Page 28 of Evermore (The Never Sky #3)

The shadows in The Broken Crown seemed alive, writhing along the walls of the tavern like restless spirits.

Of course, they probably were. Gods loved to lurk in dark corners, feeding off desperation and depravity like vultures picking clean a corpse.

I could feel them watching, their hunger palpable, but I didn’t care.

Let them see. Let them remember, until I decided they shouldn’t.

Minerva’s familiar presence settled beside me like a warm blanket, though her sharp eyes held their usual mix of exasperation and fondness. She wrapped her weathered fingers around a glass of wine. “Your subtlety needs work. Three gods walk into a bar sounds like the beginning of a terrible joke.”

“It’s good to see you too, Minnie,” I said, sliding my drink closer.

Minerva smiled, those ancient eyes full of the love she held for very few. The same look she’d given me every time I came back to Etherium lost and angry at the universe.

I swirled my drink. “What are you doing in Wisteria?”

“Preventing a catastrophe. Though you seem determined to cause one, anyway. You’ve always been a hopeless fool when it comes to the Huntress.”

“For a reason,” I growled, feeling the glass strain under my grip.

“Temper,” she started, but Tuck cleared his throat, playing his usual role of mediator between us.

“Honestly, I think he’s worse this time.

” Tuck shot me the look of a concerned brother rather than a subordinate.

“Hiding her in a veiled realm. Using his power against Ezra even if it pissed off the Fates. Standing on the precipice of bargaining himself away to Alastor. He’s making a mess.

It’s a good thing you’re here, Minnie, because on top of all of that, the balance is getting worse. ”

Minerva’s eyes gleamed. I hated when they fucking gleamed. “Getting worse or breaking? Or are we simply losing what was never truly ours?”

I caught a flash of movement in the corner. Bellatora, Serene and Valen huddled together on the back side of our table like children eavesdropping on their parents’ conversation. Let them listen. Their memories would be gone before they reached the door.

I curved the conversation back to my point. “You haven’t answered my question.”

“Haven’t I? Tell me, what better place to gather intelligence than the king’s council? While others skulk in alleys searching for scraps of information, I sit at the table where news is served, and decisions are made.”

Tuck leaned in. “And what have you learned?”

“I use that seat to learn about mortals but I think you’d be more interested to learn what I know of the circling gods. It seems your little Huntress has become quite the prize. Several of our kind know she holds power that doesn’t belong to her. They want to take it back, of course.”

The glass in my hand cracked. “They’d be fools to try.”

“Would they?” Minerva asked, “Because at the moment, Alastor holds all the cards. Fortunately, he won’t let her die, not until he gets what he wants. But he’ll try to break her.”

“She won’t bend,” I growled.

“Neither will he.” She leaned back, studying me with the same worried expression she’d worn when I’d first told her about the Huntress, countless lifetimes ago.

“I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t care. So, don’t take that tone with me.

You’ll get my help whether you want it or not because you need it.

See beyond your tunnel vision to the bigger picture, for Fate’s sake.

One life, Thorne. You have only years left with her before her soul is severed and gone. ”

“Not if I can save her.”

With her tiny elbows on the table, she propped her chin on her hands. “And how’s that working out for you?”

“I’m going to assume that’s rhetorical . ”

“Assumptions are the bane of my existence,” she said, sharing a look with Tuck.

“This is what I get when Knowledge and Reason are the only gods at my table.”

“We could always call Bellatora over for a little chaos and irrationality,” Tuck said into his mug.

“If we’re going to do that, bring the naked one too. Most lose all sense of reason when Serene’s around and I can disappear before Bella gets too whiny.”

Tuck’s eyes grew wide. “I thought you were about to say you liked the breasts. Almost died there, Minnie. Damn.”

“I shall keep that in mind for the next time you get on my nerves, Zentuchal.”

“My full name? Really? I thought we’d come to an understanding about that centuries ago.”

She lifted a casual shoulder. “Must have slipped my mind. Old age.”

He lowered his chin. “You don’t get to play the old age card on me.”

A wry smile curled her lips before she changed forms into a beautiful woman with sharp eyes, dark skin and red lips. Her favorite way to mess with Tuck.

“I’m never going to understand how you can shift,” he said looking away from the face of a demigod he’d once had a thing for.

“We’ve been over this.”

“Maybe you should turn into Paesha and try to talk some sense into Thorne. That seems reasonable .”

She scanned me once before turning back to Tuck. “He’d never listen.”

“And yet here you sit,” I said, taking another drink as the shadows curled closer, “watching me make the same mistakes I’ve made for centuries. Some might call that madness.”

“I call it necessity.” The playfulness drained from her expression, replaced by that look she’d given me countless times before. “The shadows grow deeper by the day, Thorne. Even you must feel it.”

I didn’t answer. Of course I felt it. The hunger in the dark corners of this tavern was nothing compared to what stirred in the spaces between realms.

She shifted back into her normal form, taking my hand. A gesture I didn’t take lightly. She never touched others. “You listen or you fail. When it comes to Alastor, you’re the target for him. She’s merely the bait to force your hand. Think logically.”

“Alastor doesn’t want power or control. He doesn’t even want Paesha, and that works in our favor.

He wants a path to Irri. That’s all. Find a path that doesn’t involve you and you’re free of him.

Both of you are.” Her eyes met mine and fell.

She knew me too well, had spent too many centuries pulling me back from the edge of my own destruction.

“You’re thinking of going to the Forgotten, aren’t you? ”

I didn’t answer. I didn’t have to.

“You can’t,” she said, genuine fear creeping into her voice, the same fear she’d shown when I’d nearly gone during the War of the Realms. “If you don’t return, the prophecy is fulfilled.

If what Ezarius has seen of the future comes to pass, we will all fall.

Not just you. Not just the gods in this room pretending they cannot hear every word we say.

All of us. You absolutely cannot go to the Forgotten. ”

“Then what would you have me do? Let him destroy her?”

“I would have you think, for once in your endless existence.” She rose, her frail appearance contradicting the power that crackled around her like a mother’s protective embrace. “The magic is volatile across all realms now. If these hunting gods can take the Huntress’s stolen power?—”

“Can they?”

“Does it matter? They’ll kill her trying.

” She gathered her shawl around her shoulders, a gesture so familiar it ached.

“The question you should be asking is why this version of her? Why now? What makes her so special that gods who haven’t left Etherium in millennia are suddenly very interested in your little mortal? ”

She walked away, leaving that question hanging in the air.

The shadows in the corners retreated, the lurking gods slinking away now that the show was over.

With a simple whip of power, the kind Minerva would scold me for using so carelessly, I wiped the entire conversation from their minds. They’d never know they missed it.

“Well,” Tuck said after a long moment, falling back into our usual rhythm. “That was horrifyingly unhelpful.”

“Was it? Or did she tell us exactly what we need to know?”

His eyes narrowed. “Boss…”

“They think she has power that belongs to them.” I met his gaze, seeing not only my most trusted friend, but the brother who’d stood beside me through thousands of years. “But what if it’s the other way around? What if she has power that was always meant to be hers?”

“That’s a dangerous theory.”

“More dangerous than letting Alastor break her?” I stood, tossing a few coins on the table. “We need to find Ezra.”

“Your brother who wants to kill her? That Ezra?”

“Yes,” I said, heading for the door with Tuck falling into step beside me as he always had. “The brother who’s seen how this ends.”