Page 61 of The Last One Standing (Rogue X Ara #4)

“I don’t exactly trust her, either, but we can trust that she’ll help to end him.”

“Why would she help us kill her own son?” I asked.

“Like I said, it wasn’t until I saw him that I saw the resemblance and put two and two together, but it made me wonder.

” She scowled, her eyes unfocused. “Was Adonis just a manipulator born out of trauma? Or was he…more?” Her gaze snapped back to mine.

“He is more. He possesses more and more of her each passing day. All power has a balance, and because she birthed another entity, he takes his power from her. I can’t say how far it’ll go or when it’ll come to equilibrium, if it ever will.

Who’s to say he won’t drain her completely?

We don’t know—and that’s why. She has to kill him before he kills her. ”

A weight settled in my gut. “She’s been looking for that weapon longer than she let on.”

“I believe so.” Iaso nodded slowly. “He’s gotten strong enough to enter her mind as well.

It’s harder for him, but he cracked her defenses.

He couldn’t plant anything, but she felt him rummaging through her memories, her knowledge, her mind.

He broke through her walls, Rogue. Do you understand the gravity of that? ”

My head spun, my breath rapidly consumed in flames. Fire climbed my arms, but I patted it out.

“We need to sit down,” Iaso said, her normally dark, rich skin turned ashen. “ I need to sit down.”

We sat on the stones near the cave’s entrance, the two wyverns lying down nearby. I listened for Ara’s movement inside, but it was silent.

She sucked in a slow breath, seemingly gathering herself. “Calypso and I are not Fae.”

“I know. You’ve told me this already.”

“But I didn’t tell you what we are, though I’m sure you’ve guessed. We’re not human, nor Puer Mortis, nor creature,” she continued, her face down turned to the ground. “We weren’t born in this realm.”

“Iaso, I know this.”

Her eyes lifted to Guardian, her throat bobbing. Her hands found one of her long braids and twirled it absentmindedly. “Did the wyverns tell you of our mother?”

Guardian’s mind skimmed along mine, listening through me.

Do you know who they are? I asked him.

We know they are not like the rest of you. They are more like us. The sisters are raw power, children of the sun and moon.

“What?” I accidentally asked aloud.

Iaso repeated, “Did they tell you?—”

“No,” I said, “they didn’t.”

“I wasn’t sure if they knew. We’ve not had much interaction with them throughout history, and it’s not like we can talk to them.”

“Throughout history?” I asked. “Iaso, just spit it out already.”

“Our Mother is the Mother. We were born into existence by the Goddess herself, split from her, nearly exact replicas. I came into this world through the Marsh. That’s why there’s no magic left there; it became mine.

I am… Well, I’m many things. We both are.

I’m the warmth of the sun and the embrace of the earth.

I’m what grows from the soil, what blooms in spring, what withers in autumn—the deep roots that hold this realm together.

“Though I find myself tipping the scale more often than not, I was born to represent balance, and balance is not always kind. The same plants that cure can kill. The same hands that heal can wound. It’s simply how life is. You can’t have life without death, nor death without life.

“Calypso, however, is the antithesis of me. She was born from a maelstrom and has lived for chaos ever since. She’s the depths of the sea, where light is swallowed whole and nothing is ever as it seems. She’s not death, but the darkness that gives it form—the whispers of temptation, of corruption, of lies and debauchery.

She makes deals with mortals, but like the ocean, she always takes more than she gives.

It’s her nature. Like me, she’s neither good nor evil. She simply is. ”

Iaso was breathless when she finished, and I was speechless. I gawked at her, and I could’ve sworn Guardian was, too. When she finally looked at me, she laughed and patted me on the shoulder.

“It won’t seem so jarring soon enough. Give it time to sink in.

” Dropping her braid, she curled her hands in her lap.

“My power works within the body, both land and person. I can heal wounds or diseases, any affliction that manifests in a real way on flesh or earth—something my power can find and identify.”

At least I had known that much. “And Calypso works in the mind?”

“Yes, much like Adonis, though she’s never reached into others like he does.

The power doesn’t manifest as a weapon for her.

She doesn’t change people or take root in their psyche.

She reads people, their intentions, fears, likes and dislikes—and destinies, to an extent.

” Her face scrunched, head cocking to the side.

“She can see destiny some of the time and not always with great accuracy, because fate is ever changing. Yet she doesn’t seem to acknowledge that when she’s striking deals with that information.

