Silvery eyes flecked with wisps of gold tracked over my features slowly, intensely. My skin began to prickle and crawl, but I showed nothing because I felt nothing as I stood before the beast that had started all of this.
The one I had spent my life training to kill.
“I’ve been told your name is Sera?” Kolis asked as I glanced up, taking note of his crown—a series of swords made of diamonds and gold, the center ending in the shape of a sun and its rays. “Is it short for anything?”
Uncertainty rose. I didn’t know if I should tell the truth, but I thought that fewer lies meant less possibilities of being caught in one. Even a small lie could cause closer inspection. “Seraphena, Your Majesty.”
“Seraphena,” he repeated, curling his lips inward. “A name that burns. Interesting. I’ve also been told you’re a godling.” The shimmery swirls moved up his throat and over his jaw, bleeding through his flesh until they formed a crackling, winged mask like those painted on the others’ faces. “She does not feel like one.”
“She is a godling,” Nyktos answered. “Father is a god. Mother is mortal.”
Gold hair brushed his cheek and shoulder as he tilted his head. The crown remained straight. “There is too much eather in her for that to be the case.”
“Perhaps you’re sensing my blood. She has quite a bit of that in her,” Nyktos said. Normally, that smug tone would’ve grated on each and every one of my nerves.
But I understood the mission here.
“I see. I also see you’ve been charmed. Clever, Nephew,” Kolis noted, an amused look playing across his lips as he continued staring at me. “Your hair is…captivating,” the false King murmured, and I remembered what Gemma and Aios had said about his favorites. They were all either fair or red-haired. He lifted his hand—
Nyktos was like a strike of lightning, capturing Kolis’s wrist before even a single finger could touch a strand of my hair.
My heart lurched.
Kolis slowly turned his head to Nyktos. None of the guards moved as the false King looked down to where Nyktos’s hand clasped his wrist and then back to Nyktos’s eyes.
“I do not wish for her to be touched.” Nyktos’s voice deepened. “She is mine.”
I bit the inside of my cheek.
“And if I wish to touch her?” Kolis asked, so quietly I barely heard him.
Nyktos smiled, and my stomach tumbled at the mockery of such a gesture. “I will do to you what you have done to those who dare to touch those who belong to you.”
My jaw began to ache from how hard I kept my mouth clamped shut. Those who belonged to him. His favorites. The ones Aios had said were caged.
“He’s quite possessive of this one,” Attes added from where he sat, half-reclined, half-sprawled. “Threatened to rip out my eyes at least three times.”
I wasn’t sure that helped.
Nyktos’s smile increased, revealing a hint of his fangs, and I definitely didn’t think that helped. “That threat is more of a promise,” he replied as he still held Kolis’s stare. “She is not to be touched. By anyone but me.”
A long, tense moment passed, then one side of Kolis’s lips tipped up. I felt no relief, only more tension. “Nephew,” Kolis purred, the gold swirling through his irises. “You…please me.”
What?
“But you should release me,” Kolis went on, “before I become displeased.”
Nyktos lifted one finger at a time, dropping the false King’s wrist.
The smile on Kolis’s face grew as he eyed his nephew. “This side of you…” His chin lifted as he inhaled deeply. “I always enjoy it when I see it come out.” He flicked a too-lingering gaze toward me. “This should be, at the very least, entertaining.”
I was beginning to think that the word pleased didn’t mean what Kolis thought it did. Or maybe it was I who had it wrong.
Nyktos smirked, though, turning his back on the false King. He took my hand, folding his arm around my waist. His gaze didn’t touch mine as he said, “May we both sit?”
“You may do as you like.”
Nyktos guided me to the settee, returning us to the same position as before with me placed in the vee of his legs. I turned my head, but Kolis watched. Stared. At us. At me. And it was only then that I allowed myself to feel any sort of relief.
I didn’t look like Sotoria. Because Kolis didn’t recognize me.
A faint tremor went through me as Kolis returned to his throne upon the dais, tendrils of golden eather trailing behind him. Nyktos gently squeezed my side as I exhaled heavily, resting a hand on his knee. Nektas had been right. Luck was, for once, on our side. At least, with this. Everything else? I wasn’t so sure.
Kolis was still watching me, staring, his head tilted, yet the crown not slipping an inch as his fingers rapped on the gilded arms of his throne. “My feelings are hurt, Nyktos,” he began. “I would’ve thought you would have sought my approval for such a…joyous event—your union with the fiery Seraphena.”
“I didn’t think you’d have much interest in such an event,” Nyktos replied as he dragged his thumb back and forth on the side of my waist. “I figured you were far too busy for such a request.”
“You figured wrong.” Kolis gave a close-lipped smile. “It is a show of respect that you, of all people, should’ve known was due me.”
“Then I apologize,” Nyktos said.
He didn’t sound even remotely genuine.
Kolis’s tight smile said he sensed the same. “We shall see how sorry you are, I’m sure.”
Ice coated my insides, but there wasn’t even a minor hitch in the slide of Nyktos’s thumb.
“But there is something else we must discuss,” Kolis added.
“If you’re speaking of the vassal I encountered upon my arrival…” Nyktos’s tone was lazy, partly amused, and it reminded me of how he’d spoken when we’d been at my lake. “I didn’t like his tone.”
Kolis snorted. “It is not Dyses I’m speaking of. He’ll be fine.”
“Unfortunately, I don’t think he will be,” Nyktos said. “Considering I removed his heart.”
The false King’s smile grew then, flashing teeth, and my unease ramped up. “Yes, well, we will see about that, too.” He leaned back as Nyktos’s fingers halted for a brief moment in their path on my waist. “I’m sure you’re aware of why else I summoned you, Nephew.”
My fingers pressed into Nyktos’s knee. I decided right then that I hated how Kolis made a point of reminding Nyktos of the blood they shared.
Nyktos’s thumb resumed its idle movements. “Is it because Hanan believes I have knowledge of how a god was Ascended or who it was?”
Primal Hanan’s head turned in our direction. “It is not what I believe. It is what I know.”
“I didn’t give you permission to speak,” Kolis said, his gaze remaining on us. “Did I, Hanan?”
Hanan stiffened where he sat. “No, you didn’t. I apologize, Your Majesty.”
“Do not force me to make an unfortunate impression on the lovely Seraphena by angering me,” Kolis warned.
“That wasn’t my intention,” Hanan quickly said, bowing his head. “I just don’t appreciate that he would attempt to speak falsely to you about something so serious.”
“I’m so sure that’s what motivates you to speak so freely,” Nyktos purred, the words rumbling against my back.
Eather sparked from Hanan’s eyes as he glared at Nyktos, but Kolis raised a hand, silencing Hanan. “The power to Ascend a god is one felt by all. It is a power that should not exist beyond this Court,” he said, knowing damn well that likely everyone in the chamber—besides me—knew the power no longer existed in Dalos. “But it does?”