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“Well, maybe.”

Skadi scoffed. “Of course she would not. That one is all about consent. Wait. Did you consent to carry this power?”

I tried to remember. “I mean, I said I wanted to keep on with what I’ve been doing. Protecting Omegas, saving their children, making the world safe. With my mates. And poisons and weapons, too,” I explained. “Although I may not have said that part out loud.”

Skadi hummed. “Did she give you anything to help get your Beta free?”

My heart sank, until Serak laughed. “I think that’s obvious. Rada? Come over here.” My cloak fell to the floor as I rose. Serak groaned as he took my hand, though I wasn’t sure it was my nudity that made him do it. Something in our hands felt like a tide rushing in too fast. Out of control and dangerous.

“What is it?” Skadi murmured. “I felt that.”

Serak didn’t reply, only pressed my hand to the stone. “Together,” he told me, pressing some of his power into the stone. We’d tried this hundreds of times before, and I almost pulled my hand away, but he repeated, “Together.”

Skadi placed his hand on my arm and groaned like Serak had. “Ah, I see.” He added his own power to ours.

I let some of my power out, only this time it didn’t emerge with a blue tint. It was pure gold and surrounded the coffin.

Most of the stone melted away, dissolving into the cave floor, leaving a lacework pattern of obsidian and gold at our feet. When I looked up, Lex lay on a pedestal of stone, covered with gold.

He wasn’t breathing. When I reached out to touch his arm, he wasn’t warm. His eyes stayed closed.

Skadi stood behind me and spoke three words that broke my heart in a way that would never heal. “He is dead.”

RADA

I’d thought there was no more room inside me after the Goddess had filled me with power. But there was plenty of room for grief. I fell over Lex’s body, tears pouring from my eyes.

Of course they were golden tears. I was a goddess too now, or so I heard in Serak’s and Skadi’s thoughts. But I didn’t want to be a goddess, not if it meant living forever with all this power, but without him.

The one who’d supported me and challenged me. Who’d made me laugh and rage and do better when it came to others. To protect and preserve when my first instinct was to solve my problems with murder.

I’d lost him for good, and now I would have to face eternity without my best friend.

“What are you doing, little spy?” Skadi asked. My mates had all moved around me, and I could feel them touching me, as if they were trying to take the overwhelming grief away.

Not trying. They were doing just that. The feeling of being too full of power and sadness had diminished. It must have gone into my mates. I could feel my bond marks zinging with invisible lightning. I could hear something, too. Silver chimes echoing off the cavern walls.

I knew that sound.

“Does she do this sort of thing often?” Skadi muttered to someone. “The self-indulgence?”

Self-indulgence? I lifted my head to snarl at him, but someone answered for me.

“A bit too often, to be honest. You should have seen her the first time I put her in the dirt outside the gates of my temple. She pouted and fussed like a toddler, since I knew moves she’d never seen.”

I choked on my next breath, dizzy as I sat up too fast to see if it was true.

“Mina, you’re a mess. But a beautiful one.” Lex’s smile was the same as ever, if not a bit brighter. His eyes were dark as always, but his skin glowed golden from my tears. He lifted a hand and stroked the hair at my temple, then wiped away the tears on that cheek. “Thank you for pulling me back.”

“How?” I managed to say after a long moment.

“I don’t know. I died,” he whispered. “I knew I was dead, and so many voices called for me. It hurt not to let go. But I kept thinking you would come for me, Mina. I knew you wouldn’t give up. So I couldn’t either. Then She came and released me as Her priest.” His smile fell. “I was so afraid, until She said I would have someone new to serve.”

“I don’t want you to serve me, Lex. I want you to love me. Because I love you so much.”

His eyes pulsed with the same darkness I’d found in the small cave, then filled with humor. “But that’s my job.” His gaze moved to the others behind me, stopping on Skadi and then Serak. “Ah, good. It looks like I have more than one deity to choose from. Anyone else need a priest?”

The cavern filled with laughter as I cursed at my best friend, new tears spilling over as relief filled all the spaces left by the grief that had vanished with the sound of his voice.