"Stabbing me was?" Why do I feel like I'm going to faint? Why am I still in pain?k Oh right, never been stabbed before. Silly me.
"No," Ambrose grabs my waist and turns me over. He's staring at me with soft eyes. "I apologized for that, I was angry, and I should have never hurt you." His knuckles run down my cheek and I reach out to slap his hand away before he catches my wrist. "You're feisty, I like that."
Heaving me over his shoulder, he places me back in bed, clucking his tongue. "If I didn't toss myself into healing, you'd be suffering more."
"Thank you oh magnanimous one." I snap. "Stop fucking touching me."
His fingers rub along my stomach. "Make me."
Assault. It's my first go to. Instead, I stare daggers at him.
"That's what I thought." He moves away, and grabs the now fixed cup. He's quick to leave the room, and hands me another hot cup of tea. "Drink and I will tell you my story, the one that you're rudely interrupting."
Each word is slow, careful, heavy with something that feels like regret—but only just. He speaks of the Primordials like old gods with bad tempers, like kings who never abdicated their thrones.
A line from a cartoon pops into my head:We could rule them like gods…angry gods…
“Each one rules from a seat of power,” he says, voice low. “Where the world breathes them in through stone and exhales them into the stars.”
I blink at him. “And Athanasius?” A question I already dread the answer to.
Ambrose tilts his head. “Do you know where his seat is?”
I shake mine. “No.”
His smile is the kind that a man wears when he knows something you don't. Haughty and annoying. “The darkest place on Earth. The bottom of the Mariana Trench. He built a palace there… of whale bones.”
A chill slides down my spine. Bones. Of course it would be bones.
“That’s where he dwells. Where his followers find him. Where theysummonhim—and hebrings them down.”
I can almost feel the pressure of that crushing dark. The abyssal cold of it. My lungs tighten. My heart squeezes.
“For easier contact,” he adds with a cruel smirk, “the Atacama Desert in Chile will do.”
I scoff. “You’re joking.”
He shrugs. “Do I look like the type?”
Kind of? I mean the buckles on the pants makes me think that, but if I say that? I sip my tea, my stomach screams at me, and Ambrose continues.
He begins to name them all.
"Luciara, she dwells in the glacier-veined silence of Mount Forel. Moireth, like Destiny is a wanderer, impossible to pin." He spits the phrase: "Destiny finds you. A coward’s game." He sighs. "Chronomir, he rests where time drags its feet on Earth’s belly, along the Dead Sea’s ancient shores. They live their daily lives at those seats. They take council. They listen to their people… through avatars.” His voice tightens. “My sister was one.”
I fucking knew it. He wasn't in this simply because he's altruistic. There's a long pause.
“She served Athanasius. Thought she was chosen. Beloved.” He exhales hard, like something inside him is breaking just enough to show me the fracture. “And then he took his true form. During a war no one remembers, because death buried the records along with the bones. Millions died. And in that carnage, hefeasted."
I flinch. I don’t mean to, but I do. He sees it.
“Ione,” he says softly. “Death is indiscriminate. But it should bekind.Athanasiusdelightsin it.”
My mouth opens before I can stop myself. “Helovesme,” I snap. “He isn’t what you think he is.”
Ambrose raises an eyebrow. “Is he? How acquainted are you with death, to be so comfortable in his presence?”
I feel it then—rage blooming like fire in my chest. What is it about this guy that gets my blood going so quickly? Maybe because he stabbed me, I'm not letting that go. My voice shakes but not with fear. “My parents are dead. My mother died when I was four. You ever been a toddler at a funeral? You don’t understand why your mom is a box in the ground, but youknowit’s wrong. You cry for her every night, and she never comes.” My throat tightens. I push through. “My dad died when I was fourteen. I wasinthe crash. I watched the light go out of his eyes. I can stillfeelthe blood on my hands when I think about it.” God, how long had it been since I thought of that moment? Therapy, Orlaya put me in a ton of it to combat what she couldn't. I lean forward, eyes burning, and I will admit, I wanted to throw his precious cup again. “So yeah, Ambrose. I’m well-acquainted with death.”
