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“Styx, god of shadows.” She moved along the line, inclining her head and touching her brow to each of her gods before she named them. “Kurin, god of secrets. Nicinnai, goddess of masks. Maleus, god of dawn and new beginnings. These two are often counted as one god,” Everlayne said, gesturing to the two beautiful females who stood arm in arm atop the same marble plinth. “Balmithin. Twin sisters. Goddesses of the sky. Legend says that they once were one god, but a mighty storm came, and Balmithin refused to take shelter as it raged across the land.
The powerful spirit within the storm was furious that Balmithin didn’t cower before him, and so he lashed her with forks of lightning. Again and again, the lightning struck Balmithin, but she didn’t die. Instead, she cracked and split in two, becoming Bal and Mithin. Bal is the goddess of the sun, but goddess of the day in a looser sense. Mithin is the goddess of the moon, but again, she presides over all of the night.” Bal. Mithin. Balea. Min. The Twins.
“That’s Zareth, god of chaos and change.”
sometimes,” Everlayne admitted. “To look upon Zareth’s face is to draw his focus. And very few people enjoy Zareth’s attention being focused on them. We respect and revere him, but we’d all rather he was paying attention to what other people were doing instead of us. We touch him on the foot to guide him away from us.” She patted his boot, stepping back. “We pray to each member of the Corcoran that they’ll return to Yvelia someday. But in secret, a lot of us pray that Zareth gets a little lost on his journey home.”
“A dragon. The last dragon,” she said meaningfully. “Its name was Omnamshacry. A legend amongst my people.”
“One thousand seven hundred and thirty-three,”
She hadn’t banked on Kingfisher kicking in my bedroom door, me thrown over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes and wailing like a banshee. Nor had she expected his ultra-foul temper, his split bottom lip, or the thin line of blood trickling down his chin. She’d squawked when he’d thrown me unceremoniously down onto my bed and snarled, “Bad human,” at me.
“Careful, human. We Fae have an excellent sense of smell. You’d be amazed what we can scent floating on the air.”
“I don’t hate your kind. I’m just disappointed by how breakable you are. If I held you down and fucked you the way I’m imagining fucking you right now, I doubt that you’d survive it.”
“That your body is betraying you in other ways. That I can smell you, Little Osha, and I’m thinking about drinking the sweet nectar you’re making for me straight from the fucking cup.”
“Because you’re intrigued. Because you’re bored. Because you’re super fucking aroused right now, and you want to follow through on whatever little fantasies are playing out in your head.”
“This is not my brother, Fisher. This is Carrion fucking Swift!”
Always pay attention to the fine print. The devil’s in the details. Now go.”
“The last time he laid his hands on a sword of note, he used it to
murder the true king and the whole fucking Daianthus line. If Rurik Daianthus—”
“It’s an honor to kneel at the feet of the Dragon’s Bane. Please. A blessing, Commander?
“There’s every way,” Fisher rumbled, his eyes darkening. “I’d know the smell of you anywhere.
On anyone. I’d know it blind and in the dark. Across a fucking sea. I’d be able to scent you—”
I kicked Carrion’s boots, grunting at him to move, when I reached the fire. The suggestive way he grinned at me made me think he could smell what I’d been up to as well, but that wasn’t possible. Our human noses weren’t that sensitive.
“You never wore the dresses I put out for you,” he murmured into my hair. “I don’t want to talk about dresses,” I whispered. “Fair enough. Let’s talk about food, then.” “Food?” He nodded. “Don’t share food with that prick again, Little Osha.” “What?” “Swift. Earlier. Back in the war room. You were trading that cake back and forth with him for ages.” “It wasn’t cake.”
The cards had been on the table for a while now. We were either going to kill each other or fuck each other, and I was glad we were both opting for the latter option.
“Because she is moonlight. The mist that shrouds the mountains. The bite of electricity in the air before a storm. The smoke that rolls across a battlefield before the killing starts. You have no idea what she is. What she could be. You should call her Majesty.”
“Lupo Proelia. Kingfisher’s wolves,” he said, sighing. “There are eight of us, usually. Though our numbers have been reduced of late. We fight as a team, working together, just as wolves do. I’m sure you’ve noticed the wolf on some of our armor.”
“That makes you the most powerful Alchemist ever recorded,”
“It’s a sex thing. If a male drinks from someone, it’ll make his dick harder than it’s ever been in his life. It makes you euphoric. Both of you. While you’re fucking.”
