Page 64 of The Edge of Darkness

Niall kept his hands in his pockets and took a wider stance, as if staring down someone in front of him. “But you wanted more—still want, I assume?”

A lush laugh filled the space. “I see the fae are still as guileful as they’ve always been. I tried to come to an agreement with your kind long ago. All it got me was the loss of my finest witches and more heartache. I will not make that mistake again.”

“I am not those fae,” Niall leveled, a tenor of promise lacing his voice.

This time, her response was more reserved. “On that, we can agree . . . Do you ever wonder why you’re not like them?”

I could tell the question caught him off guard by the slightest change in his breath. But he recovered quickly. “I’ve always been a bit curious.”

If she had answers about Niall’s power, about where it came from⁠—

Another throaty laugh, but this one was nervous, off-kilter. “It is certainly no coincidence—you showing up on my land.”

Niall schooled his face into neutrality. “Enlighten me.”

“I knew a power like yours once—ages ago. It brought a reckoning upon all that faced it.” Her voice lowered, as if recalling a distant, unpleasant memory. “I do not know how that power has come to be in your blood, but it is ancient in its origin. Birthed from another world.” She spoke of Niall and his power as if it were the embodiment of something she revered, but also dreaded.

“My ancestor possessed this power before me,” he informed her.

She clicked her tongue. “Far more ancient than that, I’m afraid.”

“Care to be more specific?”

Gods, he was speaking to an entity that seemed temperamental at best, and yet he was treating her like she owed him something.

I wanted to throw an elbow into his side.

“Nothing but alarming speculation,” she said, her voice winding through the air like she was circling us, assessing Niall. “The fae of old were foolish,” she said. “Thankfully, despite the power you carry, I do not sense the same foolishness in you. A small reprieve—for what it’s worth.”

Niall lifted his chin, savoring the small compliment as a win in his favor. His voice dropped to more of a purr. “I do hope that means you’ll hear my offer, then.”

There was a long pause of consideration. Then, the fog peeled back, and the stranger stepped forth, the voice finally given form. She strode past Nivelle, not even deigning to glance down at the witch who was still lowered on bended knee.

She was tall and lithe, and wore long, dark purple robes that nearly blended into the night. Her skin was creamy, and waves of long, blonde hair billowed out beneath a circlet crown that sat across her forehead, nestling five stones—the centermost being a stunning magenta garnet.

Her face was adorned with markings—like Nivelle’s, but not. There was a rune on her forehead, peeking out from under the circlet, and two thin black lines of ink began under her chin and ran vertically down her neck, framing the slender column of her throat and disappearing into her robes. A thick band of smokey kohl stretched across her face from temple to temple, falling over her brows and the bridge of her nose, encasing her eyes—as deep blue as the ocean’s depths—in darkness. Her irises churned, swirling like a vortex, an obvious tell that marked her as other. A goddess.

Her piercing stare felt like ice, and to my astonishment, the very ground she walked on frosted over.

Her mere presence was a fury.

Niall offered a subtle nod in her direction. “Torin.”

The whispering, fleeting voice drifted through the air in reply. “Son of Shadow.”

Chills skittered down my spine at the otherworldly undertone. The goddess’s lips hadn’t moved when it sounded. It had come from something else, something other.

“Pledge your Dionachs. Help us defeat the fallen god when he comes to wage war, once and for all,” Niall said, “and I will grant you and your kin permanent lands in the mountains of Calledan.”

Roirdan threw Niall a look of surprise, and Silas’s wings stilled. Torin even bristled, obviously not expecting the offer.

Her brow furrowed. “The mountains?”

Niall nodded once. “It seems you and your kin prefer to remain hidden. The mountains offer the perfect refuge.”

“We are not looking for refuge any longer,” she spat.

“Then perhaps a place to thrive—truly thrive—not an illusory environment.” He waved his hand at the surrounding illusion the goddess had woven. “My mountains offer both safety and seclusion.”