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The years passed, and there was no sign of the goddess.
But because of his deception, the man was relegated to a life of immortal loneliness and infatuation. He would spend his long days scouring the kingdom for what he had broken, although he would never see the Sun Goddess again.
Somewhere, out in a world of eternal night, a woman who once ruled in the heavens had made a human life of her own, far away from the man who had stolen her power and shattered her beating heart.
However, many years later, rumors spread she’d made a family of her own, and that a child was born, one whom Raina kept hidden—her precious gift, and the owner of what remained of her melancholy heart.
“What are you doing?”
I slammed the book shut.
“Reading,” I croaked, finding Jude watching me closely.
He glanced at the thick green cover, recognition brightening his scowl. “That’s the one I gave you, eh? I’m surprised you have that on you instead of an extra dagger.”
Thoughts of Raina and her traitorous lover vanished.
“I figured I’d get bored,” I lied. He didn’t need to know how I’d gotten my hands back on the book. “You can be rather serious, you know, so I brought some fun reading to lighten the mood.” Scrunching up my face, I mimicked his signature grimace. Jude raised a brow in reply, but his lips curled upward and the crease between his eyes smoothed.
The clearing and its supernatural lighting gave Jude’s alabaster skin a golden glow, his scars lightening to a faded red. No shadows painted his lower lids, and he appeared…happy?
I’d never seen the genuine emotion on his face, so I couldn’t be positive, but the way he gazed upon me now, his eyes softening and a grin taking shape, it just might be joy.
“I’m surprised you didn’t hear me coming. Our meal hadn’t been so fortunate.” Jude closed the distance and plopped down right next to me, not even attempting to place an inch between us.
My thigh aligned with his as he rocked his knee back and forth. “I wish we could just stay here,” he admitted after a minute of peaceful quiet.
“You and me both.” We had all we needed right here in this glen to survive. No Mist, no heartless king—and there waslight.
Jude surprised me with his next words. “Can we pretend, just for now, that we are? That we aren’t leaving here and that there’s no timeline or threat of the world ending?” He said the last part with a sarcastic lilt, but beneath the playfulness lay a cruel truth. Jude believed we would never make it out of the cursed lands alive.
Without thinking, I grabbed his hand, my fingers weaving between his. “I think we agree on something, commander.” My head lolled to the side as I took him in. He did the same, his long hair tumbling across his temples.
As logic and thought had clearly been thrown out the window, I lifted my free hand, the one not wrapped up in his, and grazed the raised lines of his scars. Beneath the leather of my glove, my fingers tingled.
Jude flinched, but he didn’t pull away. Taking that as an invitation, I grew bold, tracing the scars and learning their story with my fingertips, a sense of raw grief flowing into my chest.
“I was six when it happened.”
My fingers ceased their soothing movements.
“I’ll never forget the day my own father blinded me.”
Chapter Thirty-Five
Jude
Shadow beasts roamed the world for centuries before Raina supposedly wiped them away with her light. They are an abomination, a failed experiment on behalf of the Moon God. Supposedly after she’d slain them all, his wrath shook the world, and he hid from the skies for three months. When he returned, his light was never as bright nor as inviting.
Excerpt from Asidian Lore: A Tale of the Gods
Kiara hissed out a breath, stunned.
I imagined she hadn’t thought my father was a good man based on the story I’d told her in the cavern, but she likely hadn’t expected him to be the reason behind my injury.
I released her hand only so that I could bring mine to my face and cover her fingers, which rested right over my scars. I leaned into her touch and shut my eyes.
“My father barely raised me growing up. He would toss me to whatever woman he was with, and then go off and steal from the wealthy. But when I grew bigger, beyond a babe that could be held and controlled, he decided he no longer wanted me.”
