“I have never left this palace,” Kairos admitted, seeming to grow desperate. “Or the grounds at least. I may as well be another one of his trophies in a fucking glass case.”
“Why would you not leave?” I asked.
“You think killing me would be easy, but even with your mind ability I’m willing to bet my life it won’t be so effortless. I’m a mage known as a Keraki.”
Nyte’s laugh was more of a scoff. “We don’t have time for fairytales.”
Contrary to his response, my interest was hooked. I couldn’t recall exactly where I’d heard it before in the deep pool of my old memories, but I knew it was an old term, something powerful and forgotten.
“Of all the coveted things in this palace, I am his greatest prize. I am not his true son. He stole me and raised me as his own just as he planned to double-cross Goldfell to steal you too. He knew of a prophesy: that two of the most powerful magick wielders in all of Solanis would produce an heir greater in power than even you and they would unite the five great continents of the world.”
“Now you’re really speaking in fables,” Nyte snarled.
I was swimming in my own mind, trying to find the knowledge about the other continents he spoke of.
Kairos stared at me, pleading with me when it would be hopeless with Nyte. “You were just the beginning, Astraea.”
“First your father planned to buy my mate and now you tell me the goal was to produce anheirwith you, based on some nonsense prophesy?” Nyte’s tone had turned glacial. “I’m willing to prove just how powerless you are against me.”
“Don’t,” I said, tightening my hand in his.
Kairos glanced at our hands, then back up at me. “If there is a prophesy, it was never about me. Regardless, my adoptive father believed it could be. Ironically I kept his palace safe and made sure histradeswent smoothly, but it was nature, fate if you will, that was destined to kill him. I couldn’t understand how the decades kept passing after his fatal diagnosis, which should have claimed him before his time. Now I do, and I’m sorry your blood was taken against your will.”
I gave a nod, grateful for the condolence, but I’d buried that abuse of the past with the corpses of the men who violated me.
I spoke to Nyte through our bond.“He could make a great ally.”
“Or be the mistake that costs us the war.”
We’d spent so much time deliberating that guards had found us. Many of them. They kept flooding through the hall, and Nyte pulled my hand, but we only got two more steps before they descended toward us too.
We were trapped.
“Stand down,” Kairos ordered firmly.
The guards didn’t advance, but they exchanged looks that told me his word wasn’t going to be enough.
“My lord, they have murdered your father. We have a right to vengeance.”
Nyte’s hand tightened in mine, and I looked up to find him rubbing his forehead absentmindedly but with a locked expression that made me realize he was about to seize all of their minds. It was too much. He’d expended that ability for too long, and it was clearly having a detrimental effect on him if he started to show it outwardly.
Lightsdeath wasn’t fully caged within me, and the mere thought of plunging into that power to get us out of this made it a struggle to contain it once more.
But it turned out that neither of us had to do anything.
Just as they started advancing again, Kairos snapped his fingers, and I couldn’t believe my eyes when the motion of the guards…slowed.As if our time continued as normal but theirs had been drastically sedated.
“H-how?” I stumbled. It was impossible. Inconceivable.
“I don’t think you want to keep standing here while I explain object time parallels to you,” Kairos grumbled.
“No, we don’t,” Nyte said, but even he looked over the guards, dazed by the concept. He snapped out of it quickly to pin Kairos firmly. “If I get even a hint of a suspicion about you, I won’t hesitate, I won’t ask questions; I will kill you and not think twice about it.”
“I would expect no less from the notorious Nightsdeath.”
Nyte sighed, but he was already heading up again, and we had to carefully maneuver around the bodies by moving fractions, still in action.
“The effect will only last another minute, so you might want to hurry up,” Kairos hissed, following behind me.
