Page 51 of Beasts of Shadows #1

Winter break begins tomorrow, and deities, I cannot wait to get back home and just laze at the beach for two weeks.

Finals have been a haze of sleepless nights and ink-stained fingers. I’ve barely surfaced for air, barely seen anyone except Ravi—who’s been lingering at the edges of my days like a shadow I haven’t decided whether to chase or banish.

We haven’t defined anything. We haven’t said the word relationship . But we’ve shared enough stolen moments that pretending we’re just studying together feels like a lie I don’t have the energy to untangle.

I’ve been avoiding Nikolai since the Tantalus incident. Him and Picca both. I know they’ve seen me on campus. I just make sure I’m always turning a corner, always ducking into a stairwell, always gone before they can say anything.

It’s been easier than I thought it would be. At least on the surface. Keep moving. Keep busy. Don’t feel. Don’t think. There’s been so much keeping me preoccupied. I haven’t even had time to think about Calea, or my vision about Reema.

But now?

Now I’m halfway down the dormitory hill, boots crunching over frost-laced gravel, when I see her.

Dean Douglas.

My aunt.

Standing like a statue at the edge of the clearing, snow gathering on her shoulders, she blends into her environment. None of her usual professionalism. Just her face. Sharp. Pale. Unsettlingly still.

My breath fogs in front of me. I slow. Then stop.

“Irene?”

She doesn’t correct me. Doesn’t tell me to refer to her as Dean Douglas. That should be my first tip that something’s up.

“What’s wrong?”

“Walk with me, Miss Harper.”

“I really don’t like the sound of that,” I manage, adjusting my bag as I follow her out from the dorms. Towards the rose gardens.

She keeps silent for some time, hands behind her back. I’m too rattled to ask what this is about. Or maybe I just don’t want to know. Maybe I’m procrastinating as much as she is.

She slows, frees a rose from the bushes, and passes it over to me.

“Many of my hours are spent doing things for work, but my one true joy when I have free time is gardening. Did my children tell you that?”

“No.”

“I find the cyclical nature of the flora and fauna comforting. A bloom doesn’t pretend it will last forever. It’s beautiful, yes. But fragile. Temporary. That’s what makes it worthy of reverence.”

I glance down at the rose in my hand. It’s already wilting at the edges.

“We must be thankful that life moves in a similar spell—that even in death, there’s the promise of return. Like flowers with spring.”

“You’re not talking about roses,” I say quietly.

She exhales. It ghosts into the cold air. “No. I’m not.”

She looks at me, steadier now.

“Your mother.” Her voice is low. Measured.

The world narrows to that one word. Mother.

My stomach knots.

“There was a storm,” she goes on, each syllable surgical. “Near Monterey. Black ice. Power lines down. A tree collapsed across the road and crushed the car she was traveling in.” Her voice doesn’t falter. “There were no survivors.”

I stare at her, blinking hard.

It doesn’t register.

If I just stand here long enough, maybe she’ll take it back. Say it was a mistake. That it wasn’t my mother, just someone else’s. Some other name on the paperwork.

But she doesn’t.

“Monterey doesn’t get storms like that,” I say dumbly.

“Your father called. I have it on his authority.”

It costs her something to say that. I can tell by the pinch in her lips. I wonder if she spoke to him personally. If she told him they were related.

Dumb questions to have, but much easier than taking in what she’s trying to tell me.

Irene continues speaking. Something about the funeral and winter break. But most of the words fade into nothing.

I thought I’d grown used to death around here.

The ghosts. The rituals. The gods.

But this isn’t like that.

This isn’t some tragic myth. This is my mother.

Out there was supposed to be the safe space.

I clutch the rose tighter. A thorn pierces the soft flesh of my palm, sharp and sudden. I welcome the sting. At least it’s real.

“I’m sure she was proud of you and what you accomplished here,” Irene says after a moment.

“Don’t. My mom never wanted me to come.”

She stops. Good. Because I can’t do that part. Not now. Not ever, maybe.

I tuck the rose into the strap of my bag like it’s some kind of anchor, even though it’s already dying.

I turn away—before she can see the grief start to crack me open.

Before I can ask whether gods cry for mortals like my mom. Whether they notice. Whether any of this ever matters.

The frost crunches under my boots again, loud in the silence between us.

I don’t look back.

#

I climb the narrow path past the torch pit and out toward the cliff where the bogeys first threw me into the ocean. The cliff where I lingered with Nikolai after the formal.

