Page 189 of Storm of Secrets and Sorrow

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AXEL

“Please stop,” Katya said from where she sat cross-legged on the bed, three different books spread out around her.

“I’m not doing anything,” Axel argued. He was reclined against the headboard, one knee bent, his phone in his hand as he fiddled around with some new music.

“You are,” she replied. “You don’t leave a song on for more than a few seconds.”

“I do too.”

“You don’t,” she retorted, her hand snapping out and grabbing his phone. She swiped a few things before setting it aside, and one of his favorite playlists came through the speakers in the room. She went back to her books, and now he had nothing to occupy him.

Neither of them had spoken about the fact that they continued to sleep in this bed together since the night she’d been hurt. It was just a silent agreement they’d apparently come to. Or maybe he’d decided, and she’d just gone along with it?

Gods, was he really that much of a rude fuck?

“Axel. Stop,” she sighed again, looking up from her book.

“What am I doing now? You took my phone,” he said in confusion.

“You’re staring at my arm. You do that a lot.”

She wasn’t wrong. His gaze had been fixed on her arm where the blade had sliced her perfect bronze skin. Now there was a raised ridge there, almost a faint golden sheen to it. His father had been furious that she had beenmarred. He’d apparently withheld Theon’s weekly rations for the week because of it, which only made Axel feel like shit considering his brother had given him the last of his prior rations despite being drained. He was likely drawing from Luka now, putting an unnecessary strain on both of them.

“It never should have happened,” he finally said, picking at a loose thread on the comforter.

“Staring at it won’t change the fact that it did,” she replied.

“I just don’t like that you will always have this reminder.”

“I have plenty of scars, Axel. To be honest, I’m glad it was a physical one this time.”

Axel hated every bit of that sentence, but he remained quiet. She returned to her reading, and he leaned forward, peering over her shoulder.

“Have you found anything else about why the Fae were created?” he asked.

“As a power Source for the Legacy,” she replied absent-mindedly.

“Yes, but the text from the Pantheon archives suggested there was more to it than just that.”

Kat sat up straighter, a strange smile playing on her lips as she said, “Axel St. Orcas, have you beentheorizing?”

“No,” he said quickly.

“I think you have.”

He shook his head, but she was already shifting to give him her full attention. “Let’s hear it then.”

“You read that the Fae were created to keep the balance,” he said, feeling almost embarrassed that he was proposing a theory. This was Theon’s area of expertise. He and Kat would go on for hours, boring Axel to near tears.

Kat waited patiently for him to go on. He cleared his throat. “Then you said something about the Fates requiring something to be done. So what if the Fae weren’t designed toservethe Legacy?”

“Then how would the Legacy refill their power?”

“No, that’s not—” He shook his head in frustration, trying to figure out how to word this so she would understand. “Yes, the Fae were created with the purpose of being a source to refill a Legacy’s power reserves quickly, but what if there was more to it? What if the greater purpose was a check against the Legacy power?”

Katya seemed to mull this over as she said, “How so?”

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