The Midnight Kingdom

Book 2: The Dark Gods

by Tara Sim

Genres: Epic Fantasy

Synopsis

In this “glorious tapestry of magic and murderous gods” (Buzzfeed News) each heir walks a dangerous path, attempting to undo the damage the gods have wrought across the four realms, but they live on borrowed time—and not all of them will survive.

A cataclysmic battle to save the city of Nexus has left the four noble heirs scattered across the realms.

Taesia, the shadow-wielding rebel of House Lastrider, and Nikolas, the reluctant soldier of House Cyr, have been cast into Noctus, the realm of eternal night. But they are not alone. The dangerous and unpredictable god of light has traveled with them, and he will do anything in his power to destroy Noctus in his bid for cosmic control. 

Risha, the peacekeeping necromancer of House Vakara, must navigate her way through Mortri, the realm of death. But still she cannot help the wayward spirits, nor does she have any idea how to return home. All she knows is that no mortal can survive for long in Mortri. And the creatures that prowl the realm of death don't take kindly to the living.

Angelica, the stubborn elementalist of House Mardova, is on her own in Vitae, trying to keep Nexus from unraveling. But Angelica secretly suffers from an illness that her god left in her veins. And when she is sent on a delicate diplomatic mission, she knows that any weakness will have disastrous repercussions for her family, her kingdom, and her dreams of the throne. 
 
All will encounter old friends and new enemies as they attempt to restore the balance of the universe. But the gods grow stronger. And their descendants will need more than their magic and their wits to survive the war that is coming...

Release date: August 22, 2023

Publisher: Orbit

Print pages: 592

Sample

There is much you do not know of the universe or how it came to be. But I am here now, and I will tell you.

To describe the pandemonium of Beginning would be inadequate. No word exists for it; not even storm can conjure that heat and rage and lust, that cycle of pensive violence. A cycle of things born and killed and born again.

But then there was this: a thread of quintessence, shimmering, eager, stubbornly riding out the storm. So stubborn it took some of that storm into itself, themself, holding it close to where the heart would beat, would that we had any.

(We had the freedom to choose, once, across a spectrum—which parts, which appendages, which forms. We became beasts to savor in savagery, and we became humans only to find they were beasts of a different nature. After the division, we could change no longer. The others might begrudge me this.)

The thread grew and learned from its stark surroundings in the battering storm. It desired to be crafted, and shaped, and realized. The thread became a sphere, or what some would more romantically call a star.

Are you paying attention? This is the important part.

The star of quintessence devoured the storm. As much as it could stomach.

We call that star and what came from it ​

No—Orsus. The first, the Beginning, the maker of the doorways.

(I still remember the turbulent heat of it, the flashes of cognizance like emerging from deep water, with small sustaining gasps. But most of that time is now lost.)

Orsus allowed quintessence to do as it pleased, lending a hand when they wished to, delighting in the process of conception and fabrication.

Can you see where this is going?

The sphere, the star, gradually became a world. So many of you emerge into the light screaming and struggling, which is to say there was a great deal of pain involved. For with life comes death, withering, and loss.

Perhaps that is why Orsus set their sights on Mortri first. Then came Vitae, for the elements were unruly strands that required a loom.

Between Nyx and I, it is hard to say who emerged first. As Orsus was fond of saying, there is no dark without light.

(No, I will not speak of it now.)

I simply want you to understand: Ostium was built of a violent, longing storm, and Orsus gave to us what they could have easily kept for themself. Their realm became the commonway, the material from which to build.

You must realize why I whispered in Deia’s ear, why I gave away my body to those who did not deserve it, why I grasped at the flesh Orsus had gifted themself and swallowed. Why Deia, upon finding out, took their remains and fled before the doorways shut.

We do not have hearts. But this was Orsus’s: the spinning sphere of a storm, violet and crimson, with the power to make and shatter worlds.

And now a thread grows within me.

As it will grow within you.

