The simple touch said what he didn’t.You’re already a part of this.I felt those words in the tug of our bond, in the warmth behind his eyes.
Emotions caught in my throat, but rather than shy away, I leaned in closer. His lips pressed to my forehead, lingering there before he drew away. The world felt steadier. I felt steadier.
So I cleared my throat, and said, “I guess we should discuss why we asked you to come.”
Alastor nodded, already tearing through the bag of marshmallows as we all sat on the grass. He popped one in his mouth before extending the open bag to us. It was only because he offered that I did the same with my lollipops, silently grumbling when both Alastor and Callan each took one.
Knowing all too well how I suffered in silence, Brenton winked at me.
“You said the orb’s creator was a daughter of the gods and a mage.” I edged closer to Brenton until my knee brushed his. But gods, if he was right . . . if Zaicha was the one behind all this, what did that make me? Complicit? I hadn’t told Etienne or the king about her. I hadn’t told Kassidy. A visit from a demi-god felt like something I should’ve alerted our king to, at the very least. But I hadn’t wanted to share that secret with anyone. Only Brenton.
My gaze flicked to him, searching. His eyes were steady on mine, grounding me. When he dipped his head in a small but certain nod, I drew in a shaky breath.
“The day before we came to Vistos,” I started, my voice thin, “a female visited me while I was training. She said she was the daughter of the gods. She?—”
A sharp curse cut me off. Callan’s glare lashed across the fire, and my chest cinched tighter with shame pressing heavier.
Then Brenton’s hand was on me, gentle and certain, his fingers tilting my chin up so that all I saw was him. “Breathe, Lolli.”
The low rumble of his words echoed in my chest, pulsing until my heart mimicked its beat. I dragged in a desperate breath.
“Take your time,” he said, his thumb grazing across my cheek. “When you’re ready, tell Alastor. He’ll understand.”
My gaze tried to stray back to Callan’s hard stare, but Brenton kept me tethered, refusing to let me fold beneath my own expectations.
There was only him. His eyes, his touch, his presence. It all wrapped around me, lulling the storm within, and each breath came less ragged than the last.
“She came to me and said she wanted to help me understand my magic,” I said, the words coming out stronger than I felt. “She helped contain it when I lost control and then offered totrain me. She offered to free me of my magic if I chose to.” My throat tightened, but Alastor’s small nod urged me on. “She said that my magic could heal all the realms, from the dying dragons to Niev’s failing magic. That my magic could set souls trapped free. I don’t know?—”
Brenton shifted beside me. He brought his hand up, rubbing at his palm as if he could rub away the shimmer that started building there. Silver pulsed beneath his sun tattoo, beneath the skin like an answering thrum that didn’t belong to him.
Alastor’s eyes narrowed at the motion. “Is Eiran summoning you?”
Brenton stilled, and the fear that broke across his features punched the very breath from me. His eyes widened, his jaw working back and forth. The sour tang of his fear filled the air. “I . . . believe so.”
The memory of what he’d already endured when he’d died, of the realm that had almost taken him, hung between us. Unspoken but thick as smoke. He looked back at me like a male unprepared for what awaited him.
I didn’t think. I gripped his hand, my hold hard enough that my nails bit into him. But he wasn’t going without me.Not alone. Not again.The bond tugged, urgent and insistent, and I poured all my will into it. Into him. Wherever the death god pulled him, I would go too. Invited or not.
Chapter
Twenty-Three
BRENTON
The world rippedout from beneath me.
One beat, I was sitting around the campfire with Finley’s nails digging into my palm. Next, I was drowning in silence. It was too heavy to breathe, too endless to think.
The astral realm. Not again.
My pulse thundered at my throat, and every muscle braced for dying a second time. The memory pressed in. The cold that hollowed me from the inside. The vast emptiness that spanned into eternity. My chest seized, and for a terrifying beat, I couldn’t manage a breath.
But then . . . Finley. Her hand was still in mine.
My fear sharpened, something fiercer growing inside me, but this time that panic was for her. She shouldn’t be here. She couldn’t be here. The astral realm wasn’t for the living, and Finley still had so much life to live.
“Finley,” I rasped out. I drew her closer, caging her against me as if I could shield her from the void.
