“It might not come to you all at once,” I said as gently as I could. I knew this was hard for her. “But you’ve shown hints of it before now. You’re fast and strong, and you’ve healed quickly in the past. Just not quite as quickly as this. Perhaps the power needs a little more time to fully manifest.”
I could tell by the way her jaw clenched that she wasn’t thrilled. Nor could I blame her. More than anyone, I knew what it was like to have a terrifying power—a power that destroyed far more than it healed. When I’d been unable to get to her during the fight, my power had sizzled in my veins, desperate to burst forth. I’d almost lost control. And if I had, my power would have killed everyone.
“I don’t know who I am,” she whispered, her gaze drifting to the bloody battlefield behind me. “Not anymore. Between this power and the memories of what my father did to me, I don’t know what pieces of me are real.”
My hand tightened on hers, and I pulled her fingers to my chest, to my beating heart. “Here’s what is real. You are Tessa Baran, and I am yours. That’s all that matters.”
Pink spread through her cheeks, and for a moment, I wondered if I’d gone too far. We’d shared so much, but there were still so many words left unspoken between us. But then she sighed and leaned against me, and everything felt right in the world for once, even in the midst of so much death. We stood there like that for a moment, steadying ourselves and each other, but then it was time for me to be a king.
After I rounded up our warriors and took stock of the injured, we resumed our trek to Endir. Our party was silent, clearly uneasy after the attack. The pookas were acting abnormally, and so were the wraiths. To come across so many of them as organized as they were…it was odd, to say the least. I’d noticed strange activity from them for the past few months, but this was the worst I’d seen.
I glanced up at the sky as we marched through the mists. The comet was barely visible now, nothing but a smudge of dim light. The pookas weren’t the only things changing in Aesir. Here, the mists had thickened so much that it was almost impossible to see more than a few steps ahead. And the wind that whistled past us was stronger than I’d ever felt in the shadow lands. It smelled and felt like storms.
A long march later, we reached the walled city of Endir without enduring another attack. Darkness blanketed the once-lush hills that the city wound through, small bridges connecting one neighborhood to the next. I led the tired party through the silent streets and into the castle, and then the warriors headed to the barracks to get some rest. Weariness weighed on my bones. It had been a long few days. Normally, I needed little rest, but right now, my bed called for me.
But there was too much to do.
I turned to Tessa when we reached the top of the staircase that led to her quarters. “You go on to bed.”
“Aren’t you coming?”
I rubbed my thumb along her chin. “Oh, I will, but I have a few things to take care of first.”
She searched my eyes, reading the direction of my thoughts. “You have to decide what to do with Morgan.”
“For one, yes.” Morgan had said very little since we’d left Albyria. She’d been kept chained during the fight against the pookas and had survived against all odds. And I did not trust her as far as I could throw her. “But we also need to plan for what’s coming. I don’t know how long it will take for the gods to appear, now that they’re returning. We need to be ready when they do.”
“I’ll come to the meeting with you,” she said, despite the streaks of red in her eyes. “I want to help.”
I nodded, half-smiling. “Of course you do.”
* * *
We called the Mist Guard to the meeting room, and I asked for Druid Balfor to join us as well. He was ancient—even older than I was—and he remembered things that most would forget, such as the color of someone’s dress at a ball six hundred years ago, or the scent of the grass that had once covered the hills surrounding this castle. Some believed the Druids had been gifted with enhanced memory at the expense of other senses, like the keen hearing most fae had.
But of course, Druid Balfor had never confirmed or denied this rumor.
Everyone took a seat at the oval table, and I stood with my hands braced against the wood. “I won’t mince words. Andromeda will be here soon if she isn’t already. With her come the others: Sirius, Perseus, Orion, and Callisto. The five winged gods who will set their sights on the human kingdoms. Out of everything in this world, that’s what they’ll want most.”
Tessa cleared her throat.
I arched a brow. “Yes?”
“Andromeda is the God of Death. I’m certain I won’t like the answer to this, but I have to ask: what are the others?”
“Ah.” I cast a glance at the others gathered before me. Not everyone here would know this information, I realized. Niamh did because she’d been by my side in the months after my mother’s disappearance, and I’d told her everything. But I’d never gone into detail with the others. “Andromeda is their leader, as you know. Her second-in-command is Perseus, the God of Fear. He brings terror to anyone he touches, bringing their worst nightmares alive in their minds until they go insane.”
“He sounds lovely.” Fenella leaned back in her chair, using a dagger to pick at her fingernails. As soon as we’d returned to Endir, she’d taken a moment to splash water on her face and change into a fresh set of fighting leathers. Her eyes were bright and clear, and she almost looked like she was ready for round two against the pookas.
Gaven was the only other fresh-faced among us, but only because he’d remained here to keep an eye on the Endirians while we’d been gone. The rest of us looked a mess. Our faces were caked in dirt and blood, and we filled the room with the stench of battle. Even Alastair had purple bags beneath his eyes.
“Then we have Sirius, the God of Beasts.” I caught Tessa’s wide gaze, and I nodded as if to confirm her suspicions. “We believe he may control the pookas, the wraiths, and the joint eaters. He may have controlled other creatures, too. Ones that did not survive when the gods were banished from this world.”
“Youbelieve?”
“My mother tried to find out as much as she could when she visited the human kingdoms, but much of that information has been lost—or destroyed.”
“Well, it makes sense,” Alastair said with a nod, twirling one of the rings in his ear. “God of Beasts controls the beasts.”