The tide crashes below, loud and insistent, like it’s arguing with the shore. Salt thickens the air. Snow doesn’t stick here—not much—but the rocks are slick, the wind a blade at my back.

I sit on the low stone ledge, legs curled to my chest, and let my bag slump beside me. The rose Irene gave me is still wedged in the strap—browning, half-shriveled, one petal clinging like it doesn’t know how to quit.

My fingers close around it anyway. I don’t cry. I just breathe. Watch the sea foam glow silver in the moonlight. Try to imagine a world that still includes her voice.

I don’t expect company.

So, of course, that’s when Ravi finds me.

He doesn’t say anything at first. Just drops into a crouch beside me, elbows on his knees, his profile soft in the moonlight. His coat flaps open in the wind. He looks human again. Fallible. Familiar.

“You shouldn’t be out alone,” he murmurs.

“I’m not alone.”

He nods, then shifts to sit beside me on the low wall of stone. “I heard. About your mother.”

I stay quiet.

“She always made me feel welcome,” he says after a pause. “I don’t think I realized how much that meant. When I was human.”

There’s something about the way he says it—steady, certain—that makes my chest ache. Like his voice is the only stable thing left in the world.

I chuckle despite myself. “Mom thought you were a bad influence. Called you that ‘Nayres Boy’ when you weren’t around.”

Ravi smirks.

“That’s fair. I did corrupt you.”

I drop my head onto Ravi’s shoulder, releasing a sigh.

“She thought this place would ruin me.”

Ravi reaches out, brushing a strand of hair behind my ear. The contact is light, but it undoes me more than it should.

“We’ll get through this, okay?”

Before I can reply, I hear it.

Footsteps. Crunching frost.

Nikolai emerges from the trees, dark coat snapping in the wind like a flag of war. His gaze lands on Ravi—and hardens.

“Curious choice of location. Isn’t this where you left her for dead?”

“Nikolai,” Ravi greets, running a palm down his face. “Always a pleasure.”

“I know.”

Nikolai’s boots grind into the frost as he steps closer, chin tipped with that easy, arrogant precision that always makes me wonder if I’m being sized up for a crown or a coffin.

He doesn’t look at me. Not yet. Just studies Ravi with cold amusement.

“You always did like to play the savior after the damage was done. Isn’t that how it went between my family and yours? Remind me—how long was your daughter enslaved before you finally sailed across the sea?”

Ravi’s jaw tightens, but he stays his hand. It’s surprisingly mature for the former hothead, and really shows how much he’s changed.

“Careful. I know you think everything’s a battlefield, but Nari isn’t one of your pawns.”

“No,” Nikolai agrees, gaze finally sliding to me. “She’s the one none of us can afford to lose.”

Ravi stands, slow and deliberate. He’s taller. Broader. But Nikolai doesn’t move an inch.

“Strange. For someone so afraid to lose her, you’re awfully good at pushing her away.”

“What do you want, Nicky?” I ask, exasperated. The wind curls around us like it’s trying to carry their voices away, but neither man budges. Neither raises his voice. That would be too easy. Too honest.

“Brought you something,” Nikolai says, holding out something small and cream-colored.

A bone carving.

Like the one he gave Ashki—only this time, my face stares back, silent and immortal.

My nose is defined, just like in the mirror.

My lips—soft, not smiling, not frowning, just set in that calm, watchful way I get when I’m trying not to give too much away.

My eyes are wide, almond-shaped, slightly tilted at the outer corners, carved so precisely it almost unnerves me.

Even the faint shadow of lashes—he managed to suggest them with the subtlest cuts of his blade.

But it’s the freckles that undo me. Tiny specks dotted across my cheeks and nose, like someone shook cinnamon over me. I didn’t even know he noticed those.

The most impressive thing is the hair.

It spirals in every direction—wild, dark, defiant. Curls like coiled ink, densely packed and perfectly unruly, as if each strand refused to be tamed on principle. He’s carved it all: the volume, the movement, the way a few tendrils fall loose at the hairline like they have a mind of their own.

He carved me. Not as a goddess. Not as a warrior.

Just…me.

It’s strange, holding your own likeness in bone. Stranger still when you realize someone studied you closely enough to memorize it.

It feels… intimate. Not like a tribute. More like a confession. Like he’s been speaking through bone, all this time, because words would betray him.

Nikolai shoves his hands in his pockets, as if he’s embarassed to be caught caring.

“Wow,” is all I can manage.

Nikolai’s sea foam gaze shifts to Ravi, then me.