” She waved her hand through the air. “Not the point. The point is, she’ll be able to read the oath between you two. ”

“All right.” I ran my hand down the scruff growing along my jaw. “Where is she?”

“I don’t know,” Iaso said.

My head swiveled to her. “How do we find her?”

“We’ll send a letter, and she’ll undoubtedly want something in exchange.

She may be my sister, but she’s still Calypso, and she’s not particularly happy with me at the moment, nor am I with her for that matter.

” As if a thought occurred to her, she sucked in a breath, her mouth falling open, eyes wide.

“Oh, you should also know about Terran. He’s not?—”

“I know he’s Drakyth.”

She reared back in surprise. “How?”

Oh, well, we went into the realm of the dead, and I had a flashback and a vision, where I’m pretty sure Vaelor showed me the truth while he saved us from certain death.

“It’s a long story,” I said.

“Well, yes, he’s Drakyth, and he knew Adonis. He practically raised him.” She peeked at me. “He was thirteen when Vaelor found him on the streets and brought him to Drakyth—or so he says.”

“Thirteen, hmm?” My fingers found the scar along my neck, a jagged mess of silvery skin. I held no sympathy for the boy he’d been. The man he became destroyed any chance of that.

“Calypso abandoned him not long after leaving Adrastus.” Iaso shook her head. “She cut his wings from his back, so Adrastus wouldn’t know her spell worked. She didn’t?—”

“Her what? ”

“They weren’t fated mates, but he wanted a son who could shift, so she created a spell—a curse, really—to force the shift down to their child. What she didn’t realize was how monstrous Adrastus could be, the web of lies he could spin.”

“She couldn’t see into his mind?”

“Something about the animalistic side of shifters fragments their minds into bits that she has a hard time deciphering, and because he’d smothered his Fae flame, essentially ridding himself of his humanity altogether, she couldn’t read him at all.

She liked that about him.” Iaso gazed over the treeline, drawing in a deep breath.

“We weren’t on speaking terms at the time—one of my biggest regrets.

I could’ve warned her, not that she’d listen.

She went in blind, and he convinced her that he loved her.

That was all she ever wanted, truthfully.

She wanted to be loved for who and what she was, and who better than another selfish being?

What she failed to realize was that selfish people can’t— won’t put another’s desires ahead of their own, something she should have known. ”

“And Adrastus certainly had desires,” I muttered.

Her shoulders sagged as she spun one of the many gold rings around her finger. “That he did.”

“So, she cut off Adonis’s wings?” I asked, rolling my shoulders when the scars itched. I hadn’t taken a blade to them since Ara was freed, but they never felt…right.

“A fresh out of the womb newborn baby, yes. Horrific as it may seem, she saved Adonis from a lifetime with him. He didn’t want a shiftless son, so she escaped, and he didn’t follow.”

She laid her hand over mine without looking in my direction, warmth flowing from her palm, and the unspoken words were clear.

I hadn’t been spared such a life, but ironically, Adrastus hadn’t been spared either.

All that work, and he still ended up with a shiftless son, or so he thought.

Worse, he was the very reason I couldn’t shift.

He killed Vaelor, which led to the curse on Ara that seeped down our mate bond.

He’d fucked himself.

I closed my eyes, running my hand over my jaw when a laugh crawled up my throat. Dear Goddess, I hoped he realized that as he watched from whatever hell he rotted in.

“But then, she abandoned him before he could even speak. She left him to the streets of Rainsmyre, which I’m sure was”—she grimaced with a flinch—“atrocious.”

“She told you all of this?” I trusted Iaso. Whether she had her secrets or not, I trusted her with my life, and I knew in my bones this wasn’t something she would’ve hidden had she known.

“Some of it, yes, but the details, no. That was Delphia, actually.” Her palm grew warmer, a soothing energy flowing from her, but I pulled my hand away. “She snooped and eavesdropped as much as she could while we were in King’s Port.”

I pinched the bridge of my nose. “And she just conveniently peddled you this so-called truthful information?”

She shrugged her shoulders. “She was born to be a spy, so I let her spy.”

Made her spy, I was sure.

She sighed and sprawled back on the stone. “We haven’t conversed like this in…a very long time. I missed you, and dear Goddess above, I was damned near worried to death.” Guilt sank in my gut before her eyes cut to mine with pure motherly threat. “If you ever do that again?—”

“It won’t, I swear it.” I wouldn’t have to.

Ara would never be taken from me again.