My lifelong guilt and shame threatened to overcome me again. I hated killing. I hated death and blood and hate. But these people had stolen my mate from me. They threatened to doom this world. Fuck shame and fuck guilt. If there was ever a time to embrace who I was—who I always had been—it was now.
I was the Mist King.
I knelt, took the keys from the dead warrior, and unlocked the manacles. The steel hit the ground, ringing loudly in the silent cave. Trying to ignore what he’d said about Tessa’s lost humanity, I rubbed my palms against my wrists and winced at the raw skin. No matter. It would heal soon enough.
I left the body where it was and took a tunnel leading toward a distant, hazy light. It took longer to reach the surface than I’d expected. An hour passed, maybe more. The incline steepened. Piles of jagged rock narrowed the path. I had to scale a rocky wall the last few meters before I finally broke through a hole in the ground.
Sweat dripped down my forehead as I blinked against the light. It took a moment for my vision to adjust. When it did, I spotted at least a dozen beasts circling me. Mist cloaked their bodies, even though the sun was shining nearby. Boudica rushed toward me and shrieked out a warning.
Before I could make sense of it, the beasts charged.
Thirteen
Tessa
Sirius tossed the Mortal Blade in the air. It flipped, steel tip pointing up at the ceiling, then the handle pointing up, over and over. The motion revealed the embedded gemstone lit with an impossible crimson light. When the blade plummeted toward us, I forced my body tomove. The hilt hit my palm only a second before it would have hit his. I snatched the dagger away from him.
“Nice catch,” he said. “You’ll need to move like that if you’re going to get out of here.”
I lifted my chin and pointed the dagger at his chest. “Let me guess.Thistrial is to test whether I’ll shove this into your chest. Thing is, I’ve stabbed two kings already. I don’t mind stabbing another.”
“Ah, but I’m not a king,” he said with a smile.
“Close enough.”
“Go on, then.” He spread his arms on either side of him, wide like the wings he bore. “Though I must warn you, you’d be better off using that dagger against someone else. As soon as you leave this room, whether by door or by window, you’ll be spotted. One of the other Lamiae will come after you. You’ll need a powerful weapon if you hope to best them.”
Lamiae?Was that what they called themselves when they weren’t parading around as gods?
I narrowed my eyes, trying to guess his angle here. “Andromeda really wants to find out if I’ll go for that fucking wall, doesn’t she? If she’s so afraid of what will happen if I do, why doesn’t she just lock me up?” I flicked my eyes toward the manacles hanging by the bed. “She has the gear for it.”
“This has nothing to do with Andromeda. I want to help you escape.”
Hissing, I pressed the tip of the dagger against his tightly fitting doublet. What would happen if this blade pierced his skin? It was a weapon designed to kill fae, so long as it had the correct gemstone powering the hilt. Could it harm a god? And if it could, for how long? Would it be permanent?
“Why should I believe you?” I finally asked.
He took the dagger between his thumb and forefinger. He shifted the tip to the edge of his throat, though he held it just far enough away to keep it from making contact with his skin. “Because I let you overhear me tell Andromeda about your bond with Kalen Denare. I thought you might be more cautious if you knew she’d found out. I also let your ‘horse’ go free. I have brought you the Mortal Blade. And I am letting you decide if you want to stab me with it. If that isn’t enough for you to believe me, then nothing will be.”
I shuddered, my hand shaking where I held the dagger. It would be so easy to lean forward and let the blade slice into his throat. He was one of the gods. He threatened the future of this world. He and the others wanted nothing but destruction. And yet, I spoke around the pit of anger in my throat and said, “Why?”
A fist pounded on the door. Perseus. “Hurry.”
“All you need to know,” Sirius said quietly, “is that we are only monstrous because of how we were made. Your sister nearly killed me. As I healed myself from her attack, I found a part of myself I’d thought was lost.” He lifted his chin. “And now I’d rather see the world healed than doom it all to plague.”
“And Perseus?” I asked, nodding toward the door.
“He has his own reasons.”
I stared at him for a long moment, shocked by his words. “If you expect me to believe all this, then explain to me why you haven’t tried to stop Andromeda. You’re still following her orders. Her aim iscertainlynot to heal.”
“Ah, but itisher aim. She’s just doing it in her own way,” he said sadly. “Either way, I cannot lift my hand against her. I made a vow, much like you did, a very long time ago. I must follow her every command, and she has commanded me to never harm her.”
“I thought vows didn’t work on gods—or Lamiae. That’s what you called yourself earlier, right?”
“I was not always a Lamiae.”
I stumbled back, dropping the blade to my side. “But if you weren’t always a god, then—”
