Page 336 of The Edge of Darkness

“That is because you are changed . . . goddess.”

“Goddess . . .” She weighed the word on her tongue, and by the looks of it, she didn’t like the taste. Her swirling blue eyes found Torin’s once more. “I didn’t know I would . . . change.”

Torin hung her head. “No, and that is my fault. You never knew who you truly were.”

Corinne nodded, though it was full of sadness. “I gained one thing, only to lose everything else . . . So that is the price to be paid for vengeance.” She let the crown roll out of her grip and clatter to the hardened ground.

A painful sense of reality fell over the space. Where there had once been a fae, a witch, and a human, there were now three new gods, and none of us knew how to react.

“It seems your secrets have caused more damage than you’d like to admit,” Karios said.

Torin turned back to him, seething with contempt. “None of this should have happened,” she said, reminding him that he had also, for lack of a better term, fucked up.

“So, what of her, then?” I waved my arm at the former human queen. “If she’s a goddess now, too, where is your concern in that? Niall is a threat to this world, but she isn’t?”

Torin whipped her head to me. “He’s from this world, therefore his essence is tied to it. Power that comes from another world will corrupt it. It will re-write who he is, and will call to him and pull at his soul until he answers. Corinne was born a witch with my blood. She poses no threat by rising to the title that one of her ancestors held.”

“Origins?” I half laughed. “You’re going to argue that origins dictate how power manifests?”

“Yes, because origins mean everything. I don’t expect you to understand divine law⁠—”

“Except I am a goddess now—need I remind you. If I don’t understand it at this moment, I certainly shall.”

Torin ground her teeth, remembering she was now staring at an equal, not a lesser being.

“Power that is directly imbued by a god is just as good as blood,” I said.

“But he was a fae when that power was given to him. It presented one way when he was simply that. Now that he is a god, there is no telling what he will be capable of. That power was not meant for a fae, nor a fae turned god.”

“And I was a human,” I argued. “How is that not the same thing? Tell me, now that I’m a goddess, will my power present differently?”

“It already has,” Torin said, jerking her chin to my mate.

She was right. My power had changed. It had created, as well as destroyed.

As if he could sense the dread that was building inside me, Niall reached up and cupped the side of my cheek.

I placed my hand atop his. “I didn’t mean for this to happen, but I’m so thankful that I didn’t lose you.”

“I know,” he said, his thumb rubbing smooth lines along my cheek as he took me in. “So am I.”

“How do you feel?”

“Fine, besides the insurmountable strength.” He glanced at Karios. “That’s normal, right?”

Karios gave him a slight—albeit, wary—smile. “Yes. That is normal.”

“What, exactly, is he the god of?” I asked the god-king.

He pointed at Niall’s hand. “Show us, so that we may see.”

Niall raised his palm. He had once shown me wisps of his shadowfire in the forest of Elandrew during what was supposed to have been my archery lesson. His power had never scared me then.

What he showed us now sent a chill down my spine.

Darkness spilled from his palm like inky velvet, as black as the void between stars. Niall didn’t seem fazed by it, though, as he brought his hand closer to his face to admire the strange power. The darkness danced across his skin while he turned his hand over and back again.

I was in awe of its composition, and also keenly aware that it felt like a force that could swallow up the world if he let it. I’d never seen anything like it. The black matter that Lyceius had wielded was far different from this. This was something else entirely. This was⁠—