Page 55 of What Sleeps Within the Cove

“She’s the daughter of Khaos,” I said, swallowing past the implications. That would mean she was Mab’s half-sister, that she’d witnessed her half-sister murder the half-brother she’d only just begun to get to know.

“Yes and no,” Medusa said.

Badb protested, her panicked expression transforming the sharp features of her face. Her mouth drew open into something resembling a beak more than I’d seen since my arrival, but there was no doubt to who the women were.

They were legend.

Medusa silenced her with a raised palm, her stare never leaving mine. She raised her chin, her chest thrusting out with her pride. “She is more than just a daughter of Khaos. She isthedaughter of Khaos,” she said, a knowing grin spreading her lips wide. “Estrella is his chosen heir. She is chaos incarnate.”

Shock forced me to take a step back from the Gorgon, my eyes widening even as I ground my teeth together. “The Primordials do nothaveheirs,” I said, doing everything in my power to keep my voice steady.

My eyes flashed to the ferryman where he waited atop his skiff, the golden gleam of fate shining in the eyes that stared back at me. He nodded his head once, but his mouth pressed together into a thin line.

Medusa wasn’t supposed to tell me, that much was clear based on his displeasure and Badb’s attempt to intervene. “They do now,”the Gorgon said, her voice smooth and confident in spite of the fact that she’d flipped my world upside down. “And you will not speak a word of it to Estrella.”

I rubbed my forehead, shaking my head from side to side. She was out of her mind if she thought I would keep something like this from my mate. “Why wouldn’t I tell her? Why would you tell me if she cannot know?”

“Estrella will discover the truth of her fate soon enough. Her time here is all leading her to that point, but she is not yet ready to know what the future holds for her,” Medusa said, stepping forward to cross the distance between us. She gave me a weak smile that hinted at sympathy or pity, something I hadn’t experienced often. “But I know what it is to live in the shadow of something far greater than I can ever hope to be. You have lived for centuries believing that one day you will have a human mate, a queen to sit at your side when you rule over the Winter Court. But what are the courts of Alfheimr to a woman who can move the stars and the moons themselves? Who can plunge the world into eternal darkness with a snap of her fingers? To the woman who will control the Void and all who exist in it?”

“Estrella doesn’t want all that. She just wants a simple life, something warm and comfortable, with books to keep her company,” I said, as if that changed anything.

“And since when have women with that kind of power ever been allowed to have a life of comfort? I think deep down, you have always known that she was made formore. I think you’ve always known, in your heart, exactly what she is and what she was born to be. There is a darkness in her that you’ll need to accept,” she said, the softening of her smile feeling like a double-edged sword.

“I’m the God of the Dead,” I said, returning her smile. I was no stranger to darkness and the elements of that reality that would also plague my mate.

It never failed to shock me, the influence of fate in our lives and the way every piece of who we were lined up with the path that had already been chosen for us. It was easy to forget sometimes, to pretend that we had any sway in our destiny—until reality came sweeping in and took our legs out from under us.

“Until chaos reigns,” Medusa said, turning to look at the river as she spoke the words that struck me straight in the heart. The words I’d spoken to my mate in love, meaning it as an impossibility to indicate I would never stop loving her.

The water rippled, something moving beneath the depths. Estrellabroke through the surface, flipping her head back to splash water onto the opposite shore. Her hair was still trapped in the loose braid she wore, but stray strands had broken free, cascading around her face as she scrubbed a hand over it to wipe away the drops of water where they clung to her.

Her hands trembled as she did it, the pain of the Acheron making her quake. She didn’t make a sound as she took her first step toward us, her eyes remaining closed as she glided through the water that had brought me to my knees. I felt her magic crawl along my skin, our bond reunited as she used her power to sense her way toward the shore.

What had she suffered, what had she lived through, that the agony of that river was so tolerable to her?

Her Fae Marks glowed with golden light from within, reflecting off the water beneath her to make her look as if she was bathed in sunlight. Her hands dropped to her sides as she walked, sucking back a deep breath of air that filled her lungs.

The light pulsing off her glowed brighter, and I stared unabashedly at her as she emerged from the river. Step by step, until she was nearly to the edge of the water.

“Min asteren,” I said finally, taking a step toward her.

Her eyes flew open finally, forcing me to suck back a breath as I met her dark stare. Gold stars glittered at me from within the depths of black that had stolen over the green of her irises. Gone were the green eyes I’d fallen in love with, changed into something that felt more right even if I missed the innocence of the woman I’d known. There was a thin ring of green around her pupil that was a nod to that human girl I’d found in the barn, but she’d shifted and changed even in the mere days we’d been apart. The woman in front of me was crafted from darkness and something wild, a destiny written in the stars and trapped within the galaxies of her eyes.

Until chaos reigned.

“Caldris?”

THIRTY-FIVE

ESTRELLA

He stood across from me, the exact picture of the man from my nightmare. I closed my eyes, squeezing them tight against the pain of that memory and what had followed me into my waking thoughts. Reaching over my head without opening my eyes, I took comfort in the familiar hilt of my sword in my palm.

I drew it free slowly, relishing in the sound of metal against leather. My eyes only opened when I swung it forward, catching the vision in the front of the throat as he took a step closer to me. The pale blue eyes staring down at me were a mockery of everything I loved, a twisted manipulation meant to weaken me in a place that had already caused me so much pain.

“Little One,” he said, his voice dropping to a quiet whisper. He held his hands up at the side of his head, his palms facing me as he froze in place. I pushed my sword tighter to his throat, halting when it met the resistance of flesh.

Caldris sensed my hesitation, pressing forward so that my bladecut a shallow line across the front of his throat. It was such a callback to that first time we’d met, when he’d snuck up on me in the barn and terrified me.

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