Taesia Lastrider dreamed of color and woke to darkness.

The waking was against her will, and she struggled. A grunt of pain sounded beside her.

“It’s all right,” a low voice said. “You were having a nightmare.”

Taesia stared at the ceiling above her, slanted stone washed in shadow, and evened out her breathing. Her back ached, and twin flares of pain lit up her wrists when she lifted her arms. They were shackled with a heavy, dark material, bitterly cold against her skin.

She reached for Umbra, for the shadows around her. Nothing happened. It was as if a pit had grown in her core, swallowing what made her a Shade, a Lastrider, a being forged from godsblood. It left her dizzy and weak. Panicked.

Flashes of memory like the winking facets of a gem: the unraveled cosmos of sky, the distant screams, the hands forcing her away and down, down into the underbelly of the Bone Palace. The lightsbane shoved over her hands.

And the person next to her—

Taesia clumsily pushed Julian away and sat up. “Fuck. Fuck. Why did you wake me up?”

Julian was mostly an outline in the dark, though she sensed his heat and smelled the dried sweat on his skin. Yet his eyes found hers unerringly, the flecks of green in his hazel irises like glowing embers in a banked fire.

“You were thrashing,” he said. “I didn’t want you to hurt yourself.”

Taesia scooted back until she could lean against the cold wall. Behind her eyelids hid an afterimage of a cyclone of color, and in her ears echoed the faraway cry of a voice so familiar it made her chest ache.

“Brailee,” she rasped. “She’s a dream walker. She was trying to find me.”

“I’m sorry.”

She wanted to hold on to that flare of anger, but there was no point in it. No way to tell how long they had been down here, or what was happening above. No way to contact anyone in Vitae unless Brailee was able to locate her.

The last she had seen of Vitae was the chaos of Godsnight. In the aftermath—if there had been an aftermath—had Risha and Angelica shed their gods’ possession? Had Dante been able to escape?

Were they even alive?

“Why am I alive?” she murmured. “Why hasn’t he killed us by now?”

Julian settled down beside her. “I’m still not entirely sure who he is.”

She tried to swallow, but her throat was too dry. She vaguely recalled Julian coaxing her to eat something that had been thrown into their cell, but it might as well have been air for how it filled her stomach.

“Rian Cyr,” she said. “Nik’s younger brother. He… We all thought he died years ago. I don’t know how he got here, how Phos possessed him.” She shuddered at recalling Nyx’s presence within her, using his power to close the portal her aunt had unleashed over Nexus. “I don’t know. I don’t… I don’t know.”

When Julian pressed his shoulder to hers it was warm. Unconsciously she leaned into it, the lightsbane weighing down her wrists.

Julian reached for her hands. Gently, so carefully he could have been handling a just-hatched fledgling, he adjusted the shackles and brushed a thumb over the welts they’d made on her skin.

“Why aren’t you tied up?” she muttered.

“Maybe he doesn’t think I’m a threat.”

But she had seen Julian in the Bone Palace’s courtyard, eyes blazing green, pupils thinned to slits, black veins crawling over his skin. The bone-aching presence of him as she’d held him up.

Phos was an idiot to not consider him a threat.

“Your mother,” she whispered. “Is she…?”

“When I left, she was alive and in the care of the Hunters.”

Some of the built-up pressure in her chest released. “I didn’t know what my aunt was planning. If I did, I would have done everything I could to stop it.”

He hummed vaguely. He was still inspecting her wounds, and her fingers twitched under his attention.

“Nik said you were the fifth heir.” At her cautious words, Julian paused. “What does that mean?”

What are you?

She heard the click in his throat when he swallowed. “I’m not sure. My beastspeaking, it…” He sighed, stirring the small hairs on her forehead. “It’s derived from a demonic ability.”

“You’re a demon?”

He winced. “No.”

