Page 48 of The Arcane God

Kaya smiled at their description of him.

“And he would have made a wonderful king, too. Even better than Haden,” he added.

A ghost of…something passed over Kaya’s face at the mention of Ty’s father. “And Haden, is he well?” she asked cautiously.

“Oh, no,” Turner answered, his face falling. “You don’t know? Haden died almost fifteen years ago. Cole is king now.”

“He’s dead? How?” Kaya asked, her hand going to her heart.

“A stomach ailment—rare for daemons,” Turner said. “It was tragic—Ty was so strong during his passing, though.”

Kaya closed her eyes, a look of guilt washing over her, before she opened them again suddenly, realizing the second part of what Turner had said. “And now Cole is king?” she asked incredulously, as if the idea disgusted her.

“Yes,” Turner explained. “Ty wasn’t old enough to assume the role at the time, but I’m glad you seem to understand how horrible that’s been without me having to explain it to you.”

“How did you ever break the bond then? There’s no way Cole would have wanted Gaia’s will restored to daemons.”

“Ty,” both Turner and Ena answered together, then turned to one another and smiled at their synchronicity.

“He befriended Petyr on a mission, and figured it out, like we told you,” Ena explained. “He found me, too, and told me about it, and I went to the Underworld with them to figure out how to break it.”

“‘Found’ is a generous way of putting it,” Turner said, smirking at the memory. “‘Took’ is more appropriate.”

“Wait—you went to the Underworld? As a witch-slave?” Kaya asked, ignoring Turner’s snark.

“Yes,” Ena answered.

Ena was hoping that window would encourage Kaya to share about her own experiences in the Underworld. Ena knew she had gone there for a time, too, and she was endlessly curious about what had happened with her and Haden and why she had decided to leave Ty as a baby, but the woman stayed silent and changed the topic instead.

“Tell me more about breaking the bond and what led you to come here,” she said.

Ena filled Kaya in on the details—how they’d done the spell and thought they’d summoned Iblis, only to be met with the presence of Gaia. How the seer in their company had told them about a group who worshiped Omnis, and said they had to go there to protect their baby, because it was Gaia’s will.

Ena had just finished explaining about the Canus Elk and the ill omen for her child, when the sun began to get low in the sky, and they found themselves back at the stryx camp, where the others were finally awakening.

“You saw a Canus Elk?” Kaya asked in awe. “I thought those were myth.”

“They are very real,” Ena explained. “It was the second one Ty and I saw, actually. The first sighting was when we met as teens.”

“It sounds like you and my son had quite the bond,” Kaya said, smiling sadly at Ena.

“We did,” Ena replied, the memory of it haunting her.

Blessedly, she was distracted from her sadness when Kaya brought her and Turner over to a group of the stryx, including the young woman they’d met, Max’s niece Xoe, who were gathered around a fire outside of one of the shelters, sharing a bowl of…

Blood. She Knew exactly what was in the bowl, without even having to see. She could smell it in the air, and the smell, as always, was intoxicating.

Ena could barely focus as the men, women, and children in the group were introduced to her. Their dark hair and eyes blended together as she kept one eye on the bowl of blood, wondering when it would make its way into her hands.

The stryx greeted her and Turner kindly as they passed the bowl around, sharing it communally, until it made its way to Kaya, who, of course, abstained, but passed it to Ena.

None of the stryx even flinched as she took the bowl. Evidently, word about her stryx heritage had already made its way around the camp, as she was met with encouraging and curious glances as she raised the bowl to her lips.

She drank deeply, gulping down the blood—drinking far more than the sips the others had taken—until she felt a hand touch her arm. She wanted to ignore it—her body screamed at her to keep drinking the blood—but it became insistent, and it forced the bowl down from her lips.

She felt her ire bubble up inside her, rising with her Gift, and all of a sudden, the words spilled out of her.

{Let me go} she snarled viciously, the words coming out in the eerie echo of her visanis.