Black wings become visible within the dense shadow, parting to reveal my father leaning against the wall, his arms folded across his chest.
“I couldn’t open it at first,” he says calmly, not a hint of shame in his voice despite his admission. “But I’m glad I did.”
He considers me with golden eyes made so much brighter by his luminescent skin. Every angle of his face and cheekbones and tall physique is perfectly balanced. Perfectly beautiful, as angels are. He tucks his wings away, and I remind myself how dangerous it would be to allow my own wings to extend, since he could try to use my feathers against me again.
Golden light glimmers around his hands, the threat of light magic only seconds away. Magic that can break my bones and burn my skin.
My focus flickers to the book, but I don’t move closer to it.
The moment I reach for it, I’m certain that Taiven will unleash his power on me.
I need to time my actions. Let him get close to where I can use my claws and all the skills Anarchy taught me.
Taiven paces to the right, veering closer to me with every step, not taking his eyes off me. “I heard a whisper that the old wolves in Portland didn’t kill you when they had the chance, and I thought, surely, that can’t be true because they would never let a dark creature like you live.”
He must be talking about the powerful wolves in the forest where the keeper healed me.
“Then I heard another, even more unbelievable rumor, that the dragon masters gave you safe haven.Impossible. Or so I thought.”
He studies me in the way my jailer, the angel Zadkiel, used to look at me, as if I’m some sort of specimen to be dissected into my various parts.
“I was so unsettled that I consulted the book, even though I know its contents front to back,” he says. “And that’s when it showed me something new.” His lips rise into a cold smile. “Something you will want to see, Daughter.”
My focus darts to the book, my forehead creasing, but when I don’t respond, Taiven’s eyebrows rise.
“Isn’t that why you’re here?” he asks. “To understand your past and know your future? Well, go ahead. Read it. I won’t stop you.”
Surprised, I narrow my eyes at him, intensely wary of his invitation to lay my hands on the book.
Then, I remember what Lucian said about the fist you don’t see coming.
Maybe Taiven is trying to lure me into a false sense of safety. Or he thinks the book will break my mind and, once I’m vulnerable, he can easily end me. He can’t know that this book won’t corrupt me. I know I can read it without harm.
I have nothing to fear in this moment except the pain Taiven might inflict on me with his light magic.
“Read it, Daughter,” he whispers as he draws to a halt. “Go on. I’m giving you this one chance.”
I have absolutely no intention of opening it, but I’ll sure as hell take it from him.
Reaching for the book, I fight every instinct within my body that warns me to leave the tome where it lies. I tell myself over and over that stealing it will destroy my father, not me.
At the moment before my hands would slip around the book’s edges, rapid footfalls reach me from the corridor outside the chamber and the balance of power in the air around me shifts.
The keeper’s approaching presence is as vast and massive as the energy I sensed in this room before I entered it, an opposing force that pushes at my mind and body in a dark swell.
He bursts through the door, black scales rushing across his visible skin and his eyes turning a fiery golden. Flames lick at his hands and a dragon’s roar leaves his lips. “My Veda! Leave the book and run!”
His wild eyes meet mine as he storms toward me and the fear in his voice is like icy water. “Run for your life.”
Ahead of me, my father is suddenly laughing. Cold, awful laughter as golden light bursts around his palms and outward.
His light magic explodes across the room, a wash of bright energy that knocks into the keeper and casts every small detail around me into sharp relief.
In that blink, that infinitesimal second before the energy hits me and I’m thrown backward, the silhouette of another creature becomes visible.
A woman stands against the wall behind my father, her head bowed, her knees slightly bent, and her shoulders slumped. She’s dressed in golden armor and carries a curved blade at her back, and I wouldn’t even know who she was if I hadn’t hit the ground right in front of her statue.
What the…?
