“It’s fate’s burden,” she’d replied. “You’re the strongest of all of us, Shadow. That’s why your destiny is the hardest.”
Her words played through my head, making me grimace.
We’ll see,I thought.
“Shade,” Kols prompted, arching an auburn brow. “How do we get Aflora back?”
“Have you considered that she might be safer with Zakkai?” Tray interjected, his tone quiet yet thoughtful. “What will you do if you find her? Run? Because the Council isn’t going to let you keep her, Kols.”
“Safer with the Quandary Blood who wants to start a war?” Zeph repeated, sounding darkly amused. “Sure. That sounds positively safe.”
“He won’t hurt her,” I said quietly. “I wouldn’t have given her to him otherwise.”
“We’ll come back to that in just a moment,” Zeph replied, his green eyes flashing with power. “As to leaving her with him, the answer is no.”
“Where would you keep her?” Tray stressed. “In the Human Realm?”
“We could take her back to the Elemental Fae,” Kols suggested.
“To the realm where the Elders killed her parents and got away with it?” Tray countered, arching a dark brow. “Perhaps we need to focus on making it a safer place for her to return to first.”
While an admirable idea, I knew it would fail.
Every path led to war.
There was no alternative.
But I couldn’t say that. Giving too much away could potentially create more destinies, and we had enough laid out before us to last several lifetimes over. Which was saying a lot since we were all immortals with the potential to live forever.
Everyone fell silent as they considered Tray’s statement.
Then Zeph cleared his throat. “I can’t leave her with Zakkai. It goes against every instinct.” He nailed me with a stare. “You have to be feeling it, too.”
“I do. Every day.” The block was nothing new for me. I’d resurrected the wall between us from the very beginning in an attempt to keep Zakkai out of my mind. “But if you lower the shield I put up, Zakkai will have access to your mind. And he’s powerful, Zeph. You won’t stand a chance against him.”
“I’m still trying to figure out how he ascended without us feeling it,” Kols said, frowning. “You claim he’s the Source Architect. Shouldn’t I sense that as the Source Heir?”
“You do feel it,” I murmured, sighing. “And we all felt his ascension. Actually, we participated in it.”
Zeph and Kols both stared at me.
I stared back.
Then Kols’s gaze began to smolder as his mind caught up. “The LethaForest.”
I dipped my chin, confirming he was on the right path.
“What?” Zeph glanced between us. “The LethaForest? Which time?”
“The night Aflora imploded,” Kols said. “When I lost control in her room after we fucked for the first time.”
“That was your overreaction to the bond,” Zeph said.
Understatement,I thought, rolling my eyes.
“I felt a huge burst of power that night, which I originally assumed was tied to our newly formed bond.” Kols blinked his gold eyes back to mine. “But that wasn’t it at all, was it? You’re saying that was the night Zakkai ascended.”
I lifted a shoulder. “It could have been a combination of events. Fate likes to do that. But her need to expel all that energy was a result of his rise to power.”
