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Curling one of her legs around his thigh, she entwined herself with him and nodded. “Yes. All of this is.”
Lucian came up onto his elbows, adjusting so that one was on either side of her. His fingers smoothed her hair, his eyes watching the trails he made. “I think we found your ancestors.”
She pressed her head back into the mattress to get a better look at his face. “What?”
“Nix said there was a name… Az–”
“Azleah,” Brinna finished, her eyes grabbing hold of his golden ones.
His eyes shifted, reshaping themselves with emotion. Sadness. “We found the name in our lineage books at the Hall of Oracles.”
She came up to her elbows so Lucian had to adjust to her movement, sliding to the side. “What? How do we know we’re related?”
He grabbed her hip, as if he couldn’t not touch her. “A guess? Your mother–”
“She wouldn’t tell us.”
“Azleah is the daughter of a disowned goddess—Alea Maximora— and a mortal —King Zollah Cumbria.”
“Disowned? A king?”
“And get this, Alea’s power… healing.”
Brinna sat up. “Like my mother?”
He mirrored her, only turned on the bed to face her. “Her powers would have been passed through her children rather than being gifted to the new god or goddess of her station.”
Her mother’s dreams drifted through her mind. “She dreamed of a king. My mother.” Her eyes jumped to Lucian’s again. “Of the death of a queen. Then, in the dream, she was alone in a stone prison of some sort.”
“Holy fuck,” he said and flipped around in the bed, his back to her. “Lexa was right.” His head was in his hands, his hair shooting up between his fingers.
She touched his back. “What do you mean?”
Lucian swiveled to face her. “After the Library of Oracles, Lexa took us to that sex club. We were looking for a demon who could tell us about magic, about the Dream Walking, and maybe to find a way to access the human records.” He swallowed, his eyes drifting away, his fingers plucking at the sheet between them. “When we mentioned Cumbria, Lexa said we didn’t have to look in the records because he’s in the Netherrealm.”
“What?”
His eyes jumped back up to hers. “Lexa took us to speak to him—his soul, I mean.” He ran a hand over his face and sighed. “It was awful, Brin.”
She ran her hand back and forth over his back. “Tell me.”
“I don’t want to.”
“Do it anyway.”
He nodded, then grabbed her face and drew her closer, kissing her. “I want you with me,” he said. “I want to be with you. When we break this fucking spell. Say you want that too.”
“Yes. I want that too.” She smiled, kissing him back, her hand curved around the back of his neck.
He pressed his forehead to hers and sighed. Then he was quiet, and Brinna waited, understanding what he was about to tell her wasn’t pleasant. “Cumbria was king, and his wife had died.”
Her hand stilled.
“Gods, he loved her. That much was clear, but it messed with his head.” Lucian disconnected, climbing from the bed to stand.
“Messed with his head?” Brinna watched him from the bed as he paced, processing what he’d seen. When he’d come back into the dream, she’d known he was frantic, had felt it. Now she could see it as he moved.
He nodded. “The grief pushed him to dabble with necromancy.”
