Page 82 of Evermore (The Never Sky #3)

Paesha

M y blood turned to ice, then fire, then something that couldn’t decide what it wanted to be, which was fitting, apparently, since I couldn’t decide what the fuck I was anymore either.

“What did you just say?” The words scraped out of my throat like broken glass.

A demigod? Me? The homeless kid from Requiem’s gutters, the girl who’d danced for coins, who couldn’t even keep her father from choosing opium over her, that girl was supposed to be half-goddess?

And not just any goddess, but Aeris, the supposed Goddess of Renewal who’d schemed, and tried to bind Archer to Ezra, and apparently abandoned her own daughter without a backward glance?

The Remnants exploded across the floor, dragging darkness with them as they slithered up the walls, reacting to my fury and confusion.

Winter materialized beside me, her spectral form more solid than I’d ever seen her, blood dripping from her nose as snow cascaded around her.

For once, I didn’t try to rein her in. Nor the others that appeared.

One after another, after another. Until I could hardly see anyone else standing in the entry of our humble home.

“You knew,” I said, turning back to Aeris. The words felt inadequate, pathetic even, against the storm of emotions threatening to tear me apart from the inside. “All this time, you knew.”

Aeris managed to compose herself, shoulders straightening as she met my gaze. “It was… complicated.”

“Complicated? You abandoned me. You left me with him.” I jerked my chin toward my father, who still hadn’t looked at me. “And then what? Had a good fucking time watching the chaos ensue? Was it entertaining for you?”

“Paesha—” Elowen started, but I shook my head sharply.

“No. I want to hear her say it.” I stepped closer to Aeris, close enough to see the flecks of gold in her eyes.

Eyes that, I realized with a sickening lurch, were slightly tilted like mine.

“Tell me. Did you help Ezra hunt me down? Did you sit back while I was tortured in the Maw? While I bargained away my freedom to the Maestro? Answer me!”

“You don’t understand?—”

“Then make me understand!” I roared, the Remnants surging higher, coiling around the chandelier, blotting out the light. “Or better yet, don’t bother. Get the fuck out.”

Aeris’s face hardened, the maternal mask slipping to reveal something ancient and calculating. “I’m only trying to help you, Paesha. There are things you don’t know, forces at work that?—”

“I don’t care.”

“You should,” Aeris said, her voice dropping lower, a challenge in it now. “The Treeis bond you share with Archer, you’ve realized it by now, haven’t you? The bond that should never have existed.”

“You were trying to bind him to Ezra. We already figured that out.”

“And you interfered,” she replied, her smile cold and calculating. “But it works out rather well for me. Your Guardian cannot ascend to the throne now.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Oh, my girl,” Aeris crooned, “a Treeis Guardian cannot be bound in marriage. The magic won’t allow it, their soul is already divided.

No marriage, no throne. And while we’re discussing truths, ask Reverius why Ezra had no memories when you met.

Ask him what the final bargain was. Ask him what he’s been hiding from you. ”

The mention of Thorne sent a fresh wave of confusion through me. “Don’t you dare try to deflect this onto him.”

“I’m offering you truth. Something he never has.”

I stepped closer, until we were nearly nose to nose. “Get. The. Fuck. Out.”

The sound of new arrivals cut through the tension.

I didn’t need to turn around to know it was Thorne.

I could feel him, that familiar pressure in the air that always accompanied him.

Archer and Tuck’s voices drifted in from outside, their casual conversation dying abruptly as they sensed the atmosphere.

“Everything all right in here?” Thorne’s measured voice did nothing to disguise the lethal edge beneath it.

I didn’t look at him. Couldn’t. Not with Aeris’s accusations hanging between us, not with my father standing mutely in the doorway, not with my entire sense of self crumbling around me.

“No. But Aeris was just leaving, weren’t you, Mother? ”

Thorne’s sharp inhale was all I needed to hear to know he had no idea.

And I needed that. Needed to believe he hadn’t been keeping it from me.

Aeris said nothing more, holding her gaze locked on to me as she stormed past and walked out.

I wanted to watch her leave, if only to remind myself what it felt like when she vanished all those years ago.

But I didn’t need that. Not when the memory still burned in my soul.

Instead, I fixed my gaze on my father, really seeing him for the first time.

The years hadn’t been kind, but he was sober.

