But it wasn’t the could-be that she wanted. She’d already known the kind of love that branded itself onto her soul. Tristan, yes. He’d been the other half of her, and she hated that he’d died, just six short weeks ago, without knowing that she still lived. Hated that they’d had no reunion.
Not only Tristan, though. Nik. The daughter she’d never met before death claimed her tiny form. Their family had branded her heart, and though she’d forged a new one down here in Helviti, it wasn’t the same. Ember was a sister, the men were brothers. But there was no other husband for her here. No other child.
She dragged a shaking breath into her lungs, and it felt like fire. “I’m sorry, Dae. Sorry I could never be what you needed.”
“Don’t apologize. You’re whoyouneeded to be.” He offered that half-smile he so rarely deigned to give her, the one that turned his face into something breathtaking. “Let me worryabout my own heart. It isn’t your domain.” He moved to the door, pausing in the threshold, a hand on the smooth stone. “Rest up. Your son will return to you soon.”
25
The campfire danced merrily up from the middle of the stone circle, sparks leaping Himmel-ward before winking out like the stars. Nik leaned against the rock behind him, feet stretched out toward the heat, even though he could have called his own. Overhead, the aurora danced, drawing his gaze continually upward, away from the faces he’d wanted to study all night.
Most of the band of outcasts had gone to their homes an hour ago—some to tents made of tanned skins, others to small round houses made of ice-and-snow blocks. He still marveled not just at the sheer number of them in this village along the coast—as big as Andre Village, if not bigger—but at the welcome they’d received. For hours, the adults among them had laughed with them, told stories, shared their food, and the children—children, born and raised out here—had darted around as if on holiday.
But the festivities eventually wound down, children had been tucked into beds, parents had said goodnight along with them, and only the elders remained. Talk had turned more serious then, as they asked about the world they’d left behind. As they spoke of how they’d felt it, seventeen days ago, when the power had shifted. How the cold had gentled, somehow, the snowsbeen more consoling than driving after the dance they’d put on, every flake obeying some new choreography.
They’d all looked at Kyrja with wonder.
He could understand that. To them, Isidor had been like one of the gods the ancient-of-ancients had worshipped, with the power to do anything he wanted. No one could Challenge him and live. No one could ever wrest that power from his hands. He’d lived longer than even their great-grandparents could remember, and he’d shown no signs of aging, weakening.
Nik looked now at where Kyrja had fallen asleep against him, using his leg as a pillow and pulling snow up over her as a blanket. The rest of the elders had just wandered off a few minutes ago, but though tents had been promised for all of them, Nik had no desire to wake Kyrja and tell her goodnight.
From his other side, Raf chuckled. “I’m going to gloat about this for the next couple decades. All those times you rolled your eyes at me when I said she wasn’t just a pretty face. Now who’s smitten?”
Nik sent his friend a rueful smile. And let his fingers tangle in her hair. “I was afraid you’d be angry.”
Raf rolled his eyes. “She wasn’t real to me, Nik. She was a poster. I may have joked about how the Test would someday tell us all I was her perfect match, but I never actually thought it was true. Never cared if it was. She was just someone to believe in.” He flashed a grin. “And I wasn’t wrong in that, was I?”
Nik grinned. “No. You weren’t wrong.”
“What gets me, brother, isyou.” Raf shook his head, arms propped up on his raised knees. “Can’t quite wrap my head around the thought of you being a Blessed. That you’re going to stay this age for decades, maybe centuries, while I get old.”
He sighed. “Daemon, our leader—he always called it a Curse. He thought they—we—were daemons.”
“There’s a bit of truth to the idea. And a bit of a lie, too.” The man who’d greeted them at the cliffside strode into the circle of light from wherever he’d vanished to for the last hour. He’d told them to call him Phoenix, but that was all the explanation he’d been willing to offer before the villagers converged and pulled them into their settlement, set the fire to blazing, and plied them with food and hot drinks.
Nik had already asked Raf who he was, but his friend had only shrugged and said, “The outcasts say he comes and goes. Has been coming and going forever, and never changing. They assume he’s a Blessed, but a unique one—one on their side.”
If he was really Daemon’s father, he was more than a Blessed—or a Cursed. He was…what? A seraph, like Queen Arden’s mother? Nik lifted his face to watch the man settle on the ground on the other side of Raf.
He looked like Daemon. Or rather, Daemon looked like him. Not exactly, of course, but enough that he didn’t have a moment’s doubt about the relation. Nik still didn’t know what to make of any of it. “He hasn’t told any of us very much. About who he is, who you are, how he came to be in the volcano.”
Phoenix acknowledged that with a tilt of his head. “He always was the one who closed himself off. Thought love meant responsibility. I’ll admit it, I thought it would be his brother who would be Awakened and ready to live out Elyon’s gift. But it was Sigmann who first cried out to Elyon. So Sigmann that Elyon instructed me to Awaken with a blade much like this one.” He pulled a knife from the sheath at his side. It didn’t glint like metal.
Flint.
Raf’s frown was deep as the abyss. “Elyon?”
“The Most High.” Phoenix pointed the blade at Nik. “You are the first of my descendants to truly seek his will above your own with your whole heart, soul, and self. This pleases Elyon greatly,Nikanor. My firstborn son, your Daemon’s brother, he and his offspring have done well with multiplying…but not so well in seeking the Giver of All.”
“Wait.” Raf looked from one to the other of them. “Who are you?”
Phoenix grinned. “Your friend’s fifth-great grandfather.”
It was enough to make even Nik’s head spin, and he already knew that part of it, so he couldn’t blame Raf for the shake of his head. But it didn’t answer his question. “Whatare you? How is there ‘some truth’ to calling us daemons?”
The man’s gaze moved back to Nik, light from the fire reflected in it. “We are the same substance. Created by Elyon at the same time. The difference between seraph and daemon is not in kind, but in chosen purpose.” He splayed a hand over his chest. “I have chosen to align my will completely with Elyon’s—once and forever. Daemons made a different choice, and it cost them their place in Elyon’s court. But their form, their nature, their being—we are not different in that regard. We can all partake of the very things Elyon used to create the universe.”
Kyrja shifted, rose onto her elbow. Their conversation had clearly woken her, though he hadn’t noticed her slipping back into wakefulness. “Like water and wind,” she said, voice still sleep-rough. She sent a flurry of snow over the fire, so that it melted to rain and fell, sizzling. “As Perla said.”
