for research.
But hey, I was in sweatpants and a heavy knit sweater I’dgotten for Ivy, making sure it was doused in my scent for the moment we got her back. If I knew anything about our mate, especially her magic and the trauma she was going through, she’d need the safety of her mates. It would be like her magic coming in on steroids, only much, much worse. And if there was anything I learned during my training at Phoenix, traumatised mates needed their bonded. Not just physically, but in a lot of different ways. Scent included.
I crossed my arms, watching as the demon strode towards my mess of a table, taking the seat across from me. Even sitting, he was huge. But I shook my head, dropping my stare to the book. “Just the family tree of Titania.”
“Now, why would you bother with that?” he asked, leaning forward almost curiously.
With a sigh, I explained my plan, telling him how I wanted to figure out how Emris could have found the skull himself, and whether he could have ensured there was someone to keep his work going for him. Because even though he had to be some kind of delusional prick to have thought he would succeed in stealing not just his sister’s power, but Pandora’s, he had to have had some help.
“Ah, yes.” Rhadamanthus leaned back, arms crossed. “I had only one interaction with that male. The day Pandora was proclaimed Queen. And even then, he made me ill. What did Asael tell us? The Fae had been charged with protecting the skull?” The king just shook his head, almost like he was disappointed. “Why in any realm would Nyx entrust those wicked folk with such a powerful artefact?”
I hadn’t even thought of that. “Good question,” I muttered, pulling the book closer. “Why not the Priestesses?”
“The Fae are much, much older than Nyx’s Domain,” Rhadamanthus murmured, sitting straighter. “I would assume it’s because Nyx didn’thaveher creatures yet. But still, why not retrieve the skull when she had her loyal subjects? Why not leave it with the demons? We were more than prepared to protect anything regarding her and her Queens.”
I drummed my fingers on the table, still staring at thepage. Titania had two brothers, Emris and Oberon—the namesake of the academy, which made sense because when I flipped the page, there was a spread about each male. One detailing Emris, the political general who oversaw managing the Fae army alongside her Spring Court and Aither Court mates. Then there was the page for Oberon, who was the scholar—the inventor. And he had a particular interest in magic.
I tried to recall all Asael had said about the skulls. Hadn’t he mentioned groups born to defend them? Nyx’s wasn’t even the only one out there—if we were to believe the long dead demon.
“Goddess above, this would be so much easier if we could just go back and ask Asael—hell, I want to talk to this Eryx guy. Surely, he knew what his uncle was up to.” I turned back to the family tree, which ended with Eryx and his brothers. The end of Titania’s bloodline.
“I would offer,” Rhadamanthus drawled, leaning back with a scowl. “But our one and only chance at getting answers died with Asael. I have no power entering that particular field of death. And I have tried.”
I scrubbed a hand down my face. “Bullshit.” Slamming my fist onto the table, I shook my head. “What’s the fucking point then?”
The male sighed. “I don’t know. But it makes me irrationally angry, too. It would have helped us understand how Dante even came into this knowledge in the first place.”
The King of the Elysian Fields, locked out of the one place he could have found answers.
So fucking typical of Nyx.
“I don’t even care about that anymore,” I replied, grunting as I slammed the tome shut on Emris’s stupid face. “He said he found some letter from a maid fucking Emris. He could have gotten that from anywhere.” Shaking my head, I rolled my tongue inside my mouth as I stared at the little progress I’d made the last couple of days considering my new focus on the bastard. “All I want is the runes. I want to know what they mean, so I can find a way to get thecollar off her.”
Rhadamanthus bowed his head in a nod. “That, I can agree with. Though even if I could reach Pandora’s mates, there’s a chance they know nothing about them. Asael barely understood what you showed him.”
“Asael didn’t tell us anything useful or how to decipher them,” I muttered, glaring at a recreation of the runes I’d drawn from memory. I’d redone it about five times, making sure they were correct. “But I have a feeling he wasn’t a scholarly kind of demon.”
Rhadamanthus snorted. “My cousin had no such bone in his body. He was a warrior and a drinker. He enjoyed frivolity—until Pandora. Though I doubt he spent much time understanding the runes. Eryx, however, would have. He took after Oberon in that way, which was likely why Eryx disliked him so much.”
