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Sitting in bed with her back against the headboard and her legs crossed, Layala opened a new journal. Waterdrops smeared some of the ink. Not just water drops, she realized, teardrops. Gulping, she started at the top of the page.

It’swith a heavy heart that I write this. I still sometimes think it’s a nightmare I’ll wake from, and then the morning comes and there’s still a hole in my chest, throbbing and yet empty. I haven’t eaten in three days. War was kind enough to bring me here to his home in Ryvengaard, and I fear what the consequences may be for him. But I needed time to think.

I found Hel in bed with Varlett. But that wasn’t even the worst of it.

With a gasp,Layala looked up from the page, and then like she’d been slapped with her journal, the memory flooded in…

Valeen steppedout of the bathtub. The water cooled enough to tell her she’d spent plenty of time there. After combing through her hair and changing into her nightgown, she started down the hall at House of Magic, toward her bedroom. The torches provided a dim light to lead her way and enough to spot her door was cracked allowing whispers to slip through it. Brows tugging down, she paused outside, peering inside.

Hel sat on the bed with Varlett standing between his thighs. “It won’t be much longer now,” Hel said. “And you know this marriage is just for appearances. It was a marriage for power. It’s you I truly love.” He stroked the side of her face with the back of his hand. “I need her to give me a child, a full-blooded god, you know that.”

“It’s been nine years and no child,” Varlett argued.

Hel chuckled. “Nine years isn’t long for us. My Uncle Synick and I had a wager from a long time ago. Who could get the primordial goddess to bear a child. He tried to force her because he was a fucking imbecile. I got her to fall in love. He’d be jealous if he were still alive. You know it was almost fate that she killed him for me.”

Varlett slowly went to her knees before him, leaned forward and kissed him on the mouth. “How have you fooled her this long? Or is it me who’s the fool believing that one day you’ll make me your queen?”

“I’m the god of mischief, love, fooling people is what I do. But you’re too clever for that, little dragon.” He paused and glanced toward the door. She was nauseous as she sank back a step, and he continued. “Valeen told me last night that she wants to have my baby and that she’s finally ready. The only primordial without a child, and after thousands of years, I’m the one who will break her.” He smirked and peeked at the door again. “She’ll return soon. We’ll have to make it quick tonight.”

Valeen’s legs felt weak, watery. The pounding of her heart drowned out the rest of their conversation. The edges of her vision seemed dark, like the walls were closing in around her. She almost charged in there and let them both feel the pain burning her from the inside out, but she found her feet moving backward, and her body silently carrying her down the hall. Where she was going, she didn’t know, but she had to get out. She couldn’t breathe—air; she needed fresh night air.

Tears streamed down her face as she bolted along the road down the side of Hel’s mountaintop castle. The wind tugged at her hair as she pumped her arms, as bare feet slapped over stone. A scream burned the back of her throat but never released. Trees and boulders whipped passed until time seemed to disappear and she was at the bottom of the mountain. Panting for breath, she shoved her hands into her hair, scraping her nails across her scalp. How could this be real? How could she have been fooled for so long?

“Valeen?”

She whirled around to find War standing there, his features made clear in the light of the moons. Even in the dark she knew he saw tears streaked across her face, her usually pristine hair, disheveled, and barefoot in her short, silk nightgown.

“Valeen,” War breathed and stepped toward her; she retreated in reaction. Was he in on this too? Did he know? “Did something happen? Are you hurt?” His gaze roamed over her to check for injuries no doubt, but her wounds were not seen by the naked eye. “Where is Hel?”

She buried her face in her hands and her shoulders shook with silent sobs.

“I’ll go get Hel,” War said, and before he could step back, she gripped his wrist.

“No.” She had to get away from Hel. He’d played her for an utter fool, and she’d allowed it. She’d made her vows to not involve herself with the other gods, to not bear children for a reason, and now she was reminded the hard way why. The first time she learned that lesson was the death of her sister. Now it felt like her own ending. “Take me to Ryvengaard, to your house.”

War pulled out of her grasp, nearly stumbling to get away from her. “I don’t understand.”

“I can’t stay here anymore. Please,” her voice broke on the last word. She didn’t like to beg, to plead with anyone.

He shook his head. “I can’t do that.”

“You’re my friend, War,” she said. “I won’t stay long just…until I figure things out. Until I can control my pain. My fury.” Her hands shook from the unrelenting emotions that seemed to set fire to her soul. If she went back, if she stayed, she’d burn through every person in that castle and not everyone deserved her wrath.

“Why?”

She didn’t want to say. Varlett was his fiancée. There was more than one person wronged. Valeen had thousands of years on War to learn to control her emotions, her temper. War had a short fuse. She pressed her lips together and stayed silent.

“I won’t start a war for you. And if I take you away in the middle of the night to my home, that’s exactly what will happen. You know what Hel will think, what anyone would think. You and I have been close for years.”

“It’s not like that.”

“But it would look like that.”

“I must get away from here. I don’t know where else to go.”

“House of Night.”

“No, he’ll go there looking for me tonight and I just can’t see him. I need a few days, or I’ll do something terrible.”