The world shook again and the light faded. Still squinting, I found beside me the form of a man in a haze of shimmering Aether.
He was taller than me, long silver hair pulled back at the temples. He wore a black leather tunic with a high collar that fell to his knees, with armored panels of gold and silver. But he shimmered with Aether, white as the hottest flame, and I could feel the depth of the power he commanded like a second heartbeat, my ember pulsing in time.
“ ‘He guides the Luminae,’ ” I said quietly, “ ‘and they look upon him as a protector.’ ” A line from the curate’s record I’d found in the library.
The Aetheric god had returned to Carethia.
The crowd was terrified, thrilled, awestruck, horrified. A few strongholders ran. Others fell to their knees in fear or tribute, or both.
“Who are you?” Nik demanded.
He looked at the prince, unbothered by the tone. “I am everything and nothing. The man whose dreams fuel the Aetheric. The Emperor of Souls. The King of Ghosts. You may call me”—he paused, looked down at me—“Lochryn.”
The voice I’d heard in the fog of the Aetheric hadn’t been a Guardian but the god himself. “Fuck the moons,” I murmured.
“Didn’t you once have a dog named Lochryn?” Wren murmured.
“The god has returned!” someone called out, and that set off a wave of movement. Some in the crowd fell to their knees. Others backed away even farther, apparently not keen on being quite so close to a god. The imperial soldiers looked at the god, thenthe messenger, apparently unsure of the chain of command. They’d been prepared to deal with a disobedient prince, not a deity.
The god looked at the prince, then Catalaya. His gaze lingered there a moment, and there seemed to be confusion in it. Then he turned his gaze to me, his eyes silvered and shimmering with stars.
“You escaped your prison?”
He nodded. “You opened a doorway, Fox, allowing my soldier—the one you call Luna—to find me. You helped me find my way back.”
I nearly asked how much he was willing to pay for the service but managed to bite my tongue.
Slowly, he turned his gaze to the assorted royals and representatives. “She is one of mine, and you will not take her.”
“Get away from her,” Nik bit out. “You will not take her either.”
I looked back at him, his body rigid with fury. But Red and Galen had each taken one of his arms to prevent him from jumping into a fight with a god. I couldn’t blame them for that.
“Naturally,” Lochryn said, then looked at me again. “She has much to learn, but it will be her choice. She can stay here with you in the human prison you construct for her—or she can go with me to learn who she is.”
“She knows who she is.”
Lochryn began to glow, as if the Aetheric responded to his anger. “She does not yet fully know, because those of your realm made it too dangerous for her to exist.”
Then he turned back toward me, scenting the air with smoke and lavender as he moved. He whispered, “Ashentis Fuerest.”
Souls burn brightest.
There was power in his words, and that power flowed through me. The ember flared, and Aether burned away the seal’s remaining stain. There was no pinch now, only relief, like I’d been immersed in the palace bath again.
“She’s glowing,” one of the imperial soldiers said, and his sword clanked to the ground.
“You’re clean now,” Lochryn said. “The scar of the seal now gone. This is what you ought to have felt your entire life—if the tapestry had not been woven thus. But fate weaves what it will, and now you must make the choice. Stay here, and become a prisoner of the emperor or his son. Or go andbecome.”
“That’s not a choice. There is no choice.” My voice was a whisper, dying in the murmurs of the crowd. The plans we’d made, the freedom he’d bought me, dissolved just as quickly.
“Fox,” Nik said, and pulled himself free of his guards. He dropped down from the dais, even the line of imperial soldiers parting at his powerful and imperious stride.
And I knew as surely as I knew the god stood beside me: He would be emperor one day.
He ignored the god, the messenger, the crowd, Catalaya. And when he reached me, he put a hand around my waist, pulled me toward him, and kissed me.
The kiss was a performance, and a promise, and the crowd erupted with shock. After a moment, his hands on my face, he dropped his forehead to mine.
