Page 77 of The Arcane God

He nodded for Kaya to continue. “Go on,” he said, steeling himself. “I need to know.”

“Cole was there, from the very beginning. He was there when your father and I met,” Kaya began.

Ty’s brows flew to the top of his head. He’d never heard any of this before. He’d known that his mother was a witch, and that she had come to the Underworld with his father for a while, and had refused to be witch-slave and wear an imperae collar, but that was pretty much it. He’d never heard the circumstances of their meeting before.

“Your father and Cole were out on a mission, visiting Attax—the closest major village to the Occidens Coven. I was there, doing some trades for the Coven, and that’s how we met. In the guesthouse, late one night, over a mug of ale. The two of them came over and struck up a conversation with me.

“I was drawn to your father right away. He was so handsome. So strong, and steady—just like you,” Kaya said wistfully, as the past seemed to fill her present. “I fell for him—hard. Of course, I thought he was just a mortal, until we were intimate, and he admitted to me what he really was.”

Ty listened raptly, despite himself, because he couldn’t help but notice the similarities between his and Ena’s situation. They overlapped in the most painful of ways.

“I don’t know how much you know of Occidens,” Kaya continued, looking at Ena, “but we have known all along about the amulet, and the binding spell on daemons. I was raised not to trust daemons, of course, but also, in a way, to pity them. And since I was so young, and naive, I thought that I could change Haden. Help him resist his chaotic urges, and that maybe we could be together.

“He visited several times over the course of the next few months, and it wasn’t long before we found out I was with child. My Coven was furious and banished me—a half-daemon child was considered a threat, because it would be impossible for them to serve Gaia, and my loyalties were called into question as well—so I agreed to go with Haden to the Underworld.

“Haden had recently been crowned king after the death of his father, so he was new to the throne, but he was working so hard to take the Underworld in a new direction—to reshape things. He tried to expand the mines, and redirected more labor to the forge, and he was often gone, negotiating with daemons from the different levels, or completing missions himself to get the goods the Underworld needed. It was in those long days and nights of his absence that Cole started to…visit me.”

Ty felt his stomach tighten sickeningly. He dreaded to hear where this was going.

“At first, it was small things, like bringing me trinkets from the forges, or inviting me to dine with him. I thought he was just being nice at first, welcoming. Until…he tried to kiss me.”

Ty felt his rage bubble up inside him. He’d known that Cole was a sick fucking asshole, but this—going after his brother’s pregnant girlfriend—was a whole new level.

“I rebuked him, of course. And he…he didn’t take it well. After that, he became my enemy. He convinced the other daemons to pressure Haden to put me in an imperae collar, saying that I was a witch and couldn’t be trusted, urging those who wanted to to take their rage out on me, or…share me.

“Haden was furious, of course, and did his best to protect me, but Cole’s penchant for violence and discord spoke to so many of the daemons’ baser instincts. It was a lean year, and people were hungry. They wanted someone to blame, and as it often is for daemons, they chose to blame witches.

“One night, I overheard Cole and Haden get into a fight. It turned physical, and they screamed at each other. Cole threatened to kill him—to kill me and the baby—if I stayed. He had always been jealous of Haden, and resented the way he tried to run the Underworld, but this…this was a whole new level.”

Kaya paused, looking up at Ty then with tears in her eyes. “Haden didn’t want me to, but I decided on my own. It wasn’t safe for me there, and my presence would have made you unsafe too. So, after I gave birth, I left. I wanted to bring you with me, but…I had nowhere to go. I knew you would be better off with Haden, with others of your kind, than banished from both worlds with me.”

Tears fell down her cheeks as she spoke, and Ty could tell this was hard for her. He felt a lump rise in his own throat, his heart tightening as he registered the pain in her voice.

“I snuck into my Coven one last time, to take the journals and the books I gave to Petyr, as a sort of ‘fuck you,’ knowing that I was laying the groundwork to reveal the witches’ darkest shame. I knew it was bullshit that the binding spell had been done in the first place, and that daemons—as cruel as some of them could be—didn’t deserve it.

“After that, I fled. I didn’t know where to go, and I was in so much grief, so much pain and shame for everything that had happened, so I wandered into the Chasm Mountains—alone, expecting to die, knowing nothing except that I just needed to get away from everything and everyone, including myself. I was near death and starving when the stryx found me. Welcomed me in. And the rest, as they say, is history.”

Everyone was silent as Kaya finished speaking. And Ty…he could not have spoken, even if he tried. He felt frozen, shattered by this knowledge, and he didn’t know how to begin.

Because it was him—his birth, his existence—that had caused so much pain. He’d hated his mother for so long for choosing to leave, but he should have realized—it had never been a choice for her. It had been a necessity. It had been life or death.

She hadn’t abandoned him. She’d been taken from him—by Cole. Not directly, but through coercion, and threats, and manipulation. Just the way Ena had been taken from him all those years ago.

Ty wanted to rage, to punch something, to feel the man’s neck snap in his hands. But more than that—he wanted to cry. For the first time in so long, he just wanted to cry.

Because he had missed out on so much, had so many things taken from him. Time with his mother, time with his father, time with Ena. He had lost so much.

But no longer.

Ty moved over to where his mother stood, and slowly, awkwardly, wrapped his arms around her. He didn’t exactly know how to do this, but it felt right.

Kaya embraced him back, tightly—as if she’d been waiting for this moment for so long, and she clung to him with all her might as tears streamed down her face.

“I am so, so sorry, Ty. I have missed you your entire life,” she said, her voice choked with sobs.

“It’s okay, Mom,” Ty said soothingly, but with an edge to his voice as he felt an answering tear slide down his cheek. “We’ll make him pay. For all of it. I promise.”

After a few minutes, they broke apart, and Ty found her eyes—the ones so similar to his own.