Mireille had always found it easier to experience emotions through art, be it a painting, a book, a piece of music. All necessarily solitary endeavors with no reciprocal expectations placed upon her. A one-way conversation, of sorts.
When she was forced to interact with sentient beings, that’s when things became difficult. She knew, of course, how to fake the appropriate emotional responses to manipulate her audience.
But a true, authentic expression of her feelings? Sometimes she wasn’t even sure what thatwas. Like that part of herself was buried beneath the severity her mother had drilled into her.
She suppressed the thought as she and Ronin sauntered into the final gallery. They’d found nothing in the others, no hints of the Fallen Goddess’s tell-tale fire opals anywhere.
Mireille was growing more and more frustrated by the minute.
The only thing calming her was the steady, silent presence of her partner as he drifted along beside her.
Ronin seemed…differenttoday. Throughout their assignment, she’d often caught him staring at her with that heated possessiveness she so frequently inspired in males. But now there was something almost wistful in his gaze. Something soft and precious—and terrifying.
And even though her own emotions were difficult for her to interpret, she had centuries of experience reading others.
He was starting tofeelthings for her. She honestly couldn’t think why. She’d been nothing but horrible to him since they’d met. Maybe he was some kind of masochist.
Still, his care today had been a comfort. Had helped her maintain her focus.
Crazy that a caged wolf bi-form who could barely control his own impulses was keepingherin check.
She snickered to herself as she approached a long case containing an array of decorative vases. She stepped closer to examine the green illustrations on the first vase, then sucked in a sharp breath.
Ronin was instantly at her side. “What? What did you find?”
She grabbed his arm to pull him closer, definitelynottesting his rock-hard biceps, and gestured toward the vase. “Look at these.”
They side-stepped down the glass, examining illustrations that seemed eerily similar to what they’d witnessed in the crypt last night.
On the first vase, a group of Deathstalkers—marked by their serpent’s eyes and elongated fangs—were gathered around a prone figure atop a wooden pallet.
On the second, a Deathstalker in a black robe—some kind of holy male, perhaps?—placed a round object onto the dead Fae’s eye.
On the third, flames licked across both the pallet and the body.
And on the fourth and final vase, the holy male had raised the stone, now surrounded by a radiating halo, above his head and beneath a word written in swooping calligraphy.
“Psychis,” Ronin uttered. “What does that mean?”
Mireille’s stomach dropped to her feet. “Soul. Psychis means soul in Aramaelish.”
“Are you telling me the diva’ssoulis what made that anastasium stone glow?”
“That’s not all I’m telling you.Deathis what activates the stones. That’s the source of Stygios’s power.” Her face was ashen as she turned to him. “Death itself.”
She rushed over to the plaque beside the case, Ronin right on her heels, and her fingers shook as they traced the provenance of the ancient vases.
Listhima.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
In their suite the next morning, Mireille brewed a special batch of tea—Ronin sipping his own—as they awaited the silver-haired servant’s return to gather their breakfast tray.
After their discovery in the gallery yesterday, the rest of the day had been rather uneventful. Dinner with the other guests had been a whirlwind of speculation about what, exactly, tonight’s performance would entail. Guesses ranged from the mundane (another opera performance) to the fantastical (silk aerialists in the bioluminescent section of the greenhouse) to the violent (a fight to the death among the human servants). Mireille and Ronin had played their parts, offering up their own suggestions.
Given that Otto had said the opening performance was intended to dishonor Anaemos, Mireille suspected tonight’s theme would involve another of the High Gods. Stygios, if she had to guess based on what she and Ronin had overheard Otto and Layla discussing. Something about the Scales of Nyctima and opening pathways. But she didn’t offer up that little tidbit of information to the other guests.
Otto had not yet returned from his journey to fetch tonight’s performer from Listhima. Mireille wondered if the female—Otto and Layla had been referring to a “she”—would suffer the same fate as Diva Carmina. She shuddered at the thought, wondered if she might be able to warn the performer beforehand.
