Page 337 of The Edge of Darkness

“Pure darkness,” Torin said from where she stood, watching like an anxious deer ready to bolt. “The shadowfire was just a facet of it.”

Niall stared at his power, mesmerized. “There has never been a god of darkness on Gaia.”

Karios watched as the substance weaved itself between Niall’s fingers and twined around his wrist and forearm. “No. There has not. This world has never had a master of darkness because there has never been a need for one. Here, there are cycles of day and night, light and dark, because I made it so. They are balanced by time, with light claiming dominance.”

Niall began to withdraw his power back into himself, but I stopped him.

“Wait.” I held my finger out, and the darkness sank down against Niall’s palm like a cat on its haunches, ready to strike. Then, it recognized me and reached up, curling around the end of my finger. It felt like liquid night—solid and cool to the touch.

My light rose to the surface, humming with authority as it presented itself as a twinkling light at my fingertip. Niall’s power gently caressed it, before retreating back to its safe place against his skin, and vanishing.

Even in their infinitely heightened state, our powers still knew each other. Two halves of a whole. Darkness and light. There was some sort of strange hierarchy between them that we had yet to understand, but they still accepted one another.

For a moment, we all remained silent, still processing what we’d just witnessed, until Karios’s fingers twitched, and the amulet appeared, knitting itself into existence in his palm.

“I believe this now belongs to you,” he said to Niall.

Upon closer inspection, I could see what appeared to be a mist swirling within the confines of the obsidian stone. Like it was alive, churning with life, just like Niall’s eyes.

Torin took a nervous step toward Karios. “That is my father’s⁠—”

“Your father is dead,” Niall said, “and so is the goddess who tried to claim his power. The amulet is mine.” There was no remorse in his words.

The witch goddess gaped in horror, appalled by Niall’s proclamation and the greed with which he’d said it. When Karios extended the amulet to Niall, she moved to intercept it, her voice brimming with warning. “If you hand him that stone⁠—”

“What will you do?” Karios asked, lifting his chin, the amulet disappearing in his palm, back to wherever he kept it. “You are in my dominion, and bound to my authority, as agreed upon when you arrived here.”

Torin’s mist rose from the ground around her, a testament to her frustration. But Karios was correct, she had no right, and she certainly had no grounds to oppose him—not here.

He stared her down, unrelenting in his decision. “The stone is his by right.”

In desperation, Torin spun and faced Niall. “Niall, listen to me. If you take that stone, the power could consume you. You do not have the blood of the gods. You were fae. The power will be unstable, and there is no guarantee that it won’t rip you apart.”

Niall tilted his head to the side, but there was no hint of reconsideration in his eyes, so Torin reached for me, grabbing my arm. “Auren, please, you must believe me. Don’t let him do this.”

I was torn, because the witch goddess had come to our aid. She had held up her end of the bargain. But she had also withheld information from us. She had known what Niall’s power was all along, and had done nothing to warn us. And she had kept vital information from Karios as well.

“Do your stones help you control your power?” I asked her, nodding at the circlet that adorned her forehead.

She hesitated, brows pinching in confusion. “Yes . . . but⁠—”

“Then the amulet will help Niall with his.”

“It won’t!” She yanked at my wrist, pulling me closer. “Once that stone is in his possession, there will be no stopping him. He will become the vessel for all of it, and this world will become unstable, and then Skotos will call for him, and you will lose him.”

“You don’t know⁠—”

“HE SHOULD HAVE DIED!” she shouted. The words shocked her just as much as it did all of us. On the verge of tears, her lip quivered. “It was not supposed to be this way! Karios should have never used that amulet! He should have never brought that power into this world, but he did! And Niall should have died! Right there!” She thrust a finger to the spot where his body had been lying dead only minutes ago.

I curled my hand into a fist and wrenched it from her grasp, my power pulsing and sending a potent ripple through the air.

“How dare you!” I snapped.

Torin cowered and cradled her hand like I had singed her flesh. “What did you expect? That you could just bring him back to life and everything would be as it was?”

“I didn’t know WHAT to expect!” I yelled. “I didn’t know what my power was capable of! All I knew was that my mate was dead, and I couldn’t fucking BEAR IT!”

Niall stepped closer to Torin, his voice a menacing growl. “If you knew all this, why didn’t you just kill me yourself?”