Page 32

CHAPTER

THIRTY-ONE

Renwick

“Oh, Son,” Asteria crooned, attention fixed on my wings.

I squeezed my eyes shut against her understanding gaze. “Do not…”

She stepped closer, hands closing over my shoulders. “A few centuries are nothing and yet…”

“It is everything,” I finished for her. “Especially when one assumes it will be eternity.”

The perpetual breeze of the in-between rustled her hair, her feathers tensing in the wind to balance her. I flinched as mine did the same, a familiar flexing of my muscles, as natural as breathing. But I could not find it within myself to even reach back and touch them, let alone take to the skies. Because if I did only to have them ripped from me again when I woke…the agony would be unfathomable.

Asteria’s delicate brows furrowed, attention fixed over my shoulder. I thought she was inspecting my wings until she frowned, a murmur slipping through her lips.

“What is she doing?”

I turned, tucking my wings in tight so I would not hit my mother, in time to see Oralia with three unfamiliar people. Two had their hands around one arm while another held her wrist. Samarah was at her back, fingertips pressed to my mate’s spine as if pushing her forward.

“Do you recognize them?” Asteria asked.

Shaking my head, I moved closer to the space they were passing through. It was mere moments, not long enough for Oralia to truly see, but in another heartbeat, she and Samarah stepped through again. The latter sent me a concerned glance before they vanished.

On and on, Oralia walked close to thirty people through the in-between toward Infernis. At the end, I could have sworn it was her adopted brother, Caston, Prince of Aethera, with her, supporting another man under his arm. None wore the armor of the Golden King—not a single gilded helmet to be found.

“She must be gathering warriors,” I muttered, sliding a hand through my hair, heart thumping through my chest.

We were close, then. I eyed my mother, the look of worry resting on her brow. “We need to figure out a way to get you back.”

Asteria frowned, exhaling slowly through her nose. “I do not think such a thing is possible.”

A muscle ticked in my jaw. It was a circular conversation and one we’d had a few times since my arrival into this realm. “Not before, no. But now I am here… We have learned much about this realm. With Samarah’s help—”

“I have accepted my fate, love.” The softness of her words rankled.

This was not the woman I’d known. The god who had railed against my father and his mad ways, who would not stand idly by and see humans enslaved by gods. That spark had died within her, withered away by loneliness and despair until only a shell remained.

“Well, I have not,” I answered, unable to keep the bitterness from my voice. “Do you not want to leave this place? Do you not wish for Typhon to face his crimes?”

She pursed her lips, throat working with a swallow. “Of course, I do.”

I raised a brow. “You do what? Want to leave this place? Or want Typhon to face justice?”

“Both. Of course, both.”

Her answer fanned the ever-present fury. My nails bit into my palms as I clenched my fists. “Does it not horrify you what he has done?”

Asteria blinked at me. “How could you ask me such a thing? Of course, I am horrified.”

I shook my head, a bitter laugh slipping through. “Because you have walked beside me on this path for however long I have been stuck here, content merely to wander, to listen to my fears, yet never once have you shown anger at what has befallen me…befallen us.”

“It was a long time—”

“Days ago, Mother,” I cut across her. “Perhaps weeks, maybe more, but it feels as if it was days ago that Typhon strung me up and tore me apart piece by piece. And do you know what? I knew every second of that agony. I lived every moment of that torture until my heart was ripped from my chest and my head disconnected from my body.”

Asteria turned from me, but I followed, tugged her hands from her face, and forced her to look.

“A bolt through each arm and each leg. Another through my chest.” I touched the space between my ribs. “And then the killing blow through my neck.”

Midnight eyes, identical to my own, glistened up at me, crimson staining pale cheeks. “Could you have stopped him?”

I nodded. “I could have, but I used my final reserves of magic to send Oralia back to the shores of Infernis.”

Because my mate would always come first. I would die a thousand more deaths if it meant she was safe. Asteria’s throat worked again, swallowing back whatever emotion she fought.

“You have seen the havoc he has wrought, and it was not millennia ago. It was yesterday, and the day before, and tomorrow, and the next.” I cupped her face in my hands. “Do you not see?”

“My anger burns, but it consumes only me,” she whispered. “I learned centuries ago my anger is useless in the face of so much time. Typhon is untouched by such a fire.”

I leaned down to eye level. My hands dropped to her shoulders. “Then make him feel it. Choose to leave this place, to find a way to watch him burn.”

She shook her head. “And then what would I be? The world has no need of the Great Mothers, as they call it.”

I straightened to my full height, gaze fixed upon the point where Oralia had passed through.

“You would be the blade in the hand of the one who brings him down. A dagger shoved into his side by surprise. Place yourself in the service of my mate.” Turning back to her, I noted the slight shift in her gaze, her lips parting in surprise.

“Because her magic is the thing that changes everything .”