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“That’s right,” Lily taunted. “I know exactly who you are. You think it’s been so long that people still don’t talk about you? The things you’ve done? The lives—the literal souls—you stole to end up the way you are now?” Collecting her fury with a long breath, she found the Serpent behind his eyes. “If you really think I’m using him, then kill him—a child who has done nothing to anyone. That tells me all I need to know about you, and Amalia.”

She prepared for some kind of punishment, or for Draven to say something, anything, but all he did was glower at her while the stolen god did its best to calm its body.

Bristling, she shoved past him, stomping toward Luka. Draven never tried to stop her.

Lily found the boy drinking water from a creek, bag-less but unharmed. Draven loomed silently in the area but made no effort to speak.

Lily snorted. That chilling reputation wasn’t as extensive as the tales let on.

Their hike started tense and slow. Draven kept well ahead but stayed visible, leading them out of the forests and onto a well-worn trail that hugged a vast grassland. The sun rose high in the sky while Lily bore a hole into their captor’s back, the countryside wide, green, and open.

Draven Hazevale. Valen’s First Incarnation. The God Eater.

Lily glanced to her right hand, still glowing with a faint aura.

The man who killed Keara so long ago.

She never imagined a situation where she’d have to give him so much thought. The Serpent? That was a possibility, but never Draven. The man’s soul may be idolized in the empire, but he’d made enemies of his entire family and the rest of Eizreth. Why in the Primordials’ names would Amalia recruit him?

“Tell me again why it rains?” Luka asked.

“Hm?”

“Why it rains?” he asked again, holding a hand out to the drizzle.

“Oh.” Lily glanced up to the clouds. “Well, why won’t your plants grow without water?”

“Because they dry up.”

“Exactly. Supposedly, it rains in Eizreth because Ettan’s gift of light was too much for the land. Nothing could grow. So—”

“Dabria brought her clouds. I remember now.” He jogged ahead to stomp in a puddle, then held back to wait for Lily. “What happens if it won’t stop raining?”

What she would give for his good mood. “Then there’d be too much water. Everything would drown.”

“That’s why it rains sometimes, but not all of the time?”

“You got it.”

At least his questions took her mind off their predicament. He was acting like himself. No unnatural twinkles in his eyes or trembles in his limbs. Nothing that indicated Draven did anything to him before he woke Lily.

Luka stopped short. “Do you have a map?”

“No. Why?”

He pointed ahead, and Lily slowed, finding the trail eerily empty. Tentatively, she picked up pace like Draven would appear at their backs. Luka followed suit.

“Did Jarek tell you where we’re going?” he asked, peering over his shoulder.

She scowled. “Who’s Jarek?”

Luka waved his hand in front of them. “The man who has the Serpent.”

Lily completely forgot that was the name he gave at their cabin. She brushed it off. He could’ve done it for any reason. Trying to hide his identity from her and Luka was the first thing that came to mind.

Luka jumped onto a log, balancing himself with outstretched arms as he walked across it. “Jarek reminds me of Neir. Scary, but nice.”

A chill rolled across her skin. The Stalker hadn’t come up in a while. “Neir? Nice?”