Page 99 of The Edge of Darkness

“Skadi. That was the name she gave.”

Nivelle shook her head, her skin blanching paler than normal. Worry bled into her features as she glanced over at Silas. “That’s impossible.”

“Who is she?” Niall bellowed.

Silas stepped forward, dragging a chair away from the table and flipping it around to sit on. “Torin’s sister—a goddess of Skotos. The goddess of shadow.”

“What the hell is she doing here?” Aremis asked.

“She should not be here,” Nivelle said. “It isn’t possible, unless . . .” Her eyes widened. “Someone figured it out.”

Silas weighed her words.

“Figured what out?” Niall growled at the witch.

“How to open portals. Skadi is no witch. She cannot use spells or open portals the way that we can, but . . . there were witches who defected to her forces. Though, they would have gone to eternal rest long ago . . . Their offspring could have found a way.”

“Someone must have succeeded if the goddess is here, in the flesh,” Aremis said, grimly.

Morah stepped closer to the table, eyes fixed on Nivelle. “Witches can open portals?”

“A very powerful witch can open small ones. It takes a great deal of power, and it is only reliable for short distances. Opening a portal off-world would kill any witch who tried—it would require too much power. Torin was only able to bridge a portal of that magnitude because she is a goddess. Her wealth of power made it possible.”

“Skadi would have had to sacrifice many of Torin’s witches to be able to achieve that same feat,” Silas concluded.

Nivelle’s lip curled in a snarl. “That murderous monster!” A pulse of blue light rocketed through the room as she clenched her fists at her sides.

“They had it coming, Velle,” Silas said. “They chose to abandon their own kind.”

“I don’t care,” she hissed. “They were good, once.”

“Before they were corrupted by Skadi’s evil.”

“But they were good! Why must the gods allow such evil to even exist?”

That was the question all of us had been asking our entire lives.

The room remained quiet for a long moment, until Aremis spoke. “If she was coming from The Wastelands, it’s safe to say she’s found Lyceius, or he has found her. And if he sent her, she was likely here to confirm that Auren is in Calledan, and that she has powers.”

Remic stepped up to the table, laying his palms flat on the stone surface. “If the two have somehow joined forces, we have a much bigger problem on our hands.”

“Well, fuck,” Roirdan said, scrubbing a hand over his scruffy cheeks.

“But her interest in me seemed secondary compared to Niall,” I said, thinking back to how Skadi had looked at my mate like he had stolen something from her.

“What do you mean?” Aremis asked.

“The moment she saw his power, she knew exactly what it was, and she said she was going to take it from him.”

Nivelle crossed her arms. “I told you that I sensed his power was not of this world. It has an essence of the one we come from—my blood recognizes it. And if that is indeed true, it would only be natural that Skadi is drawn to it.”

“But how is that even possible? It makes no sense.” I was becoming even more frustrated by the fact that we knew nothing of Niall’s power, or its origins, and no one had the answers we needed.

No one . . . except for—possibly—the wraith. And even that was a gamble.

Maeson broke the silence from where she had been standing. “Regardless of who she is, whatever power she possesses was no match for the wards. We all felt her trying to bring them down, but they remained.”

Niall shook his head. “That wasn’t her. Those were the creatures that had come before her to test the integrity of our defenses.”