Total pages in book: 401
Estimated words: 390373 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1952(@200wpm)___ 1561(@250wpm)___ 1301(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 390373 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1952(@200wpm)___ 1561(@250wpm)___ 1301(@300wpm)
I slowly faced him.
“I thought it best I not share this part in front of my son,” he said. “Or any of the others.”
My stomach knotted as I worked to keep my expression indifferent. “Well, this should be pleasant.”
“The god that met us at the Rise. Varus? He said you need to return so you can serve at Kolis’s side.” He let out a ragged breath, and then his jaw tightened. I felt greasy, cloying disgust. “Or refuse and serve…beneath him.”
CHAPTER 46
CASTEEL
Night had fallen by the time I returned to Wayfair. I’d been gone longer than I wanted to be and still wasn’t sure what to think of what my father had shared.
Was I angry? Sure. Did I understand why he’d kept quiet? Yeah—if the reason he claimed was the truth. I hated doubting that.
Growing up, I’d never doubted my father. Neither had my brother. Our father was larger than life—a hero to the people of Atlantia and to us. There had only been a few things I’d questioned my father about, and that had come after I met Poppy, and his plans regarding her hadn’t changed. But having to question if he was telling the truth? That hadn’t come until it was revealed that Ileana was Isbeth, and my parents had always known.
The truth of our bloodline hit me in the gut, and my steps slowed as I neared the gas lamplit breezeways. I didn’t doubt that. I’d seen the truth in Poppy’s eyes.
I wasn’t sure what was more unexpected: that Elian was my grandfather or that Attes wasn’t a distant ancestor with whom I only shared physical similarities.
Fucking gods.
What would Malik think? I was wondering that as I stopped halfway down the path and stretched my neck to the side. “I thought you were too afraid of shadowstepping?”
“Never said I was afraid.”
“Sure didn’t seem that way to me,” I replied.
There was no response.
I considered simply walking away or shadowstepping to the Solar, but I turned around instead. My eyes locked with Kieran’s bright, winter-blue ones. The fucker had been on my ass since I left the gardens, following me first to the Blood Forest, where I had hoped to find a Craven to work out my thoughts on with a sword, but there hadn’t been any, only barrats. And they had run the moment they sensed me—something that would make Poppy happy to learn. The Craven-free woods were concerning since the portion closest to the capital was thick and normally crawling with the cursed bastards.
Considering what we’d learned upon my father’s return, Kolis could control the Craven in a way the mortals had once feared I could. So, I had a feeling I knew where they were.
With nothing to do but think while scaring overgrown rodents away, I shadowstepped to the area along the southernmost tip of Carsodonia that sat in the shadows of the Elysium Peaks. Both times, Kieran hung back. He didn’t say a word, even though he knew I was aware of him.
He had been keeping an eye on me, just as he had more times than we cared to remember after I was freed.
“I’m not going to do anything idiotic,” I told him.
Standing near one of the deep tears in the ground left behind by carriage wheels the day of the Lowertown attack, he crossed his arms. “I hope not.”
I huffed out a short laugh that barely eked out from between my clenched teeth and started to turn but stopped. My fucking jaw ached from how tightly I was holding it closed. But, boy, did it spring right open then. “You really think I’m that unstable?”
His brows pinched. “Why the fuck would you say that?”
Aware of the guards lining the breezeway doors, I kept my voice low as I stepped toward him. “Isn’t that why you’re following me?”
Kieran’s eyes widened.
It took a moment for me to realize that what I thought I said wasn’t what I’d asked. Instead of saying you’re following me, what came out of my mouth was, “Isn’t that why you agreed to be the one to put Poppy in the ground?”
“Is that why you think I agreed?” Kieran asked, unfolding his arms.
I pushed down the essence when it started to rise, but the air still cooled. “It’s not?”
Kieran stared back at me, his brow smoothing out. He started to speak but snapped his mouth shut, his shields cracking. For just a few seconds—if even that long—I felt the sudden, hot spike of essence in him and tasted the tart coolness of his disbelief.
“Fucking gods,” he said finally with a laugh drier than mine. “You really haven’t thought about it at all, have you?”
My back stiffened.
“You couldn’t have.” He moved toward me with slow, measured steps, stopping about a foot away. “Not if you think that has anything to do with why Poppy asked me to promise that, and I agreed.”