“Then—”

“I don’t know how I got it.” His voice turned brittle, and his fingertips pressed harder into her skin. “All this stuff about Ostium and demons, I… I don’t understand it. And I might never get answers.”

Because we’ll die here, Taesia thought. Far from their home, and the people who loved them.

She didn’t know how many hours passed in a daze by the time someone came down the steps. Julian shifted to stand in front of her, muscles tensing. A small sound left his throat, not quite a growl, that raised the hairs along her arms.

The person heading for their cell carried a faint nimbus around them, edging away the darkness as if refusing to be touched by it. The light illuminated a tall, lithe form, caressing the planes of a familiar face that looked at her with unfamiliar eyes, burning sun-bright gold.

Taesia staggered toward the bars. “Nik,” she croaked. “Nik.”

Under Phos’s thrall, his expression was as rigid as the stone around them. Gone was the way he’d raise his pale eyebrows, or smile shyly with just the corner of his mouth, or squint his crystalline eyes when she’d said something particularly crass.

“Nikolas,” Julian tried. “Lord Cyr, please.” Again no reaction, not even a minute twitch.

Silently Nikolas inserted a key into the heavy lock and pried the cell door open. Julian tensed again, but Taesia brushed her fingers against his lower back.

“Don’t,” she whispered. “I don’t want to hurt him. Even if we restrain him, Phos will retaliate.”

So they allowed Nikolas to pull Julian forward and roughly bind his wrists together—not with lightsbane but common rope. Then he took each of them by the arm, his grip bruising, and hauled them toward the stairs.

Taesia was used to calluses and blades, but Nikolas had always touched her like dew rolling off a leaf or a melody hummed under one’s breath, unbearably soft. He had never handled her so roughly, not even in their most fervent moments.

It’s not him, she thought. Not really.

The doors to the throne room had been thrown open. Onyx columns soared toward the ceiling above the throne’s grand canopy, where hundreds of bones interlocked into vaults constructed of vertebrae and coving made of cleverly placed femurs, clavicles, and breastbones. Underneath the canopy of black velvet was the throne itself, gilded and padded, bearing heavy armrests and twisting branches that sprouted from the cresting rail, much like the tree at Deia’s basilica.

Lounging on that throne was Rian. One leg was hooked insouciantly over an armrest while he twirled the Sunbringer Spear in his hands. He watched as they were brought forward with a small, unfeeling smile on his lips.

Taesia had grown up with Rian, had joked with him at galas and ganged up on Nikolas at his side, had mourned him when the ash fever claimed his life.

This young man was a stranger. He had grown taller, his face leaner, his shoulders broader.

He looked like Nikolas.

Or at least, he would have if he weren’t so malnourished, so gaunt. Although his eyes had burned gold during Phos’s possession, they were now the pale blue shade she remembered. As if the longer Phos inhabited him, the more his influence was etched into Rian’s bones.

“One would think being in Noctus would make you stronger,” Phos said through Rian’s voice, which had deepened in the years since Taesia last heard it. “That bit of stone must be potent.” He dropped his gaze to Taesia’s shackles.

She smirked. “If you want a fair fight, you should take them off and give me back my sword. Then we’ll see who’s stronger.”

“I’m humble enough to recognize a bad idea when it’s presented.” Phos snapped Rian’s fingers, and Taesia startled as a figure scurried forward from the shadow of the columns. She’d been so focused on the throne that she hadn’t noticed the handful of servants cowering along the walls, on their knees with their heads down.

They must have been trapped in the Bone Palace when it was transported through the Conjuration circle. Phos had made quick work killing off King Ferdinand and his advisors, but he had left enough servants to wait on him.

Had he left anyone else alive? Taesia craned her neck to try and find her erstwhile cousin—crown prince, she couldn’t help but snarl to herself—when Julian’s intake of breath made her turn back.

Phos had sat up and leaned the Sunbringer Spear against the throne. The weapon was radiant, the feathers encased within the metal reacting to the god’s presence. The servant he’d summoned placed a bundle at his feet and scurried away. Phos leaned down and flung off the coverings.

