Kellan stared at me for a moment before nodding.
“Sintarrak,” he confirmed, and his honesty hit me like a blast of air.
Silence hung heavily between us, and though I felt my pulse beneath the skin of my neck, my heart continued a steady, sure beat.
“Sintarrak,” I echoed. “The Embodied that has been watching me. The one who started this all, thousands of years ago. The one here for the other powers. The one who plans to rule them all.”
Kellan’s gaze held mine for several moments, taking long breaths as if to quell some hidden anxiety…as if waiting for me to look away. I didn’t.
“You’re not afraid,” he finally said, his voice dropping. He took a slow step toward me, and his stare drifted from my eyes to my lips before tracing the column of my exposed neck.
“Neither are you,” I breathed, my voice coming out raw as his eyes traced the darkness beneath my skin.
Kellan dragged his gaze to meet my own as he took another step.
My pulse banged against my neck, and the tiniest sliver of intrusive doubt slipped into my chest. It was as if a mountainous expanse suddenly appeared before my heart, a star sparkling at the opposite edge. It was a massive fissure in the ground separating me from hope, from possibility, yet I wasn’t sure I was ready to clear it—wasn’t sure I’d survive if I took the leap and didn’t make it to what lay at the other side.
My heart had unfurled in Kellan’s presence, reaching out a tendril of possibility when the damning flood of the hell I’d reaped upon myself had drownedhimin a torrent of pain and misery in the Abyss.
What nightmares did those memories bear? Was he haunted by the feel of me wrapping the fortissa aroundhisneck? Was he plagued by the feel of my dark serpents constricting his breath in Mount Telum?How could he not be?
This was why I had avoided him. Why I needed space after we had returned to the Realm of Vael. I couldn’t bear to face what I’d done to him. What I’d forced him to endure.
Yet he looked at me without an ounce of fear.
I sucked in a quick breath and blew it through my nose as I took a step back and rubbed a hand at the base of my sweaty neck.
“Your ancestors brought the Bellator powers here, to the Realm of Vael, when they escaped the wrath of the Embodied,” I finally said, turning our attention back to the subject at hand.
Kellan blinked, but he nodded and cracked his neck, his brows furrowing. “If the stories are to be believed, yes. Though I lost my copy of the tales last year.”
“The People of the Stars bred with humansandelves, which is why the elves inherited some of this power.”
Kellan’s arms crossed in front of his chest as I continued.
“And when the Embodied finally discovered a way into our world the first time, Lelyth, the Starling queen, broke the gate and convinced most of the Bellators to hide their powers in the bones. To dull their forces.”
“Yes,” he murmured.
“The bone you’ve been searching for was hers,” I continued. “The Celestyn.”
Kellan nodded once, and I turned to scan the wealth of knowledge hidden in the floating library.
“But you’ve said, more than once, that it’s not for you. Why don’t you think you could harness it?” I asked, my fingers slipping along the spines of his books.
Kellan chuckled, and I turned to find a soft smirk dancing on his lips. My stomach flipped at the sight.
“Weren’t you the one who implied I couldn’t be a noble Bellator?” he asked, placing a hand to his heart.
The corners of my lips twitched as I replayed our walk through the bottom of the lake in the Death Dunes last summer. A ripple of amusement bubbled up at my hatred of the man. I turned back to scan the ancient books as I waited for his reply.
“The Celestyn Bone will only answer to a woman,” he finally said.
I stopped and turned toward him, my head cocked. He shrugged and shook his head softly.
“How do you know this?”
“A rock,” he explained, crossing his arms in front of his chest.
