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He rolled them so he was on top. He was careful with her wings, concern etched on his eyebrow as he looked her over.

“Alessandro, I feel like I’m drowning.” She wiped the tears that escaped from her eyes. “I can’t block them out.”

His eyes widened. “Who?”

“The cursed objects.” She shook her head. “Allthe cursed objects.”

Understanding relaxed his face, and he pulled her to sit cross-legged across from him.

“You’re connected.” His eyes began glowing golden.

He had answers?

She nodded. “I don’t know how. I tried searching for the connection after I claimed the staff, but it’s a solitary bond.”

He let out a soft curse and took a deep breath. “When you hear them, do you feel like they’re trying to drag you to them?”

“Yes. But there are so many that it feels like a tug of war.”

He closed his eyes and bowed his head.

This was it. The confirmation she’d needed. She straightened her back and put her hands on his cheeks. “What is it?”

His eyes slid open and white light blazed inside of them.

Warm moisture slid down her cheeks as she locked her gaze with his.

Pain lanced through her. She winced, and his hands covered her vision.

Coolness dissipated the pain and when he pulled them away again, Rowan’s stomach fell at the sight of the being in front of her.

She’d seen a brief glimpse of this that night he had projected himself into her room to work with the plant.

His scaled skin was as dark as the night sky, but as her eyes roved over every inch she realized, with the help of Odin’s Eye, that what it was sheathing wasn’t muscle and bones, but pure celestial magic.

His curly hair was so copious it curled along the floor underneath his thighs. It also had its own inner glow.

He was enormous, bending his head to keep it from hitting the ceiling. A head that sported a thick set of horns that curved alongside his head, ending at a point as sharp as her own. His eyes were still shining white and bright, but there was no pain as she took him in.

“As I thought.” His voice gonged, layered with tenors so low it was inhuman.

When she next blinked, he was back in his regular form.

“Was that your god form?”

“Not entirely, I won’t have access to that unless I fully take on the power, but the fact you saw even a portion would normally mean you’ve crossed into your own path to godhood, but…” he looked down at his hands and there was blood. “This means that you haven’t.”

Rowan’s hands came away bloody when she touched her own cheeks.

“What?”

He let out a disbelieving laugh. “The objects think you’re a god, one who has proven that she can cleanse them because you cleansed the staff. All because of your diet upgrade.”

Realization lifted some of the anxiety she’d spiraled into. “Because you’re connected to celestial magic. It doesn’t matter if you use it, or if you don’t. When I take energy from you, I’ve never differentiated where I took it from. Wait, cursed objects can communicate?”

“It was a theory. Until you just revealed that they’re all calling to you. Now, it’s a fact.”

Surprise rolled through her and she shook her head, “But I could only cleanse the staff because I had demonic and divine magic available to neutralize the piece of demonic back into the divine it still had left…oh my gods.”