Starfell’s black blade glittered in the wan light. Taesia longed to tear out of Nikolas’s hold and dive toward it, curl her hands around its cool grip.

“Quite an interesting weapon you’ve designed,” Phos murmured, studying the spinous ridges along the blade’s sides. “Made from astralam bones, if I’m not mistaken. Curious beasts. The power that resides within their bodies is… familiar.”

He reached down but paused before touching it, frowning slightly. “How much do you know of your ancestry, little Lastrider?”

Taesia shared a glance with Julian across Nikolas’s back. He shook his head a fraction.

“Enough,” she answered. “You going to give me a lesson, old man?”

Phos let out a huff. “Then surely you’ve heard that the late Lunari royal family possessed an heirloom of great power, also forged from an astralam. A crown.”

She had heard of it. A crown made of an astralam’s fangs, passed from monarch to monarch, giving them the power to erect a protective barrier around the capital city of Astrum.

In the earliest days of Noctus, the Lunaris had learned how to harvest the dust from fallen stars. After generations of exposure to this stardust, their Shade magic was the strongest in the realm. Which meant that in their hands, an astralam’s power was immense.

Now all that remained of the Lunaris lay crushed under the Bone Palace.

Phos noted the shift in her expression. “You understand, then, what the destruction of the Lunari family means.”

He wrapped a hand around Starfell’s hilt, but hardly a moment passed before he dropped it with a hiss. His hand was burned, the golden brown of his skin angrily flushed. Phos narrowed his eyes and signaled for the servant to take the sword away. Taesia again fought the urge to lunge toward it.

Phos stood, leaving the Sunbringer Spear to approach them. “Without the Lunaris’ enhanced magic or their crown, no one can shield Astrum.”

“What are you going to do?” Taesia demanded.

Phos turned toward one of the tall, narrow windows. Though they were largely comprised of stained glass, casting jewel-toned shapes across the floor, the bottom halves were clear enough to reveal a view of Nexus—that is, if the Bone Palace had been in its proper place.

Now, as Phos strolled to the window and Nikolas dragged them behind, Taesia was greeted with an entirely new sight. The palace’s courtyard was washed in nighttime gloom, a small valley of destruction left over from Godsnight. If she squinted she could just make out the misshapen forms of bodies, the corpses of the king and his advisors left to rot.

And there, at the edge of the courtyard, stood a wall of golden light. A barrier, cutting off the Bone Palace from the rest of Astrum. She couldn’t perceive the city beyond other than the vague, blurry forms of buildings in the distance, and darker figures moving along the perimeter.

But who was powering it? Taesia looked up at Nikolas’s impassive face.

“Nik,” she whispered, unable to stop herself from trying again, to keep trying until the cold light left his eyes and he regarded her the way he used to, with warmth and patience.

Even if she’d squandered that warmth, that patience. Even if she was no longer worthy of it.

“It’s no use.” Phos leaned beside the window, crossing his arms. “He can hear you, perhaps know who you are to some extent, but he won’t comprehend.”

“What are you going to do with him?”

“Other than haul you around?” He flapped a hand at the window. “You’re already looking at it.”

So he is channeling Nik’s power.

“This will give us some privacy with which to work,” Phos went on, seeming smug. “Dear Rian already helped considerably by making those circles around the city, and we have Ostium’s remains implanted within the palace. It’s only a matter of refining the spells.”

“To do what?”

“It’s not obvious?” He shrugged one bony shoulder. “You’ll see soon enough.”

Julian opened his mouth as if to speak, then thought better of it.

It didn’t escape Phos’s notice. “The heir of Ostium will play a part, naturally. I do need an offering.”

“He’s not an offering,” Taesia growled. “If you touch him, you’re dead.”

