“I don’t know,” Leighton answered solemnly.
“I was inches away from him just weeks ago,” I whispered the realization to mostly myself. “If things had gone wrong, I would already be one of thosethings.”
I thought him killing me was the worst case scenario, but turning into a soulless monster took the damn cake.
Sawyer jumped to his feet. “Okay, so how do we kill them? And how are we going to killhim? Because we've been saying for what, two months now, that we are gonna kill the bastard? Yet he is still breathing. And I’ll curse every one of the damn gods before we let that happen to Maeve.” His eyes shot to mine for a brief moment before returning to the entire group.
“I don’t know how to kill them,” Leighton sighed, stealing Sawyer’s chair. “But now that Venay is dead, Beaumont needs a new enchanter to make more of them, and from some reading I’ve done in the past, I believe enchanters are hard to come by. If I had a guess, that would be why he wasn’t there when I was in Draemor. He’s probably on the search for a new assistant so he can continue creating his Hykah army.”
“Okay maybe, but how would he even know Venay is dead?” Pia questioned.
We all pondered for a moment, stumped.
“They must have had some sort of arrangement worked out. Or, we all know that Venay used dark magic, maybe that has something to do with it,” Kohen stated.
“More than likely,” Leighton added.
“That definitely has something to do with it.” Sawyer’s eyes shot around the room. “I’ve been reading her grimoire. There are twenty different ways they could have been in contact by the means of dark magic. I’m sure Beaumont has caught on to her lack of effort by now. If he hasn’t realized that it's because she’s dead, then he’s an even bigger moron than we thought.”
A silent moment of pondering followed.
“So basically all you found out is that we are even more fucked than we thought?” Kade snapped, rolling his eyes towards the veil. “So fucking typical,” he murmured.
“How do you kill something that has a portion of power from multiple gods?” Delani raised the question. “I’d imagine a sword or blasting it with fire wouldn’t do the trick.”
“How do you kill something without a soul?” I whispered.
“You kill it with a god?” Kohen shrugged through the question as if the answer was even possibly that simple.
“Oh my fucking gods,” I garbled, my eyes falling to my outstretched arms. “If only gods can kill them, what if they can't be destroyed…like…ever.”
If he somehow managed to turn me into one of those things, and they couldn’t be killed, would I just walk the continent as an empty shell for the rest of the world's existence?
Sebastian shook his head as my pure denial sank in. “No. No, that can't be right. I’m sure there are other ways to kill them. This is just a theory.” I noticed how his eyes shot over to Kohen in a glare that told him not to speak anymore.
My knees were weak, but I forced myself to my feet. “I’m going to puke,” I gargled and clasped a hand against my mouth, then sped out of the common room, praying I made it back to my room in time.
Chapter
Thirty-Three
When I got out of the shower, Sebastian was lying on our bed in nothing but a pair of lounge pants. His head turned to me, his eyes softening at the sight of me.
“Come here,” he said gently, extending his arms and welcoming me into them.
I dropped my towel before climbing into bed, where I inhaled his scent and embraced the feeling of his bare chest against my skin, allowing it to calm me as it so often did.
He pulled the covers up over us and pressed his lips against my forehead in a soft kiss. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah. I’m kind of hungry now, though.”
He let out a small chuckle. “I’ll take care of that. But I meant?—”
“I know what you meant.” I shuffled, trying to get even closer to him. “I don’t know.”
“You know I am not going to let anything happen to you. We won’t take any unnecessary risks. I will burn this entire world down before I let that prick get his hands on you. I swear.”
“You aren’t a god. You can’t guarantee anything.”
