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“As real as you and I. They were once titans with the strongest powers. They escaped the Fall and are now gods among us broken ones.” I reached behind me and pulled my braid to sit in our lap. I showed her the stone attached to my hair tie. “This stone is for prayer. It’s engraved with the names of my gods. Charos, god of death. Hedri, god of love. And Riseir, god of life.”
“I wondered what it was.” She stroked her thumb over the white lines in the black stone.
“Now you know. There are no more secrets between us. You can ask me anything you want.”
She rested her head on my shoulder and looked up at me. “Will you tell me about it? Your life?”
I wrapped my arms around her, hugging her to me, my hands resting at her hip where my shirt had ridden up. I tucked it down to stop from being tempted by her soft skin.
“I was the firstborn of my parents. They didn’t love each other, but they had children together since they were from strong family lines. I had four siblings, a brother and three sisters. Thos, Maderes, Efari, and Kadeia. Only hours after giving birth, my mother would place my new sibling in my arms so I could meet them. It became a tradition. Each one of them stole a piece of my heart the moment I looked into their eyes. They were my favorite people of all the realms.”
Clawdia’s fingertip on my downturned lips made me jolt out of the memories that resurfaced at the thought of my siblings.
“What happened to them?” she whispered, a sympathetic, sad expression on her face.
Unable to give her detail of the horror, I summarized. “Slavers started portaling to Tartarus accompanied by faei. We would wake up to find titans missing from their beds. Eventually, portals appeared in the middle of the day, but we were so few we could do nothing to fight them. We were all taken. All of us.”
“I’m so sorry.” She tucked her face into my neck, and her hand reached around to the back of my neck in a half-hug. I nuzzled into her hair and squeezed my thanks.
My voice was gruff with emotion when I spoke. “It was a long time ago, but I still hear their screams for me to save them. It haunts me.” I swallowed and tried to banish the memories. “We were all so young. Kadeia had only just started school. I don’t even know if she’d remember me.”
“You have no idea where any of them are?”
I shook my head. “When Daithi and Savida saved me, I told them about my family. We searched many dimensions, hoping to find them. We were never successful. Daithi’s visions didn’t show him anything about them. It was a fruitless search but one we all enjoyed despite the disappointment. Savida especially loved traveling.”
“When we’ve saved him, we can keep looking for them all.”
“You’d come with me?”
“Of course. Maybe Winnie can come with us, too. As an apology, she can use her magic to track them. And maybe if we have powers, we can help.”
I didn’t imagine Daithi would be so forgiving as to allow Winnie to join our search. And I didn’t know what the effect of taking a familiar that far away from its witch would be. Despite that, I loved how she was already planning our life together.
I must have been quiet too long as I thought, because Clawdia rambled nervously, “You know, if we are going to be … romantic … eventually … not right now, but maybe someday—”
I chuckled and placed a finger on her lip to stop her. “You don’t know how much it means to me that you would leave the human realm and rescue my siblings with me.”
She beamed at me, pleased with herself. “Maybe they’ve already been rescued like you were. Maybe that’s why you couldn’t find them.”
“That would be a miracle indeed, and one I will pray for.”
“You need something new to pray for now that you have me.” Her sly grin grew until she burst into soft giggles.
I threw my head back and laughed at her cheeky response. It told me she was getting more comfortable with me and with the idea of being mine. My heart felt fit to burst, and I hugged her tightly. “You are right.”
“HowdidDaithi and Savida save you?”
It was another topic that I avoided since it reminded me of where they took me from, but she was mine and needed to know all of me. To distract myself, I pulled her hair over her shoulder, started braiding.
“It was five years into my captivity. I was a fighter slave, and one day, I lost a fight. I had done it on purpose since my opponent was unwell and fighting for his captured family. I didn’t want to be the reason a child lost its father.
Daithi and Savida saw me taking my punishment in the alleyway leading to my cage. Daithi had seen it happen in a vision and knew where to look for me. I was in too much pain to focus. The next thing I recall is waking up to sunlight—something I hadn’t woken up with in years—and lying on a comfortable sofa rather than a cold stone floor.”
Clawdia stopped my hand mid braid and forced my attention back to her. “I’m glad they saved you from that,” she whispered.
I nodded silently.
“How did Daithi have a vision about you when he didn’t know you?” Her brow crinkled, and I smoothed it with my thumb.
