He lifted a finger. Without warning, without prelude, Andrian’s soulshredded.
It was like being pulled apart from the inside out, like someone had dipped a hot coal-tipped forge into his chest.
Down, deeper. Into that secret, dark place he kept away from everyone. That place where his shadows had first spilled from, where they so often curled and rested, like sleeping snakes waiting to writhe.
Now they were onfire. Andrian’s bellow of agony echoed off the great hall’s stone walls.
The pain ceased as quickly as it began.
Andrian collapsed back into his chair, body shaking and spasming against the aftershocks of the pain. He gripped the armrests, fingernails cracking against the wood.
“You see, youngreykr,” Kol droned, “those shadows you wield? All that power you hold deep inside you? It was mine first. I might no longer be able to control them myself, but I am as infinite and eternal as the sun. And my strength will always burn.”
Andrian’s chest heaved with labored breaths, teeth still gritted. He tasted copper and fought the urge to gag, to spit his blood on the floor.
After what felt like an eternity, he lifted his head. Dark hair fell across his brow, shading the vision of his maker and the sneering white-clad priestess beside him.
His voice was quiet when he found it. “What do you want from me?”
Kol snorted. “Well, now that’s a question. With your mind lost to me, what else is there for me to crave from you?” The red-gold glinted, like twin burning suns. “Answer me, Andrian. What would a sun god crave that he does not already have?”
Andrian’s blood chilled, freezing in his pain-wracked veins.
“You let her escape. You promised she could go free if I willingly stayed with you.”
“Promised? I don’t think I swore any oaths.” Kol sat back, pushing Ksee away from him. She stumbled a step but hurriedly pulled herself together, smoothing out her crisp robes. “I said she could go if you stayed. I never said I would let her stay gone forever.”
“You’re a liar?—”
“Yes, I am. I am no oath breaker, but I fully admit to being a liar and a cheat. They are the only people who win in this world, after all.”
Andrian fell silent, rage and terror and pain still wracking through him in waves. Blood dripped to the marble floors from where his fingers had bit too deep into his palms. In his soul, his tattered and torn shadows fluttered desperately.
He’d stayed foronereason. His presence here servedonepurpose. Was he a failure at even that?
The flames in Kol’s eyes softened. He rose from his seat, taking the few steps down the landing. He gripped Andrian’s chin, tilting up his head.
“I know you want her, too. I’ve been in your thoughts; every piece of you cries out for her. Your bond with her is silent, and you don’t know why. You’ve never been severed from her,not since the day you met.” Kol leaned forward. “Yet you know where she went. Where it was that she fled. You are doing a very good job at hiding it from me, which tells me that you will kill yourself to keep me from knowing it. But I will make an oath to you, my son.”
Andrian winced, trying to pull himself from the fallen god’s grasp. Kol’s fingers tightened. The red of his eyes flickered again.
“I vow that if you tell me where to find her, I will not harm her. You will be able to see her and touch her again. Let me bring her back to us so she can return what she stole, and we can move past this.” Kol blinked. “That is my oath. And as I said: I am no oath breaker.”
Andrian stilled. Not at the offered oath—he was no fool. Despite Kol’s claim, he would never accept a bargain with the demon god.
But the other thing he’d said…
“Is that why you want her? Because you think she stole something from you?”
Kol’s eyes sparked like embers. “I don’t just think. Iknow.”
Andrian carefully chose his next words. “What did she steal?”
Kol snarled, finally releasing him. He paced in front of Andrian, like a predator caught in a cage. “I don’t know, foolish boy. I don’t know what exactly it was that she took, but I am…missing something. I have been missing it for quite some time.”
That spark appeared again in his eyes, and Andrian was finally able to place it.
Madness.
