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Too passionately, Serak whispered. Out of balance.

I ignored him again, though I could feel him observing. “If she is your treasure, what are you to her? Her owner? Her lord?”

Beside him, the warlord began breathing on his own. Coughing, he sat up, his gaze moving to the priest’s bubble, covered in ash like the other boulders nearby. When he exhaled, the breath came out icy, crystals forming in the air.

The other mates clustered around him. Rada began to curse at him, for some reason. She had a knife in her hand. Was she planning to stab him, so recently healed? What a terrible Omega.

One who now carried a quarter of my brother’s power. I glared at her.

“What am I to her?” Skadi said out loud. Every head turned to him, and then me. I felt her eyes on me and stood taller. I’d used some of my power to reshape the exterior of the body I wore into a human form, with only a few scales placed on the exterior. I drew on a bit more of my strength once I realized I was less tall than the others in this form. Less muscular, too. Serak had showed me a picture of how he had looked when he was younger and whole.

It was easy enough to take that shape, with my power returning. I improved it slightly, of course.

“What am I to you, little enemy?” Skadi called out, drawing her eyes away.

She straightened, wiped her face clean, and stood next to my brother. Then both of them walked toward me slowly. Skadi slid an arm around her shoulders. I bared my teeth, angered. Serak moved in our mind, soothing me.

I did not want to be soothed. I wanted to understand.

“I carry her poisons and weapons, brother. I suppose that makes me her cloak.” The woman stumbled as if she had no strength. He caught her before she fell.

How could she be weak? She was mated to Skadi. To the kraken. To these other pathetic mortals.

“You’re more than that, Snowflake,” she mumbled to my brother. Her slender fingers trembled on his arm.

“Why is she weak?” I asked Skadi.

She answered, her lip curled in a delicate sneer. “That’s your doing, Edan. You infected me with your fire. Then you stole Serak. Possessed him. Apparently, he was destined for me, or so the Goddess said.” She let out a humorless laugh.

Her face was as pale as the moon that had begun to rise in the east, directly behind her. The silver beams created a halo around her dark hair. I blinked, refocusing on the ethereal plane.

She was fading, her strength pouring out of her in twin rivers of fire and ice, mixed together. The fire I’d placed in her and the ice from Skadi’s bond were mingled in an oddly compelling braided pattern. But the fire I’d given her was burning a hole in her soul’s well. Skadi’s power wasn’t enough to combat it.

And she was a broken vessel for so much divine power. “Destined,” I murmured, taking in the wounds from which power flowed into the ether around her.

I had afflicted many of my siblings with similar wounds. The lesser ones. I’d torn their wells of power open and let their ichor flow over the land and water. They were immortal, so they still existed, but in dispersed form. Flecks of divinity in some strains of humans, gemstones buried deep in mountain ranges, foam on the waves that reached for the land all over the world.

It would take more than a god to heal her.

Serak whispered a word, or a prayer, in our mind: Goddess.

“Perhaps you can speak with your goddess tonight,” I said at last. “She should come for her priest. Let us see what she says about destiny.” I stepped to the stone coffin and stopped. The hole I’d torn by his face was gone. Sealed, as if it had never been. If I hadn’t known who was inside, I would have thought it was a boulder as well.

I placed a hand on it. I couldn’t feel the priest inside. Couldn’t tell if he was alive or dead.

“Her priest?” She pushed away from Skadi and staggered to my side. “Who?” The Omega still smelled of mint and rain, but even more strongly now, mingled with faint hints of salt and rosemary. I allowed her scent to entice me and let my gaze fall on the mark I’d placed around her throat.

I didn’t want to think of how I’d hurt her. How her scent had gone bitter with fear and despair when I carried her into the maw and stoked her heat. How she’d wept silently, angrily, when I sent my fire into her veins.

I wanted to remember how she’d smelled when we had kissed her for the first time, those few short years ago.

Not we, Edan. I kissed her, Serak snarled, rising up and pushing me down. You only ever harmed her. You did not love her. That is my love you’re trying to steal.

He accused me of stealing? I was no thief. I was a god.

Serak’s disgust filled me. A thieving god. You took more of the world than was meant for you. Much more.

I needed time to consider what to do. How to grapple with the emotions that coursed through me. So I allowed my servant to rise to the surface while I sank below, watching.