“You’ve never heard the Psalm of Ashiris?”Tassarion looked at me, puzzled as if this was common knowledge.“Seven born of flame. Seven He will raise. Seven to endure the mire. Seven born of holy fire. Seven to face the dark. Seven to light a new spark. Seven to set the stage. Seven to usher in the Seventh Age.”
My jaw hung. I knew the legends of these mysterious, incredibly powerful angels that were supposedly scatteredacross Sorellien, living in hiding because of their powers. But I had never heard of this song. This prophecy. I wondered if Manmi and Papi knew and intentionally never told me.
“Nahomie, you’re speaking about the Nebulari. But why? What do the Nebulari have to do with the Empyrean and you?”
I sat up and looked my wingmate in his piercing blue eyes.
“I’m certain the Empyrean is after me because they believe I am one of these seven, Tassarion.”
I shuddered at the eerie silence that fell over us as the waves crashed into the sea.
“I am a Nebulari.”
Chapter 28
Nahomie
“I rotting knew it.”Tassarion Everthorn raised an arched brow, his angular face looking at me intently. “Of course I would bond for eternity to a ticking time bomb.”
My jaw dropped. I blinked, baffled. The king looked calm. Relaxed. Wholly unbothered.
As if he knew this about me all along and he really didn’t give a rot.
I tossed my head back and outright cackled.
“Tassarion...” I was at a loss for words. “You have to be the mostunseriousangel...”
I leaned back, not even sure of how to process what had just transpired between us. I wasn’t completely certain that the Nebulari legends were true. Let alone certain ifIwas one of these cataclysmically powerful angels. All I knew was that the Empyrean believed Nebulari to be real. They’d somehow concluded I was one of them, and they were hèls-bent on capturing me.
“Competitive phantom you are,” Tassarion continued. “I promised I could give you games and danger. Here you come, trying to one-up me.” He raised his other eyebrow. “Rude.”
I could not stop laughing. Tears leaked from my eyes as I fell over, howling.
A levity seeped into my chest that made me feel light. Feel... normal. For the first time in my life I’d spoken the truth, and I didn’t feel like some oddity. Instead, telling the truth of who I was seemed almost mundane to the Everthorn King.
“I think something is seriously wrong with you,” I laughed, wiping the tears from my eyes.
“You are a walking explosive, but something is wrong withme?”
Tassarion pointed at his scarred chest with the talon of a wing. He looked incredulous, eyes wide as if I’d said the most ridiculous statement he’d ever heard. I laughed so hard I snorted before my chest tightened and I began wheezing.
The villagers of Okapi Village had given Manmi and Papi endless grief because of their fear of me. Fear of my powers. Fear of the Empyrean. Manmi and Papi had me living in isolation for centuries because of what legends said I was. What the Empyrean thought I could be in their possession. The Farasee Order desired me. The Ivory Rain hunted me. The Dyabèssa nearly killed me. I was a pariah. A terror. A Lougawès. Awitch.
But to Tassarion...
The tears were falling before I could stop them. I was completely overwhelmed. The king saw me,knewme, and wasn’t fazed at all. My powers didn’t scare him. The target on my head from the Empyrean didn’t shake him. I was protected. Cared for. Accepted for who I was.
The arrangement of our bond had initially given me an impenetrable shield through the form of the Monster King and Everthorn Manor. It hadn’t factored in that there would come closeness. Intimacy.
Stars.
Love.
Was this not what this was? What I felt? I’d only been able to observe Manmi and Papi throughout my life, and even then, from a distance. But what I saw between them is what I now felt with Tassarion. Yet...
I couldn’t know the Vainyen King felt the same.
“How in the rot do you know that?”