Phos lifted an eyebrow and walked over to Julian. He roughly grabbed the Hunter by the jaw and dug his fingers in, Julian’s tawny skin paling under the pressure. A dagger of blazing-hot light appeared in his other hand. He held it close to Julian’s neck, watching Taesia coolly.

“Well?” Phos said.

She wouldn’t rise to the taunt—she couldn’t. Julian’s eyes were shut tight, sweat beading at his temple and rolling down his cheek. A drop hit the dagger and sizzled into steam.

“Thought not.” The dagger disappeared and Phos let Julian go. “Maybe I should take those shackles off. I worry I’ll get bored otherwise.”

Taesia swallowed her fury, though it scorched her throat like she’d consumed that dagger. The helpless fear that had engulfed her in the dungeons now burned away with renewed purpose.

She would snap Nikolas out of Phos’s possession, at least long enough that they could escape the barrier. Rian—Phos—wouldn’t dare kill him.

She met Julian’s solemn gaze. He gave a slight dip of his chin, jaw already mottled with bruises in the shape of Rian’s fingertips.

We won’t die here.

Not if I can help it.

Risha Vakara walked hand in hand with a ghost.

She made sure to stand between him and the wide river they followed, keeping him as far from the water as she could while not losing sight of it. From here she heard the rushing of its grayish-green current, the faint humming calls of the spirits, the constant drip, drip, drip from the stalactites above. All around them rose arches and columns of black opal that glimmered with hints of red and green and silver.

The river was the Praeteriens, sometimes referred to as the Forgetting Waters. It was where spirits accumulated once their souls made the journey to this realm, borne to different recesses of Mortri and whatever fate awaited them in the afterlife.

“Where does this lead?” Jas asked, nodding toward the river.

Risha’s chest clenched when she looked at him. He was no longer substantial, the whole of him washed in gray. Yet his smile was unchanged, the warmth of it easing her heart a little.

But she couldn’t forget that he was dead. Dead because he had tried to help.

Dead because of her.

“It branches out in four ways,” Risha said eventually. The ground was rocky and uneven under her boots. “Each leads to one of the four cities.”

Though they weren’t cities in the way Risha and Jas understood them, as they were inhabited by the dead. Jas nodded with a thoughtful expression.

“And each of those cities is ruled by one of the four kings of Mortri.”

“That’s right.”

“The founder of your House fought a war against those kings. Leshya Vakara.” Risha quirked an eyebrow at him, and he laughed softly. It had, after all, been Leshya’s finger bones Jas had stolen to fuel his Conjuration efforts.

“Yes. The kings wanted to march on Vitae and claim more souls in order to overthrow Thana, but Leshya subdued them. The decisive battle happened here in Mortri. We don’t know much about it other than it wasn’t an easy victory, and she had to abandon her weapons to make it back to Vitae in time.”

“In time for what?”

Risha drew a deep breath, taking in scents both familiar and not, of rich minerals and dust and the faint underlying sweetness of rot. Though she stood in Mortri, her body was alive, her heart pumping and her organs working to keep her that way. There were things dwelling in this realm that would catch one whiff of her fresh blood and know a feast was near.

“No living being can stay in Mortri,” she said at last. “Leshya was here for about a month before the realm attempted to claim her. That’s why she had to hurry at the end.”

Jas’s hand was cold and whisper soft, but it still tightened around hers. “Risha.”

“We’ll find a way out.” She nodded to give the words more weight. “Both of us.”

Jas was silent, but his gaze rested like a touch against her cheek, reproachful and mourning.

Truth be told, she didn’t have a plan. Didn’t even know how long they had been here. All she had to go by was how her feet ached with fatigue, how her stomach cramped with hunger, and how her throat stung with thirst. She had no rations—she had been fully prepared to die at Godsnight along with the other heirs.

Every second spent thinking about the other heirs—their unknown fates, or the one they would have suffered at her hand—twisted her stomach tighter. She’d thought at the time it would be a mercy to cut the threads of their lives, too steeped in fear to see any other alternative.

