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Vorzyr’s rumbling voice directed my attention back to him, as he said, “There were rumors circulating surrounding my grandfather’s death, whispered conspiracy theories that reached my ear when I was a child.

But when I approached my parents about it, they denied there was any truth to them.

Now, though, with these Celestial-rooted abilities I’ve been demonstrating lately, it obviously occurred to me that my parents lied, that those rumors could be true.

It only hit me recently, because I didn’t know the Command of Beasts ability was Celestial-rooted until Ariana explained it to me, and that was the ability that I exhibited in front of my parents.

Not the Primal Celestial Resonance. That has a more obvious connection to Celestial heritage. ”

“What rumors?” Kai asked.

“Rumors that I wanted to investigate once it became clear that I had this Celestial connection. But things got in the way of that, so much was happening. And I also didn’t know how to bring my suspicions up, especially with you, Ariana.

” He screwed up his face as he revealed, “The rumors were that my grandfather, Malrik Titanus, was murdered by a Celestial being.”

“Oh my God,” I choked.

“Fuck, he was the blood link, wasn’t he?” Kai asked.

“It’s honestly the only fucking explanation.

The rumors said that he possessed power that was an affront to the True Celestials, that was seen also as a threat to the Celestial Plane.

It stands to reason then that he somehow ingested Celestial power.

And it must have skipped a generation, and was passed down to me through our bloodline.

It makes so much sense.” He looked out at me.

“With the timing, the being who murdered my grandfather could have been yours. Cornelius Martel. Or, so I thought until I was face-to-face with him on that mountaintop and he had no reaction to me. He didn’t even sense my Celestial power either.

Not at all. But the way Cassius struck me…

it occurred to me that the culprit could very well have been him. ”

“Your Celestial connection isn’t perceptible to anyone,” Kai told him.

“What?”

“As we’ve been working with your Primal Celestial Resonance ability, I noticed that there’s some sort of veil up.

A special form of cloaking that’s not even perceptible to a True Celestial.

Even Ariana didn’t feel it from you. We only found out from you displaying one of those special abilities to save me from that infection. ”

“Someone’s cloaked me,” he breathed. “To protect me.” His eyes met mine. “From the wrath of the Celestial Plane. From someone just like Cassius.”

“I’m so sorry,” I told Vorzyr. “This… realizing all of this… it’s brutal. We’ll figure it all out, I promise. I’ll get you the answers that you seek, that you need. We’ll go to see my grandfather.”

“Are you sure that’s a good idea right now?” Nyx asked. “Given the way you feel about what they kept from you? It’s still really raw,” he warned.

Kai tensed and I looked to see that my power was sparking again, this time from my other hand. I snuffed it out again, but my hand shook with the force I had to use, the strain of doing so.

“You need time to process that first,” Kai told me. “And we need V stable before the week is out and you’re tangled up in Cassius’ teachings and designs for you.” He looked at Nyx. “Reach out to Warlow and ask him for a favor. An audience with Cornelius Martel for Vorzyr and me.”

“Yeah, I can do that. Good idea,” Nyx said.

“In the meantime, I need you to stay your hand. We need you to,” Kai told Vorzyr.

“I can’t just—”

“We don’t know who was involved regarding Malrik’s demise yet. It’s just guesswork at this point.”

“We do know that Cassius is here to insert himself into Ariana’s life and force her to commit to a duty that she had no say in at all.”

“For now,” Kai emphasized. He looked out at me. “We wanted to tell you right when you arrived back with us, but you didn’t want to talk last night. But now we’re discussing this, just know that we’re working on a few things to solve this.”

Worry flared. “What sorts of things?”

“I’m working on a way to break the deal that’s been struck in your name.

Vorzyr is finding a way to use his Primal Celestial Resonance to push back Cassius, make him submit, something along those lines.

And, as a last resort, Nyx is working on a cloaking veil that could withstand tracking even from the Celestial Plane, thereby keeping you off their radar. ”

“Wow, that’s… a lot.” I pushed off the couch.