“Had to go off memory. I tried to soften the scowl, but… that’s how you look at me most days.”

It’s easier to laugh at the jab than admit how hard my throat tightens.

“How long did that take you to make?”

“I’ve been working on it since the Mary Celeste.”

That was months ago. Before the duel. Before the deal. Before I ever knew what he really was.

He’s been carving me all this time. In secret. In bone.

Not because he had to.

Not for duty. Just… because he wanted to.

That realization lodges somewhere deep—sharp and impossible to dig out.

“I can’t touch you,” Nikolai says quietly. “Figured I had to show my affection somehow.”

Affection. That word. Said so plainly it feels like a slap. Not just because it’s him saying it. But because it makes something flicker inside me—something I don’t want to name.

Ravi lets out a dry laugh—quiet, sharp enough to cut the cold.

“Affection?” he echoes, like the taste of it turns his stomach.

I look at him, jaw tense. I know that laugh. It’s the one he uses when he’s barely keeping the god inside him leashed. When the ache of betrayal threatens to spill over into something divine and destructive.

Nikolai lifts a brow—slow, unbothered. “Something to say, Professor?”

The insult hangs there. I wince, just a little. Not because it isn’t deserved—but because Ravi’s fingers twitch like they want to become fists.

Ravi crosses his arms over his chest. “Last I checked, most people don’t show affection by publicly courting someone else and pretending their wife doesn’t exist.”

Wife. Gods. That word again. It shouldn’t affect me—it’s just strategy. Survival. An alliance. But my stomach still turns when he says it. And worse—when Ravi says it.

Nikolai doesn’t flinch. Just tilts his head, eyes gleaming.

“Would you have preferred I left flowers?”

My heart jumps.

Ravi’s eyes narrow. “I’d have preferred you left her alone.”

A beat passes.

Then Nikolai’s voice drops—low, razor-edged. “And let you swoop in instead? Play the grieving boy with all the right words but none of the weight?”

I inhale sharply.

That wasn’t fair. Gods, it wasn’t. But part of me thinks he’s not wrong.

“At least I’m not trying to bind her to me through obligation and politics.”

My pulse skips.

He means the marriage. The duel. The vow I agreed to but barely understood.

Of course I explained the whole thing to Ravi—once we started this up again. But I never thought he’d say it. Not to Nikolai’s face. It makes me feel exposed. Like some secret shame has just been dragged into the light and set between them like a weapon.

“Oh, you’d rather do it through guilt?” Nikolai replies, voice calm. Cruel. “You died. She grieved. You came back and expected her to wait.”

“I never asked her to wait—.”

“No,” Nikolai cuts in, finally turning to me, eyes blazing. “But you act like she’s supposed to.”

His gaze sears through me.

I open my mouth, but nothing comes out. Because I have waited. For both of them. For clarity. For safety. For choice. And none of them—none of this—has made that easier.

They’re not talking to me anymore. They’re talking through me. Over me. Like I’m just another battle.

And I don’t know who I’m more furious with—Ravi, for thinking love is enough to fix this, or Nikolai, for making me feel like I was worth something before tearing it all down.

“Enough,” I say, quieter than I feel. “My mother just died . Can the two of you get over yourselves long enough to show some godsdamned restraint?”

Silence.

Ravi exhales first. Not in defeat—just… release. Like he’s finally aware of how loud the tension’s gotten.

He scrapes a hand down his face, then nods once. “You’re right.” Then to Nikolai, with less bite, “This isn’t the time.”

Without another word, he turns and heads back toward the trees, his footsteps soft but certain, swallowed quickly by wind and frost.

Nikolai watches him go, unmoving.

When it’s just the two of us again, I don’t speak.

Neither does he.

The sea churns below.

The bone carving is still cradled in my palm, warm despite the cold—like it knows it wasn’t meant for anyone else’s hands.

I tuck it gently into my coat pocket, then look up.

“Thank you. For the gift.”

I hesitate.

I want to tell him Ravi and I are together.

Remind him this marriage is strategic. That there’s no need for carved affection when we agreed it was in name only.

But the words stick.

Because somehow, this doesn’t feel like pretending.

“I figured you might need it.”

His voice is quieter than before. No edge. No performance. Just a simple truth, offered like a hand I’m not sure I’m ready to take.

I don’t answer right away. I’m afraid if I speak, I’ll ruin the moment—or worse, admit what it means to me.

So I nod.

Once.

Not because I owe him gratitude.

But because I understand.

And that might be more dangerous than anything he’s said all night.