Page 20 of Wings of Darkness (Daughter of the Seven Circles #2)

I froze, barely breathing. Cato’s words hung in the air, and I stared at him, searching for the lie.

I wanted to argue. I wanted to rip apart every word he’d just said.

To me, the king had always been callous and cold-hearted.

Once he sent me into that river, I’d assumed my life meant little to him—just another game piece to play or discard.

But Cato’s words… they made me hesitate.

I’d almost forgotten that moment—the cold, commanding voice that had infiltrated my mind and helped me freeze Michael.

The king had saved our lives. I didn’t know it was him at the time, but I remembered feeling strange gratitude toward the mysterious male.

And if that wasn’t enough to make me question everything, I’d seen his love for my mom.

She was his cordistella—his soulmate. It all made sense now.

Every glance toward his bedroom door, like she’d disappear on him if he didn’t check every few seconds.

The raw, helpless fury he unleashed on his room when he learned what Michael had done to us.

He loved her because she was his other half.

The memories, combined with Cato’s words, slithered into the cracks of the steel fortress I’d built around my opinion of the king, forcing me to reconsider who he was.

But if they were cordistellas, why did she leave him? Why did she end up with Michael?

So many questions swirled in my mind, but the ones that escaped my lips felt like the words of a small, shriveled child clinging to an unfair past she couldn’t understand.

“If the king knew about us—if my mother was his bonded—why didn’t he ever come for us?

Why didn’t he ever save us from Michael’s abuse? ”

How different would our lives have been if I didn’t have to hear my mother’s cries, the sickening slap of skin against skin, or the clattering of furniture? If I didn’t have to feel the cold blade split open my back, or?—

I swallowed hard, forcing the ache down, and pushed aside the memories of Michael.

“The king isn’t allowed to leave the Redemption Circle,” Cato answered, his tone somber. “Even before Hell’s gate issues.”

What about his military? He couldn’t have sent someone to find us?

Bitterness slapped the back of my throat. I was wallowing in self-pity, and it’d do me no good. “The past happened,” I snapped softly to myself. “You can’t change it.”

He considered me for a moment more, then nodded to the book I had yet to open. “You’ll be meeting with your father in the morning. It’d be wise of you to brush up on what you know about him and your Infernus.”

“You know about my Infernus?”

“I’m a Throne,” he deadpanned.

Right.

“What do you know?”

He turned his back on me, swishing his robes as he did, and padded away. “Read and find out about them.”

“Them?” I called after him. He faded into an aisle of dark shelving and books, ignoring me. “For a Throne, he’s really choosy with what information he gives me,” I grumbled beneath my breath, flipping open the book on The King of Hell .

The opening paragraph explained the creation of Hell and the need for balance in the celestial world—an opposite to Heaven.

The passage continued, saying Hell had once been without a ruler.

But then the following paragraph discredited that information, stating Hell was created when the council chose Lucifer to be its ruler. It didn’t add up.

But that was nothing compared to the blacked-out paragraph at the end of the page. Was the author trying to hide a mistake? Or had someone deliberately erased it?

I held the page to the light, squinting to make out anything beneath the thick ink. Whoever had blacked it out had been thorough.

I skimmed the rest of the history, finding more blacked-out pages, and noting the celestial world’s obsession with balance, then moved on to the section about our Infernus. I spent hours reading, absorbing everything I could, until my eyes grew heavy.

Our powers came from the Seven Circles of Hell: Redemption, Temptation, Glaciation, Hallucination, Suffocation, Scission, and Immolation.

Each circle contributed a piece of itself to the king—and, by extension, me.

The book didn’t clarify what powers we received from each circle.

Still, it mentioned that the king had once possessed immense power until he willingly divided it, giving parts of his power to the lords of the circles to ensure their obedience—and to maintain balance and a connection to each dimensional circle.

I pursed my lips, a begrudging respect for the king creeping up inside me.

To once hold such power and give it away took strength.

Sacrifice. Michael would’ve never done that.

He wanted to murder me for prestige and to regain my mom’s wings—wings she never once mentioned to me. She seemed content without them.

Maybe Cato was right. Perhaps the male who fathered me wasn’t as bad as I thought. He obviously cared for my mom—without hesitation or conditions. Maybe he just wanted me to be stronger, to teach me the ways of his world.

But something still nagged at me. Why put me in an elite squadron when I wasn’t ready? Why demand I read thousand-page books in a day?

He was rushing me to be better. I felt my own urgency to grow stronger and understand more—but I had my reasons. What were his?

I chewed on my lip, my eyes drifting in and out of focus as my thoughts circled, following the sentences without retaining the information. Then my gaze landed on a distinct passage:

You’ll hear their whispers when they come,

they’ll stretch your skin when you’re one,

but know this ruler, and know this well,

the circles have a counterquell.

The whispers I assumed were the odd melodies I would hear. The stretching of my skin must be the itches. But what in the world did counterquell mean?

I read for a few more hours, even some of the books the king required us to read, all the while resisting the sagging of my eyes. At one point, I knocked my head against the table, nodding off, and knew it was time to leave .

Walking through the Doors of Moirai, I found Rune curled up in front of them.

“Rune?”

She lifted her head, blinking sleepily, then yawned and stretched like a cat. She gave me a wet lick on my cheek with a soft nudge. I smiled and ruffled her shadow fur.

“Let’s go to bed. I’m assuming I only have a few hours before I need to get up.” I refrained from groaning—and refrained again when Rune’s eyes lit up.

“You really can’t help yourself, can you? I’m off to bed, General. Follow along if you like.”

Rune and the peeping general trailed me as I returned to my room. I said nothing else to him, and if I didn’t look at Rune, I could almost forget he was there. Almost .

At my door, Oliver’s snores vibrated through the wood. My lips twitched.

“I’m going to bed now, and Rune’s—” I almost told the general his Soulhound was sleeping with me.

But Rune wasn’t mine, and I had to keep reminding myself of that, even if she was near me almost 24/7.

“I’d like it if Rune slept with me, and you didn’t invade her mind.

” Or mine again. I left that part out, though.

“And by the way, Oliver prefers males. That’s why I let him sleep in my room.

” My face heated at how much I was sharing.

I must be drained. “It comforts me to have someone I know who’s there for me and isn’t trying to use me.

So, not a boyfriend. And—” I paused, knowing I needed to do this, but not entirely feeling he deserved it.

“I’m sorry for insulting you. Goodnight, General. ”