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Memories of her time with Kaleo flooded her mind, mingling with the parallels of Ronin. In the kitchen, in his bed, his chilled skin and the scent of jasmine, stepping on her toes on the dance floor, and how they both looked at her. I’ll show you if you let me.

The story was too tragic. A depressing, awful dose of fate.

Was she truly to believe their story, after an eternity of searching, would always end in sorrow? It wasn’t fair?—

A boy.

Naia’s breath caught.

Their child was a boy.

It was the reason Ronin’s life had not been protected from Marina.

Naia sobbed harder.

She blamed Ruelle.

No, she hated Ruelle.

Cassian’s shoes appeared in her line of sight. “It truly is a shame Ronin found you again.” He bent forward, hands still resting in his pockets. “Come nine months, Little Goddess, your child is mine.”

He placed his finger under her chin and guided her to look up at him.

Throughout Naia’s life, she’d overheard others describe the High God of Death and Curses as merciless, alive but without a heart. Naia never understood because he’d always handled her with an impartial kindness. Even when he cursed her for the first time. He was not one to torture or maim, to taunt with remarks. His presence emitted an ancient, intimidating power, but he never struck her as evil.

Though, in this moment, as he stared down at her in valiant and cunning victory, she wanted to see that evil, to believe every part of him over the centuries had rotted, but she could not.

Cassian was not evil. He was broken. Barely a husk of a thing. And, like Mira, striving fiercely to hang onto something that did not exist.

Naia thought of all the times she backed down in fear. A fear that always seemed mountains bigger than herself when Mira hurled threats and punishments at her; when Marina’s resentment locked its eyes on her; the permanent future mapped out for her with Solaris. An eternity of solitude and confinement.

And as she stared back at the High God, one of the first deities born into existence, she was no longer frightened. With her loved one’s lives on the line—the life of her unborn child—she would rise and become bigger than everything and everyone she’d ever been afraid of.

“Hear me now,” Naia said, boring deep into his eyes. “I will break this curse.”

A power she had never known before accumulated and caressed between her skin and bones, eager to be unleashed upon the world.

A devilish smile curved along his lips. “You can try, Little Goddess, but in the end, I always get what I want.”

30

SPLINTERS

Naia stared blankly at the nothingness as Ronin lifted her shirt over her head. Her clothes puddled on the tile floor along with his. He removed her bracelet and placed it on the vanity next to the sink. Steam billowed along the ceiling tiles.

Ronin woke less than a minute after Cassian left her on the beach, asking questions Naia struggled to answer. Through the ringing in her ears, she overheard Ronin call Yuki to pick them up. Naia couldn’t recall entering the Kahale house or how her and Ronin ended up in the bathroom.

“You’re okay,” Ronin murmured.

One at a time, he lifted each of her feet and worked the jeans down her legs. He could’ve easily cast the clothes off with a wave of his hand, but she needed this—his touch, his closeness.

He led her into the shower. It required one step, a message from her brain that seemed like ages to send.

The hot water sprayed across her skin and offered a temporary reprieve, like she was sunbathing on her favorite cove. Her muscles sank into her bones, easing the tremors caught in her hands?—

Hands—

Her eyes fell onto it.