Page 90 of Of Vows and War: Special Edition
“Stella—My Empress—it’s so wonderful to see you again.” Jonah adjusted, letting his body fall into a deep bow. A giggle escaped my lips when his fingers touched her bare toes. Pathetic.
Venturae was not far, standing and making her way to the fallen empress. She shook with each step closer. “We must, of course we must. She is the empress. No, we cannot make decisions based on your whims. Stop arguing. Please, I need to focus.”
The high demon of Fate and Chance continued to mumble as she approached Stella, falling into the same bow at the empress’s feet. But then Stella looked at me, fury blazing within her eyes. The wrath of a high demon.
“Anastasia, get back where you belong. She needs you.”
Scoffing, I pushed myself to a standing position and immediately crossed my arms. How did she not see this situation as proof of our need for her to return to Shamay?
“Just because she is your great granddaughter plus like twenty greats—“
“Twenty-nine,” Stella cut in.
“What?”
“Twenty-eight generations of Asta’s line have come and gone. Asher is the only living member of the twenty-ninth generation that came from the love between a high demon and a mortal.I don’t think I need to remind you how important she truly is, beyond sentimentality. Now. Go.”
How dare she order me around!
I meant to say something, to stand up for myself in that moment, but all I could bring myself to do was stick my tongue out at Venturae and Jonah before giving Stella a curt nod. Then I made a break for it, shouting Torrel’s name as I went.
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Asher
King Adbeel had insisted on getting out of bed. Ranbir had not fully healed him during the battle, agreeing to do patchwork and then vowing to come back to him later. In that time, the Healer had not returned. But the king was a demon, and his blood made quick work of the smaller wounds.
Despite that, Bellamy was still adamantly against letting his father figure out of bed.
Father figure. How was it that Bellamy’s father figure was also my last living blood relative? What was even going on?
I felt frozen as the two argued, both of their eyes flashing to me more often than not. For my part I remained still and silent—thinking.
What was I supposed to do? Just accept this as fact and call him grandfather? I had never had grandparents. My parents—no, not parents. They could not have been if Zaib Ayad was actually my mother. So who were the fae that claimed me as their own?
Regardless, they had been over a millenia when I was born. Their parents were gone from the world, their Ending having come. Mia’s parents were dead as well. She was unwilling to speak of them in the slightest, which brokered no arguments. Xavier’s parents had died during the Great War—had there even really been a war back then? What was the truth?
Dizzy—I felt dizzy.
Too many possibilities and lies and truths swarmed me. I was drowning in the tidal wave of reality as it crashed upon fantasy. Doom coated the air and suffocated me long before the water could. I was dying.
My hand reached up and clutched my chest. Gods I felt small. Breakable. Weak. Yet I had survived far too much to fall at the hands of answers I had been waiting a year for.
The males stopped speaking. I knew not because of the silence, as I was relatively sure the ringing in my ears had been blocking out their commotion the entire time, but because of the way their thoughts bombarded me with images of myself.
No, I would not let myself be the pathetic female that I saw in their heads. Pitiful as I looked, there was always farther I could fall. I would not let that happen.
“So, you are my grandfather. How exciting. Good to have family. Yes, family is important. Now, if you will excuse me, I have work to do.” With that, I straightened, nodded, and rotated until I was facing the door. This was fine, I would get out and be fine.
I knew what was real. This changednothing.
I was fine.
“Asher! Please!” Adbeel sounded so much like Bellamy. A deep drawl with a rasp at the ends and a tongue that sounded a bit too heavy for his mouth. How could I be a part of him when Bellamy so clearly was too? No. Not possible.
That was fine, I could leave knowing it was lies and run away until they forgot about me.
“I am sorry that I did not rescue you.” As probably expected, that stopped me in my tracks. A sort of hum seemed to escape the king as I pivoted. His absurdly dark eyes were on me, staring at my face as if he could see the mother he claimed was mine.
