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I snapped the sound off and ran my fingers through my disheveled hair, my chest heaving. My crown, made of black flame and bone, floated above my head, the flame-like shadows breaking off, licking at my fingers like a loyal house cat showing its affection, attempting to comfort me. I waved them off.
What in the fuck was happening to me?
Aurelia was my enemy, and by her hand, she would take my immortal life—thatI had no doubt of.
“It is plausible,” Folkoln mused, balancing the point of a dagger, a giant emerald embedded in the pommel, on his knee, his index finger pressed against the tip of the hilt. His obsidian eyes, the twin to my own, raised to mine.
All of the old gods had been born with black irises. It wasn’t until we found our mates that they would begin to fill with color. Likewise, the longer we were away from our mates, the more the color would begin to revert to black. Some females took an immense amount of pride in ensuring their mates had their irises constantly filled with color—it was a primal way of claiming them, of showing the outside world that their male was bonded, that he no longer hungered. The Old goddesses and New Gods were born with their permanent eye color.
I glanced at my sister, studying her rich, emerald eyes.
. . . Would mine be like hers? It was a question I had never wondered before. But now—
No. I ran my fingers through my hair once more. I wasn’t going there.
“Considering the Creator wanted another god to replace you, that they turned their back on you, perhaps this is their way of finishing you off for good,” Folkoln said, tapping the tip of the blade thoughtfully against his temple. “If so, it is quite the diabolical plan.”
My brother and sister were most likely right. Aurelia was an assassin in disguise, sent by the Creator to see to my demise. She appealed to my tastes—my senses. Everything about her I found addicting. It was the very reason I had stood in her apple orchard night after night, waiting for a glimpse of her.
I didn’t just want her—Icravedher.
And it was that craving that would most likely get me permanently killed. I might be prehistoric, but I still enjoyed being alive.
The Goddess of Fate’s voice played in my mind—But heed this warning, and heed it well, your mate’s life is linked with the very male she is destined to kill.
I hadn’t told this little tidbit of information to my already skeptical brother and sister. It would send them into a frenzy, cementing their stance that Aurelia was sent to kill me. I knew how the Goddess of Fate’s warning looked, and I had plausible reason to believe that the male Aurelia was destined to kill was most likely me. But what if it wasn’t? Then who?
I let out a sigh.
By my own actions, I had single-handedly ensured that Aurelia hated me. Why she hadn’t taken my immortal life that day on the cliff, why she’d hesitated . . . I would never know. If given another chance, I highly doubted she would hesitate again.
Something I didn’t plan to find out.
If her life was tethered to mine, my death would mean the end of us both. So what was I to do? I tapped my fingers on the shattered remnants of my throne’s arm, thinking.
Was there a way I could get her to forgive me?
I nearly laughed at myself. I had done the worst thing you could do to a goddess and a woman—I had taken her ability to create. No, there would be no redemption for me, and that was justifiably so.
I was left with one last option . . .
But did I have it in me to kill my mate?
The sickening, heavy lava that angrily rolled around in my stomach told me no. But what I was feeling, was it even real? Or was it the Creator’s way of manipulating me? I detested the thought. I was not a game-piece to be positioned and used—I was the game maker. Bonded or not, I made the rules. If Aurelia was the Creator’s attempt to end me, I wasn’t about to roll over like a courtesan and just take it.
I looked at Saphira. “What do you suggest I do?”
A wicked smile spread across her lips. “End her first, before she has a chance to end you.”
“How?” I asked.
“While you’ve been obsessing over this silly little bond, I have been looking into things,” she replied. Her long legs carried her to the steep stairs that led up to my throne—a stretch of fifty risers. Her feline frame broke into shadow before she appeared directly before me. She rolled her wrist, showing me her palm, or rather, what was in it—a six-inch clipping of a delicate white vine armed with thin, sharp thorns. It moved in her hand as if it were searching for the plant it had been cut from. “She might be your weakness, but this I believe to be hers. It belongs to a tree that grows in the Golden Palace. Word has it that she cannot come within a hundred feet of it without it making her violently ill.”
She handed it to me.
“What am I supposed to do with this?” I asked, looking at the vine, wondering how such a delicate, little thing like this could end an immortal’s life. The metaphor was not lost on me. “If I kill the Goddess of Life now, there will be backlash—she has gained a strong following because of the war.”
“In celebration of the war ending, there is a ball that will be taking place next week. I suggest you go to it. Ask for her hand in marriage. In exchange, lie and say you will give them the realms, that you will give their king back. She won’t decline the offer. Bring her back here and end the bitch before she has a chance to end you. No one will ever know.”