Clean. Standing on his own two feet. A part of me, the abandoned little girl who’d cried herself to sleep in alleys, wanted to scream at him, to demand explanations, to make him feel every ounce of pain he’d inflicted.

But I was no longer that girl.

“I’m glad to see you’re well,” I said, my voice steadier than I felt. “I hope you continue to be. But some relationships end for a reason, and I think ours did. I wish you the best, but I don’t want you in my life. I don’t know if that’s why you came here, but this is the end for us, Papa.”

Something like respect flickered in his tired eyes. He nodded once, a jerky dip of his chin. “I understand, Treasure. I saw you in the Underground and I…” He nodded again. “I understand.”

I watched him turn. I felt it in my soul.

The ache of abandonment, once an open wound, hardened into something solid, something that was mine to close.

Not a plea unspoken, not a tether frayed, but a door sealed with the weight of my own choice.

And in that quiet finality, I found a freedom I never knew I needed.

He was halfway down the path before I called for Tuck. “Would you mind following him? Make sure he’s not… struggling.” The irony wasn’t lost on me, showing more concern for his welfare than he’d ever shown for mine. But spite was for gods and I didn’t give a shit what anyone said. I was not one.

“Of course,” Tuck answered.

The stars were exceptionally bright tonight, as if the universe was trying its best to compensate for the darkness churning inside me.

I pulled my knees to my chest, wishing the cold night air could numb more than my skin.

The roof beneath me still held a trace of warmth from the day’s sun.

Was Aeris like the sun? Had she been there all along, hovering in the periphery of my life?

What would I say to Archer? How could I explain to him that the future he’d finally accepted was no longer an option for him.

He couldn’t marry. Couldn’t take the throne because of me.

If he’d stayed away, he would have never been tangled in all of this.

I’m not sure how I’d ever look him in the face again.

Though I wasn’t sure how I’d look at myself in the mirror either. I’d only ever see her.

“Demigod,” I whispered, testing how the word felt in my mouth. Strange. Foreign. Like trying on clothes that didn’t fit.

It explains much , Levanya said, and for the first time, she materialized beside me. Ghostly, but stunning. Dark skin, long braided hair, a fierce and passionate gaze.

“Does it? Because I feel like it explains nothing at all.”

She paced, the long ribbons of her tattered gown doing nothing to hide the arrow in her chest.

“The gods were banned from Requiem. How could she have been there?”

When have you ever known the gods to do what they are told?

I laughed bitterly. “Fair point. But why did she leave? Why did she stand in front of me and never tell me?”

There’s no question she saw your eyes when you were born.

She’s known the mark of the Huntress for ages.

I cannot speak for her, but I would imagine there was a battle within her.

Imagine giving birth to the only thing that could destroy you.

That’s the cruel fate of gods. They rarely care for their offspring.

“Then why is she here? Now?”

Think, Paesha.

“What do you think I’ve been up here doing for three hours?”

She shot me a look. One that Elowen had perfected years ago.

Elowen. Truly the only mother I’d ever known.

The woman who’d never baulked at my sass, never complained about my messes.

Never gave up on me. Not even when I brought a two-year old into her home and spent three months avoiding her for fear of attachment.

I couldn’t be sad about being abandoned.

I could only be grateful. It’d led me into the arms of my real family.

Which only took me back to the ultimate question. Why?

But there was only one reason she could have come back. The same reason for everything. “Power.”

The root of evil.

“She assumed I’d die the same way the rest of the Huntresses have. She left me to that fate. But she was wrong. She was wrong and now she’s scared. That’s why she’s trying to stay close. So she can watch me. But why involve herself? Why set Archer up to become an Unmade Guardian?”

She works for Ezra now. She hopes you will die like the rest of us and there will be no more risk to her existence.

“Then she should have killed me.”

Perhaps , Levanya said, letting that word drift away on the breeze. But now she can’t. You’re surrounded by too much love.

“The irony,” I whispered, pulling my knees to my chest to stave off the wind. Love would never matter in the end.

As if sensing my thoughts, Levanya reached out, her spectral fingers hovering just above my cheek.

You are stronger than you know. Stronger than any god or mortal.

Aeris’s blood may flow through your veins, but it does not define you.

You are Paesha, the Huntress, the dancer, the fighter. You bow to no one.