The plan had been foolish, and so was she. But she had to be better than foolish now.

They weren’t going to survive otherwise.

Far ahead she spotted an opening in the labyrinth of caves, emanating viridescent light. The river had now split, snaking left and right, deeper into caverns so dark she instinctually knew to avoid them at all costs. There was no way to cross.

Jas stared at the river, the churning current reflected in his eyes. He took a step toward it.

Risha placed herself before him. “Jas, look at me.”

His gaze was vacant. Risha remembered standing with him in Thana’s basilica and sounding the bone whistle. The spirits who had arrived at its call had stares every bit as empty as his was now.

He blinked once, twice, and focused on her face.

“Risha,” he murmured. “Maybe you should—”

“No.” It was practically a snarl. She reined in the sudden lash of fury, unsure where it had come from. “No, Jas. You didn’t deserve to die, and you don’t deserve…” She glanced at the river, the pale limbs and faces floating by. She swallowed. “You don’t deserve that. I’m not letting it take you.”

Something like resignation settled on his face. “You said you only had a finite time before Mortri claims you. The same is likely true of me. Instead of wasting your energy—”

“I need your help,” she blurted. “You wouldn’t leave me alone, would you?”

That made him pause. Slowly a smile touched his pallid lips, fondness creeping through the resignation.

“All right,” he whispered. “But I don’t know how long I can stay.”

For as long as I allow it, Risha thought.

She was a Vakara, a descendant of the god of death. She would find a way to bend the rules of this realm in her favor.

But first: They had to find a way to cross the river.

Risha approached the bank. The air grew colder with each step she took, the ground laced with frost. She shivered as the whispering spirits went by.

“—could have done so much more—”

“—be remembered? I can’t think—”

“—her name, what was her name—”

The Forgetting Waters would gradually wash away their memories, their lives, until they were stripped of earthly desires and submitted fully to Thana’s judgment. If Jas were to forget himself, forget her…

Risha was shaken out of her thoughts when Jas pulled her back. The bodies had begun to churn violently, the turbulence creating white water. A large shadow stirred in the depths.

“What are they doing?” Jas demanded.

Spirits rose from the river, water lapping against their gray, naked bodies. There were at least a dozen, all with their heads bowed and hands lifted. Across their shoulders rested a platform made of the same black opal as the columns around them.

A bridge.

The spirits didn’t move, only holding the bridge aloft as water dripped off its edges. Uncertain, Risha moved forward and stopped right before her foot made contact with the bridge. There was a nervy feeling inside her, a kind of warning or premonition, stitched deep into her muscle.

“I have to hold my breath,” she whispered to Jas. She didn’t know how she knew, just as she didn’t know why the bridge had appeared, other than perhaps the spirits had recognized something of Thana in her. “Don’t startle me.”

“I’ll keep my shouting to a minimum,” he said dryly.

Risha filled her lungs with that dusty, mineral-rich air and pinched her nose before finally stepping onto the platform. She expected it to dip with her weight, but the spirits held it steady.

With her lungs still and her chest tight, Risha carefully made her way across. The Praeteriens was twice as wide as the Lune River that cut through Nexus, so she quickened her pace once she was confident the bridge wouldn’t suddenly give way under her. Jas was close at her heels.

Halfway across came the burn of deprivation. It didn’t help that her heart was beating wildly, fluttering at the base of her throat, urging her to go faster. Jas matched her pace, reaching out to hold her hand again, either to make her slow down or to avoid being seduced by the Forgetting Waters.

Puddles of water lingered on the platform, and her boot slipped in one near the end. A gasp ripped out of her as she stumbled, Jas’s grip preventing her from tumbling into the river below.

But the damage had been done. With her indrawn breath the spirits writhed and howled, their wails like storm sirens. The bridge tilted and Jas pitched them forward, the two of them rolling onto the far bank as the water frothed and roiled.

