A shadow in the ember

Chapter 45

“I don’t understand,” I whispered, moving once more and then stopping a few feet from Sir Holland.

“You know him?” Nyktos had shifted closer as he stared down at the man before us.

“She does,” Sir Holland confirmed, his dark eyes searching mine. “I’ve known her for most of her life.”

“He trained me,” I whispered. I wanted to touch him to see if he was real, to hug him. but I couldn’t move. “It’s Sir Holland. I don’t understand how this is possible.”

“You can just call me Holland,” he told me. “That is my name.”

“But you’re…why are you here?” Confusion pounded through me as Penellaphe glided past him, entering the airy chamber. “Are you a viktor?”

“No. That honor is not mine,” he said.

“He’s here because he’s a Spirit of Fate,” Nyktos stated coldly. “He’s an Arae. One who’s apparently been masquerading as a mortal.” He eyed Holland. “Now I understand how you had knowledge of a certain potion.”

“He’s not a spirit.” To confirm this mostly for myself, I reached out and pressed a finger against the rich brown skin of his arm.

“Spirits of Fate—the Arae—are like gods.” Nyktos reached over, pulling my hand away from Holland. “They are not like the spirits near your lake.”

Holland’s gaze followed Nyktos’ hand, one side of his lips curving up.

Stu

“I was, but I didn’t go,” he answered. “I knew my time in the mortal realm had come to an end. I came here to wait.”

“Because you knew we…we would come to speak to you?”

He nodded.

That was…well, u

A thought occurred to me. “This is why you never seemed to age.”

“It wasn’t the liquor,” he said.

“No shit,” I murmured.

Penellaphe laughed as she came to stand beside Holland, the gown settling around her feet in a puddle of silk. “Is that what he said?”

I nodded, staring at the man I’d considered the closest thing to a friend. A man I’d trusted. Someone who wasn’t mortal. I didn’t know yet if I should feel betrayed or not. “There is…there has been a lot I haven’t understood, but this, I really don’t get.”

“I think I might know,” Nyktos said, drawing my gaze. He was watching Holland as if he were a few minutes away from pitching him through the open ceiling. “The nursemaid spoke the truth. The Arae had been present upon her birth and you, being one of the Arae, learned of the deal somehow and took the place of the one who was supposed to train her.” He paused. “To kill me.”

“To kill,” Holland corrected.

“Did it not occur to you to inform her of the pointlessness behind that endeavor?” Nyktos demanded, and I was glad he’d brought it up.

“I couldn’t. All I could do was train her.”

“I should thank you for that part,” Nyktos replied, and I could already tell that wouldn’t happen. “But you’re Arae. You’re not allowed to intervene in fate.”

“He didn’t.” The goddess smiled, and Nyktos shot her an incredulous look. “Not technically,” she amended.

“I never directly interfered,” Sir Holland said, and I really needed to stop thinking of him as a knight when he was basically a god. “That’s why I couldn’t tell you who I was or that the Rot wasn’t tied to the deal. If I did, then it would have been considered interference. I was pushing it when I gave you the tea.”

“You were pushing it by even being around her. So, it sounds an awful lot like semantics.” Nyktos folded his arms over his chest. “Does Embris know about this? Of your involvement?”

My heart skipped. That was why Nyktos didn’t sound exactly thrilled by this reveal. If Embris knew, the Primal could tell Kolis about me.

“If I had truly intervened, he would have known. But he’s currently unaware of the deal and who the source of power is.”

“Wait. How is that possible?” I asked, realizing something I hadn’t before. “If the Arae answer to his Court, how could he not know about the deal—about everything?”

“Because the Arae don’t answer to Embris. They just live there,” Nyktos explained, angling his body so that the side of his hips brushed my arm. “Fate answers to no Primal.”

“Unless we overstep,” Holland tacked on. “By directly interfering.”

I had to agree with Nyktos that it sounded like semantics, but I had more pressing questions. “Why did you even get involved? You were with me for so long. The number of years…” Did he not have a family? Friends? Those he missed? Or had he gone back and forth?

“It was a long time,” Penellaphe spoke up. “Those years were a very long time.”

