Teardrops cling to her lashes as she gazes at me, her weeping quieting down.
“I couldn’t harm you, Killian. Not even to save my life. I was ready to embrace death at your hands.”
I press my lips to her tear-soaked ones in a gentle, reassuring gesture. She melts under my grasp, a sigh of relief shuddering through her.
“I meant every word I said, little umbra. I love you.Really love you. The realm-shattering kind. Even if we die in this war, I know we will find each other again in every lifetime. Even if there is no such thing, we would forge it out of nothingness. I waited a thousand years for you and you can be Akaoridamn sure I am never letting you go.”
She gives me a weak smile, wiping out the last vestiges of terror from her damp cheeks. I kiss her again, pouring all my feelings into it, just as the mountain shudders, tremors filling up the chamber while a gaping breach in stone gives way to a new entrance. Faint light pulses from the other side, warm and inviting.
My little menace’s face hardens, her mouth set in a tight grimace.
“Right. Better not keep the fucking Goddess waiting.”
I squeeze her hand as she tries to stand, halting her movement.
“She can wait, Aimee. Take all the time you need.”
“I don’t need time, Killian,” she says solemnly. “I need the truth. Finally.”
We step into the pulsing light together, hand in hand, and I’m blinded for an instant by the golden intensity as it washes over us like a shroud of sunlight. When it ebbs away, a circular sanctuary emerges, all burnished marble and flickering flames, torches smoldering in gleaming sconces carved directly into the walls. Nine alabaster statues, wrapped in crushed velvet and flowing silks, stand proudly in a circle of gilded pedestals, facing each other.
The Fae Gods of legend.
I know instinctively who they are, as if a part of me recognizes their sculpted forms, and a distant vagary in the recesses of my mind keeps chanting “home.”
A smirking Kreyos swathed in shadows casts his empty gaze at a voluptuous Reythia, her mouth forever open in a silent moan. A severe Xeysholds a flaming sword above his head, poised for attack. Alektriona’s sweet face, painted with a gentle smile, her body turned toward a solemn Ereshkygall, her arms crossed against her chest in eternal slumber.
I part my lips to summon Ereshkygall to show herself, but before I utter the command, Aimee’s fingers slip from mine and she marches with determined strides toward the Goddess of Death’s statue, rearing her arm back and punching it squarely in its marbled face. I brace for her yelp of pain and the crunch of bone against implacable stone, but her fist meets soft flesh that ripples from the impact.
The statue’s opalescent eyes swirl with consciousness, turning molten silver as a bronzed glow bleeds into her skin. Her snowy hair bears argent highlights, cascading down her back toward the polished floor in undulating waves. The corners of her pouty lips turn upwards, silvered fangs peeking from underneath as she assesses us with a shrewd, calculated gaze that speaks of eons of wisdom that only immortality yields.
“That’s no way to greet an old friend. Although I suppose I deserved that.”
Chapter 23
Blaise
Iwakeupfromthebest fucking dream in all my insufferably long existence. I dreamed of Sariah’s plump lips barely grazing mine in a hushed kiss, a barely contained whisper of the momentous passion that I know is building between us, ravaging me since the first moment I laid my eyes on her. Her sweet floral taste still clings to the inside of my mouth, a cruel taunt and an auspicious promise.
I groan, my limbs weightless as I unfurl and stretch against the satin bedsheets. A jasmine-scented flurry wafts in the air around me as I try to shake the last vestiges of sleep from my still fuzzy brain.
“Blaise,” comes a relieved murmur as a warm hand touches my forehead. I blink against the harsh sunlight, my vision spinning for a moment before it settles on Sariah’s mesmerizing face, eyes lit with worry and something else, much softer.
“Moonlight?” I rasp, my voice husky from prolonged disuse. Gods, how long was I out?
“Shhh, Blaise. Take it easy. You’ve been out of it for almost three days. I was so worried about you.”
Fractured images seep through my consciousness like broken glass trying to mend itself.
The dinner hall.
My jealousy.
The onpyrs descending upon us like a scourge of rot and madness.
“The attack? How many did we lose?” I ask, unease coiling around my chest, as I prop on one elbow, taking a better look at her. She’s in my chamber, sitting on the edge ofmybed, worry shining in her eyes forme.
Am I still dreaming?