“Run!” Risha yelled.

They made for the green light in the distance. The wails built behind them, a foreboding chorus that rang in her ears. Like the spirits were crying for something—or someone.

Risha fell to her knees panting once they stumbled out of the caves, even as the adrenaline coursing through her begged her to keep going. Jas knelt beside her.

“We should get as far as we can in case something comes looking for us,” Jas said. Briefly she envied his phantom body’s lack of exhaustion. “Although I think that’s going to happen regardless.”

Risha sat back on her heels and wiped her mouth. “They know we’re here,” she agreed hoarsely.

Then she looked up and let out a quiet sound of disbelief.

There had been sketches of Mortrian landscapes in the books her father made her read, but nothing could prepare her for the real thing, the realm of her birthright spread out before her. The sky was a swirling mass of black and cadmium green, giving off a vaporous, otherworldly light. Underneath those clouds were valleys and fields that dipped and rose into sharp peaks, as well as the dark spine of a mountain range to the east and what looked to be a city carved into its side. Behind them, the Praeteriens emerged from the caves and split into four tributaries; one of them snaked its way toward the mountain city, the other three leading elsewhere.

Risha got to her feet. Beside her, Jas laughed mirthlessly.

“All this time,” he murmured. “All this time I longed to reach Mortri, and now I’m here.”

Risha blinked away the stinging in her eyes. They stood in a field of flowers, blossoms bending in a cold breeze. Their heads were made of compact, frilled petals, and though they were a dark green rather than orange, Risha would recognize them anywhere. Marigolds. She carefully touched one and marveled at its softness.

“ ‘A realm both beautiful and terrifying,’” Jas said. “I read that in a book. Or maybe it was a poem. Either way, it’s not wrong.”

Risha plucked the marigold and handed it to Jas. Surprised, he took it in both hands, cupped together like he was accepting an offering from a Parithvian priest.

Under the light, he looked even more like a ghost. But the flower stayed nestled on his palms, refusing to pass through him. Risha’s conviction hardened. So long as they stayed together, she could keep him whole until they found a way out.

Provided nothing found them first.

Nikolas Cyr was not.

He used to be, perhaps.

But now he was not.

He walked where he was told to. He stood where he was told to. He did as he was told to.

He followed the glowing one, the god, the brother, gold and somber and dead and not, too confusing a concept to hold any one shape in his mind, so he let it go.

He was told to open a door. He opened it.

Beyond, a large room. A floor giving way softly under his boots. Rug, came a word from the dregs, a bubble rising to the surface, popping and then gone.

He followed god brother to a person in the room. A name gradually unearthed: Fin.

Something in his chest kicked and beat.

The god smiled coldly. A glowing spear was slung across his back. Nikolas’s gaze kept straying toward it.

Fin was chained, sitting in a padded chair. The set of his eyebrows, the downturn of his full mouth, indicated fear and concern. His chains rattled as he tried and failed to move forward.

“Nik,” Fin rasped. His eyes were blue, bright, big. “Nik, please—”

The same words as the woman. She was called… Lastrider. Taesia. The same tightness in his chest and the same nothingness in his mind. He stared at Fin. Fin stared back at him. Fin’s face scrunched, eyes filmed with water.

“Nik…”

“Don’t bother with him,” the god said. “He’s gone. I should be your main concern.”

Fin’s jaw clenched. “What have you done to him?”

“You’re not in a position to be asking me questions, princeling. How long have you been secreted away? How exactly was your father planning to explain you?” The god scoffed. “Deia’s constructs are unbelievably stupid.”

Again Fin looked to Nikolas. Nikolas blinked and there were two images at once, overlapping in his vision. One image: Fin in a chair. Another image: a corridor, a heated exchange, a vague idea of threat, assassination. It made no sense, so he discarded it.

Fin swallowed. “What are you planning to do with me?”

“Finally, a good question.” The god walked around Fin’s chair, pulling on a chain. It