“Fisher says he’s not worried about what happens to him if he dies first,” Lorreth said. “And I’m not worried, either. Truth is, I plan on dying first, anyway. But if the fates guide the stars in a different direction and our better angels claim him first, I won’t permit a single breath into my body beyond the last one Kingfisher takes. By my own hand, I’ll make sure the piece of soul he loaned to me finds its way back to him. And if the fates consider it just, and I’ve done enough to earn a place at his side, I’ll go quietly and happily with my brother into whatever lies beyond.”
I hated remembering the knocks at our door in the middle of the night while my mother was working at Kala’s. The masked men who would thrust heavy hessian sacks into my hands and then sprint off without saying a word.
“Yes, I’m talking to it. What do you think I’m doing?” “I don’t know. You look constipated.”
We know who she is, the quicksilver hissed. She is the dawn. She is the moon. She is the sky. She is oxygen in our lungs. “I—” I didn’t know how to respond. Why would it say that? I was the dawn? The sky? Oxygen?
“Don’t you dare die on my watch, Saeris Fane! Fisher will never forgive me if his sole reason for living is torn to pieces on her first fucking battlefield.”
Time slowed down, and the strangest thing happened. My heart rate dipped. A sense of peace washed over me. Acceptance and understanding. The vampire on the left bypassed Ren and came straight for me. He was moving fast, I knew he was, and yet it seemed as if he was running on loose sand. He would drop down and try to tackle me to the ground; I could see the mindless, animal plan of attack already causing his knees to bend and his shoulders to hunch. The claws at the ends of his fingers, sharp as broken glass, curved, reaching for me, begging to find flesh.
The answer to this was simple. I dropped to my knees and swung the blade around my face, over my head, angled the blade up… and it was done. The vampire’s head rolled back down the bank and bounced when it hit the pile of bodies that had begun to form there, landing in the river with a splash. Ren paused, double-taking, his eyes round as he took me in. “What was that?” he breathed. “I don’t know. I just—”
It was Lorreth—Lorreth, and the angel’s breath Avisiéth had granted him—and the sight of it set my soul on fucking fire.
“Lorreth of the Broken Spires! Lorreth of The Darn!” “Lorreth!” “Lorreth!” “Lorreth of The Darn!”
Carrion was carrying a sword and a potted plant under his arm, still wearing his thick coat with the coarse fur over its wide collar.
“What’s with the plant?” Ren asked. Carrion shrugged. “I don’t know, I liked the look of it.
“I’ve forgiven him, I suppose. Yes. He didn’t make me do anything that hurt me or anyone else. He compelled me because he thought it would keep me safe. And he knows what’ll happen if he ever does it again.”
“I just love it when you disappear into tense conversations with creepy portal metal,” Carrion quipped, hoisting himself up to sit on the bench. “It’s fascinating watching you do all of those facial gymnastics.”
“Once upon a time, that was the case. Back when true mating bonds existed. Unions between true mates were blessed with marks from the Fates.
“And what about script? You know. Writing?” I could only get a few words out at a time. “Do people… get that sometimes? Going around… their wrists?” “Oh, no. Definitely not. You only see that kind of thing in storybooks,” Te Léna scoffed. “They called it a God Binding. A blessing from the gods themselves.
“Not you! Me!” He thumped himself in his chest, suddenly furious. “My weakness! My vulnerability! I’ve known for centuries that you were coming. That you were just going to show up one day and change everything. You’re the chink in my armor, Saeris. The soft spot where the knife slides in. You are the thing that Malcolm will hurt in order to hurt me, and I couldn’t… couldn’t fucking bear it!”
Most Sacred.”
Kingfisher nodded slowly, eyes shining bright. “Most sacred,” he repeated, whispering the words.
So I decided to be awful to you, so you’d fucking hate me and want nothing to do with me.”
God-bound. We were God-bound. Mates.
“Nobody will ever fuck you the way I’m about to fuck you, Saeris Fane. I’m about to introduce you to all seven gods. When you meet them, don’t forget to tell them I’m the one you worship on your knees.”
“My lips to kiss. My mouth to fuck.”
“I’ll be grateful for every second that I can say that I belong to you, Saeris Fane. Eighty years or eighteen hours. It doesn’t matter to me. It’ll still be the highest honor of my
He’d accepted me as his mate.
“I’m in love with you, Saeris Fane,” he whispered quietly into my hair. “And I’m already half-mad, anyway. What’s a little complicated thrown into the mix?”
