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“Where is it?” I asked, leaning forward, ready to shake her—to beg—for the information I needed.

“It’s gone,” she whispered.

Cold shock flowed over me, freezing me in place. No. She couldn’t be gone. I wouldn’t accept it. Not after all we’d been through. Not after already thinking I’d lost her once.

“But her thread appears again,” Sharlyne said, and I sucked in some air, not having realized I’d stopped breathing. “And when it does, it’s linked to yours, Rivven. Not the princess.”

“I don’t understand,” I said, threading my fingers through my own hair and tugging hard.

Sharlyne caught my hands. I hadn’t noticed her stand. She leaned down so we were face to face.

“All I know is that you are both needed. And that if you make the wrong choices—even the slightest misstep—it means destruction for us all.”

I laughed. It was shaky at first, then grew louder and more out of control until tears blinded my vision.

No pressure then. Just the literal fucking world on my shoulders as usual.

“So how do we bring back her thread?” I finally asked. By this time, my head throbbed, and my body shivered with cold. I was never cold.

Sharlyne shrugged. “She will make herself known when she is ready.”

Anger flared again, but I was too tired to berate her. Instead, I lay down on the unforgiving floor. I wasn’t going to make it the mere feet to a cabin with a hammock. “Then where’s the princess?” I asked, closing my eyes, fingers pressed to my forehead.

“Beyond our help. At least for now, I’m afraid.” Sharlyne’s voice broke as she delivered the news.

“Torvo won’t be happy,” I murmured, imagining the big guy’s reaction when he woke. He’d stumbled toward the staircase along with me when we’d learned Rune was missing but collapsed in pain from his broken wing. The others had helped force Kendara to heal him, and it turned out the only way to treat something so dire was to give him some of her own blood. Something that turned my stomach at the memories it rekindled of my time in Centos. We’d heard his screams all the way down here in the bowels of the ship as his wing realigned. And he’d passed out soon after. I didn’t blame him. In fact, I envied him the reprieve from the pain. And I didn’t mean the physical.

“No, he will not,” Sharlyne agreed, but her voice sounded very far away. Moments later, I felt something warm draped over me, then some folded up material tucked beneath my head. “Sleep, brother. You will need your strength for what’s to come.”

Forty-Five

Nyah

Iwas the one they called the goddess of Centos. And I was tasked with gifting the winner of the Imrati the powerstone. But what I really sought was the truth of his bloodline. So far, I doubted him to be a son of Illio. He’d been clever, yes, and had skill when it came to magic, but I had witnessed nothing to indicate he held any more than the typical illusion-wielding of his kind. If anything, I found him vain and single-minded like most humans.

I’d asked to do the ceremony in private in case he surprised me and proved to be the one I searched for—there would be less to explain if I dispatched him out of sight of others. And so, he’d invited me to his rooms, perhaps thinking he had a chance of bedding a goddess. Foolish human.

“There is something I wish to share with you, Your Eminence,” he said, bowing low. He flashed me what I might have found to be an alluring grin had I any interest in his species.

“Very well,” I agreed, smiling in return, lest he suspect my true intentions—he could still prove me wrong and reveal the power I doubted he possessed.

He tapped a spot in the back of his hearth and waited as stone slid against stone. When the scraping ceased, he led me down a spiral staircase into a small chamber with three doors and a dais, which he gestured toward.

“That is where I plan to keep it safe,” he said, voice filled with the hubris of his kind. “The powerstone.”

“Very well,” I agreed, ready to get this over with. “But before I bestow on you the stone, I have one request.”

The flash of indignation and fury on his face was fast, but I noted it. He’d won the Imrati after all, what more did he have to prove? He had no idea what I truly wanted of him. Nor what it would mean if he could perform.

“I wish to know if you are able to wield more than illusion magic, Balram.” I made my voice as seductive as possible as I rounded the dais.

His eyebrows rose in surprise. “Your Eminence?”

“Surely someone as powerful as yourself has attempted it?” I coaxed, leaning forward and letting my eyes glow. I waved a hand over the dais, and the powerstone appeared, lit from within with pulsing violet light. “If you could do as I ask, you would be closer to a god than a human. Would you like that, Balram of Centos? Would you fancy becoming a god?”

Illio’s seed would wish it just as Illio had, the power-hungry fool.

Balram licked his lips, eyes darting over my shoulder as he thought it over.