“If I had truly intervened, he would have known. But he’s currently unaware of the deal and who the source of power is.”

“Wait. How is that possible?” I asked, realizing something I hadn’t before. “If the Arae answer to his Court, how could he not know about the deal—about everything?”

“Because the Arae don’t answer to Embris. They just live there,” Nyktos explained, angling his body so that the side of his hips brushed my arm. “Fate answers to no Primal.”

“Unless we overstep,” Holland tacked on. “By directly interfering.”

I had to agree with Nyktos that it sounded like semantics, but I had more pressing questions. “Why did you even get involved? You were with me for so long. The number of years…” Did he not have a family? Friends? Those he missed? Or had he gone back and forth?

“It was a long time,” Penellaphe spoke up. “Those years were a very long time.”

“I did it because I knew I needed to. It wasn’t easy, being gone for so long and so often, but this was bigger than me. Bigger than all of us.” Holland leaned against a pillar and lifted his gaze to Nyktos. “I did it because I knew your father. I knew him when he was the true Primal of Life. I considered him a friend.”

I glanced up at Nyktos, but nothing could be gained from his expression. “Did you know what was to become of him?” he asked.

Holland shook his head. “No. The Arae cannot see the fate of a risen Primal.” Grief crept into his voice. “If I could have, I don’t know if I would still be sitting here today. I don’t…I don’t think I could’ve sat by and done nothing.”

My brows knitted together. “You would’ve intervened? What is the punishment for that?”

“Death,” Nyktos answered. “The final kind.”

I shuddered as my gaze swung back to him. Fear rose. “Is it okay that you’re here?” I felt the brush of Nyktos’ fingers against mine. The touch surprised me, but the soft hum of contact was calming. “Should you leave?”

“The Arae can do nothing to intervene in your fate,” Penellaphe advised. “Not anymore.”

Her words…they felt like an omen, leaving me chilled.

“Then you know why we summoned you. Can you tell us why my father did this?” Nyktos asked. “Why he would put such power into a mortal bloodline—what he hoped to accomplish from that?”

“The better question is what your father did exactly,” Holland countered. “As you know, your father was the true Primal of Life. Kolis couldn’t take everything. That would be impossible. Embers of life still remained in Eythos, just as embers of death remained in Kolis. And when you were conceived, part of that ember passed onto you. Just a flicker of the power. Not as strong as the ember that remained in your father, but enough.”

Nyktos shook his head. “No,” he said. “I never had that ability. I have always been this—”

“You wouldn’t have known if you had that ember until you went through the Culling. But your father took that ember from you before Kolis could learn that you had it in you,” Holland explained. “Eythos knew that Kolis would’ve seen you as even more of a threat. One that his brother would’ve extinguished.”

Nyktos’ eyes began to churn slowly. “My father…” He cleared his throat, but his voice was still hoarse. “He took it from me to keep me safe?”

My heart squeezed as Holland nodded. “He took that ember, along with what remained in him, and put it in the Mierel bloodline.” Dark eyes focused on me. “That is what is in you. What remained of Eythos’s power and what had passed on to Nyktos.”

I opened my mouth, but I was at a loss for words. Nyktos’ equally shocked gaze met mine. “I…I have a part of him in me? And his father?”

“You have the essence of his power,” Penellaphe said, and my head swung back to her.

“That still sounds really weird…and uncomfortable,” I said.

Penellaphe glanced away, her lips twitching before her gaze met mine. “That does not mean you have a part of Nyktos or his father in you or that it would somehow make you some sort of a descendant,” she confirmed—and thank the gods for that because I was about a second away from vomiting a little in my mouth. “You just have the essences of their powers. It’s like…how do I explain this?” Her brow wrinkled as she glanced at Holland. “It’s like when a god Ascends a godling. The godling shares their blood, but they are not related to that god or any of that god’s bloodline. The only thing that could happen is the essence could…recognize its source.”

“What—what does that mean?” I asked.

“This would be even harder to explain, but I imagine it’s a lot like two souls meant to be one, each finding the other.” She was looking at Holland again, and my heart gave another leap. “Both of you may have felt more comfortable around each other than you would others.”

The breath I took was thin as I leaned back against the dais. There was no denying that I had felt far more comfortable around Nyktos than I did anyone else. That I never really feared him. “I…I felt this…warmth in me when I first saw you. A rightness.” I twisted toward Nyktos. “Not the night in the Shadow Temple, but in The Luxe. I never said anything because I wasn’t even sure what I was feeling, and it sounded silly. But the night in The Luxe, I had a…a hard time walking away from you. It felt wrong. I didn’t understand it.” I turned back to Holland and Penellaphe. “Could that be why?”

“And here I thought it was my charming disposition,” Nyktos muttered under his breath. I shot him an arch look. “I felt something similar. A warmth. A rightness. I…I didn’t know what it meant.”

My eyes widened. “You did?”

He nodded.

“As I said, it would be like two souls shaped for one another coming together,” Penellaphe said.

Two souls coming together. Was that why I interested Nyktos so much, despite his intentions to never fulfill the deal? Why he was able to find peace in my presence? Could it also explain why I had been drawn to him even when I believed I had to end him? For me, maybe in the beginning. But now? I didn’t think so. It was him—who he was. His strength and intelligence. His kindness, despite all that he’d seen and surely suffered. His loyalty to his people—those he cared for. It was how ending a life still affected him. It was how he made me feel. That, for the briefest moments, I wasn’t a monster. That I was someone. Me. Not whatever I had been shaped into.

But for Nyktos? It really didn’t matter. He knew what I’d planned. Whatever had guided his interest was irrelevant. “And you don’t know why my father did this? What he thought it could achieve?”

“I had a…prophetic vision before your father struck this deal with a mortal King,” Penellaphe stated, sending a ripple of surprise through me. “It had never happened before, so I didn’t understand what I saw. I didn’t understand the words in my mind, but I knew they carried a purpose. That they were important. Especially when I told Embris, and he took me to Dalos.” She swallowed thickly. “Kolis questioned me quite extensively.”

I tensed, having a feeling her questioning was more like an interrogation—a painful one.

“It was as if Kolis believed he could somehow force an understanding out of me. A clarification.” She shook her head. “As if I were hiding knowledge from him. But I couldn’t make sense of what I saw or heard.”

“That’s not how they work—visions and prophecies. They are rare and the receivers of them are only messengers. Not scribes.” Holland reached over, taking her hand in his. He squeezed, and I couldn’t help but wonder if there was something between them. I’d never known him to be with anyone, but obviously, there was a lot I hadn’t known.

“Kolis eventually gave up.” Some of the shadows cleared from Penellaphe’s eyes as she smiled at him. “Afterwards, I went to Mount Lotho. I figured if anyone could make any sense of it, it would be the Arae.”