“But it’s also dangerous. You’re working with Celestial magic, and not just as a one-off like with the failsafe that we imbued the Aetherbound Scepter with.

This involves a lot more experimentation.

It’s a more time-consuming process. It could be detected by them, which would put you in their crosshairs.

And when somebody is in their crosshairs—”

“They end up dead,” Vorzyr rumbled.

“Or severely manipulated. Until you’re nothing but a puppet on a string forced to do their bidding and not even knowing why.” I dug my nails into the couch, as an unsettling pins and needles sensation rolled through me with every word that spilled from me, now unable to be contained.

I couldn’t keep an unaffected attitude any longer.

Because the more we talked about it, the more it cut into me.

That I was a servant of the Celestial Plane.

That I had no will of my own.

That my fate wasn’t my own.

And even if it was possible to overcome, like Kai was trying to put out there—that we could actually find a way out—the fight to achieve that would be immense.

I tried to suck in a breath in an attempt to re-center myself, to focus on strategizing and not allowing myself to be tormented or pushed into a depressive state of inaction and hopelessness because of all of this.

But that full, calming breath wouldn’t come.

I barely even managed to draw in air at all.

Shit… I… I couldn’t breathe easy.

“Halo?” Nyx uttered, scrambling up from the coffee table and making a move to come to me.

“ Stop,” Kai called, and in the next second, a barrier of his rose-gold magic flew up right in front of Nyx, knocking him back away from me.

He grunted, but with his agility, he was able to steady himself easily.

“What’s going on?” Vorzyr asked.

“Stay back, too,” Kai told him.

I looked down at my hands to see that, as I was digging my nails into the couch, my silver magic was alive with violent sparks of lightning, radiating out along the couch further and further with every moment.

“With my Primal Celestial Resonance, I can—”

“No,” Kai barked, cutting Vorzyr off. “Don’t touch her magic. Don’t interfere.”

“I can help her, Kai. I might still be working on controlling it, but—”

“It’s not that. You can’t try to control it. It’s essentially controlling her. No more. No fucking more of that. She’s at full power now and she had the courage to bring that about, to take back all that she is. So, now she needs to accept that and handle it.”

“This is about her agency. Her empowerment,” Nyx mused aloud.

“But she’s hurting. This isn’t a regular situation,” Vorzyr argued.

“I shouldn’t have brought up Malrik. It’s just served to pile it on when she was already reeling.

She hid it so well, I thought it would be okay to bring it up.

I hated keeping it in and not sharing it, once I realized the connection to everything else. ”

“It’s not on you. She cares about you. She’d want to know what bothers you, what eats at you. She wants us to be one, remember? This is a part of that,” Nyx assured him.

“It’s not… your fault,” I rasped, wanting Vorzyr to know that beyond a shadow of a doubt.

I didn’t want him to think that he’d triggered me, that he was causing me pain.

He already had enough he was dealing with, things he’d been burying for my benefit.

I didn’t want that. I wanted him to feel free to give me everything. I wanted them all to.

“It’s them,” I uttered, raising my voice without meaning to.

“The Celestial Plane… my family. The secrets and agendas. All of it.” I gritted my teeth as heat rolled through me, building to an uncomfortable degree.

“So… many… violations of… free will,” I ground out, the strain of uttering the words, such toxicity, worsening the power surge I was struggling to control.

The lights flickered violently.

The furniture shuddered, the room rattling all over.

Cracks formed in the windows.

And a sweeping wind blew through the room.

My silver power rose higher, above the couch where I sat, and shot up into the ceiling, permeating through it and causing a couple of cracks as it drove higher.

In the next second, I was screaming, my hands shuddering as I fought against so much resistance to control it.

I only just managed to sweep myself away in a cloud of silver smoke.

I rematerialized outside, about twenty feet from the house, the weeping trees of the ravine surrounding the small clearing.

The power surge that I was fighting to contain was so overwhelming that I couldn’t hold myself up, and I sank to my knees on the ground, damp seeping through my jeans from the early morning dew slicking the blades of grass.

A burst of rose-gold magic filled my vision, and then Kai was there, materializing a couple of feet from me.