Page 192 of The Edge of Darkness

“Karios descended after.” I could see the links forming in her mind as she lingered on the words I’d repeated.

“Karios.” She said his name like he was the answer to it all.

“What about him?”

“He came to the human realm to form my bloodline. The trees near my home . . . That’s where he landed. They must have been made that way by him.”

“So you think it was Karios’s arrival that caused this, not Torin’s?”

“He’s the common factor in both cases.”

Well, shit. She had a point.

“Strange that my home would be built so close to where he descended so long ago.”

“Fate,” I said, drawing her attention back to me. “I think it was all by design. Karios has never been far from you, Auren.”

She didn’t respond this time. She was processing.

I took a lap around the clearing, trying to imagine how the scene would have played out, when Torin plummeted into this world, and came face to face with a foreign god-king. What had been done to these trees was a sure sign that the gods operated on a scale we could not fathom.

A calm quiet had fallen over the charred clearing, stirred only by the gentle rustling of the black, leathery leaves.

“Auren,” I finally said, breaking the silence. “There’s a reason I brought you here. There are some things I haven’t told you, things that I’ve been figuring out on my own. And with everything that’s been going on⁠—”

“I know,” she said as she made her way over to me again.

“You do?”

“I knew you were dealing with things, and that you’d tell me when you were ready.” She slid her hands into mine.

“I was always going to tell you. I just . . . I needed time. What Ramil did to me . . . it . . . stirred something up.” I swallowed, hard, as thoughts of Auren’s tortured body crept into my mind. That inky darkness, swarming, taking her under, drowning her . . . Stranger’s hands groping her body against her will . . . The images sent my teeth grinding and my power itching beneath my skin.

My shadows bled free, twisting down my arms until they caressed Auren’s, checking to make sure she was unharmed. They didn’t like my thoughts any more than I did.

Auren watched them, releasing my hand to let a thin wisp thread itself between her fingers. “What happened in that cell, it had to do with me, didn’t it? That’s what Ramil used against you?”

I nodded, unable to confirm it out loud.

She’s here. She’s all right. That was what I had to tell myself now, more often than I liked to admit. Especially at night, when I would wake, sweating, searching the bed to make sure she hadn’t been taken while I slept.

“What Ramil made me see . . . it snapped something inside me. I’ve been fighting my power ever since. And after everything the wraith said, I sought out Eathril for answers.”

A look of confusion crossed her face. “Why Eathril?”

“Because there were too many coincidences. But I was able to get answers, which is part of the reason why we’re here.” I lifted my head toward the canopy, to the darkness beneath the daylight. “Powers beyond this realm’s capacity did this to the trees, so it only makes sense that a power so foreign to this world would do the same to the being with whom it resides.” When I met her soft, brown eyes again, the words didn’t feel so foreign to me. In fact, they flowed easier this time. “My power truly comes from Erebus, the god of darkness.”

Her gaze remained steady. No fear, no uncertainty, not even surprise flickered there. There was only love, and understanding, and a curiosity that I fully anticipated. “So, everything the wraith and Nivelle suspected, was right? How is Eathril so sure?”

“Because Eathril was Skadi’s general.”

This time, her eyes widened. “What?”

“He killed Erebus, and fled with Torin. But she wasn’t aware of who, exactly, she harbored.”

“Does he know how the power came to be in you?”

“Unfortunately, that’s the one thing he didn’t know. But it doesn’t change anything. I know enough, now, to make sense of everything.”