“I did it because I knew I needed to. It wasn’t easy, being gone for so long and so often, but this was bigger than me. Bigger than all of us.” Holland leaned against a pillar and lifted his gaze to Nyktos. “I did it because I knew your father. I knew him when he was the true Primal of Life. I considered him a friend.”

I glanced up at Nyktos, but nothing could be gained from his expression. “Did you know what was to become of him?” he asked.

Holland shook his head. “No. The Arae ca

My brows knitted together. “You would’ve intervened? What is the punishment for that?”

“Death,” Nyktos answered. “The final kind.”

I shuddered as my gaze swung back to him. Fear rose. “Is it okay that you’re here?” I felt the brush of Nyktos’ fingers against mine. The touch surprised me, but the soft hum of contact was calming. “Should you leave?”

“The Arae can do nothing to intervene in your fate,” Penellaphe advised. “Not anymore.”

Her words…they felt like an omen, leaving me chilled.

“Then you know why we summoned you. Can you tell us why my father did this?” Nyktos asked. “Why he would put such power into a mortal bloodline—what he hoped to accomplish from that?”

“The better question is what your father did exactly,” Holland countered. “As you know, your father was the true Primal of Life. Kolis couldn’t take everything. That would be impossible. Embers of life still remained in Eythos, just as embers of death remained in Kolis. And when you were conceived, part of that ember passed onto you. Just a flicker of the power. Not as strong as the ember that remained in your father, but enough.”

Nyktos shook his head. “No,” he said. “I never had that ability. I have always been this—”

“You wouldn’t have known if you had that ember until you went through the Culling. But your father took that ember from you before Kolis could learn that you had it in you,” Holland explained. “Eythos knew that Kolis would’ve seen you as even more of a threat. One that his brother would’ve extinguished.”

Nyktos’ eyes began to churn slowly. “My father…” He cleared his throat, but his voice was still hoarse. “He took it from me to keep me safe?”

My heart squeezed as Holland nodded. “He took that ember, along with what remained in him, and put it in the Mierel bloodline.” Dark eyes focused on me. “That is what is in you. What remained of Eythos’s power and what had passed on to Nyktos.”

I opened my mouth, but I was at a loss for words. Nyktos’ equally shocked gaze met mine. “I…I have a part of him in me? And his father?”

“You have the essence of his power,” Penellaphe said, and my head swung back to her.

“That still sounds really weird…and uncomfortable,” I said.

Penellaphe glanced away, her lips twitching before her gaze met mine. “That does not mean you have a part of Nyktos or his father in you or that it would somehow make you some sort of a descendant,” she confirmed—and thank the gods for that because I was about a second away from vomiting a little in my mouth. “You just have the essences of their powers. It’s like…how do I explain this?” Her brow wrinkled as she glanced at Holland. “It’s like when a god Ascends a godling. The godling shares their blood, but they are not related to that god or any of that god’s bloodline. The only thing that could happen is the essence could…recognize its source.”

“What—what does that mean?” I asked.

“This would be even harder to explain, but I imagine it’s a lot like two souls meant to be one, each finding the other.” She was looking at Holland again, and my heart gave another leap. “Both of you may have felt more comfortable around each other than you would others.”

The breath I took was thin as I leaned back against the dais. There was no denying that I had felt far more comfortable around Nyktos than I did anyone else. That I never really feared him. “I…I felt this…warmth in me when I first saw you. A rightness.” I twisted toward Nyktos. “Not the night in the Shadow Temple, but in The Luxe. I never said anything because I wasn’t even sure what I was feeling, and it sounded silly. But the night in The Luxe, I had a…a hard time walking away from you. It felt wrong. I didn’t understand it.” I turned back to Holland and Penellaphe. “Could that be why?”

“And here I thought it was my charming disposition,” Nyktos muttered under his breath. I shot him an arch look. “I felt something similar. A warmth. A rightness. I…I didn’t know what it meant.”

My eyes widened. “You did?”

He nodded.

“As I said, it would be like two souls shaped for one another coming together,” Penellaphe said.

Two souls coming together. Was that why I interested Nyktos so much, despite his intentions to never fulfill the deal? Why he was able to find peace in my presence? Could it also explain why I had been drawn to him even when I believed I had to end him? For me, maybe in the begi