I shifted my weight from one foot to the other. “I…I know that. I’ve always known that. Even before I learned that the draken were bonded to you.”
Nyktos tilted his head, and a lock of reddish-brown hair glided over his temple. “That is what infuriates me. From the first moment I saw you, you’ve behaved as if your life holds no value for you.”
The back of my neck tightened. “Those shit, now super-dead gods killed a babe. If striking out at them had resulted in my death, then it would’ve been worth it.”
“I’m not talking about that,” he snapped, leaving me confused. The only time he’d seen me before was when he refused to take me as his Consort. I’d been quite well-behaved then. “You should value your life as much as you do the lives of others, Sera.”
Heat crept to the front of my neck. “I do value my life.”
Nyktos laughed, turning away. “That is a lie, and you know it.”
Anger rose quickly. “Are your super special abilities some sort of lie detection?”
“Life would be so much easier if that were the case. But, no. Emotions can be faked, especially if someone is determined to hide their motives and how they truly feel.”
It was on the tip of my tongue to tell him that nothing I had felt around him had been a farce. How much his words and his touch had…pleased me, and that what I’d felt then was real. I had finally felt real. But he wouldn’t believe me. I didn’t expect him to. He knew I had been groomed from a young age to carry out my duty. And I had been determined to do so…until I hadn’t. But if I were in his place, I wouldn’t believe a word I said either.
I looked down at the scuffed toes of my boots. “Then you can’t possibly know what you claim to.”
“Except all of your actions tell me what I need to know,” he said. Several moments passed. “I mean no offense when I say that you don’t value your life. I didn’t mean it as an insult.”
I snorted. “Sure sounded like one.”
“I apologize if that was how it came across.”
My head jerked. “You’re seriously apologizing to me? Don’t answer. It doesn’t matter. Half of this conversation doesn’t matter. What I was trying to say is that there is no reason to go through with this coronation. Whatever protection being crowned as your Consort offers cannot be worth it.”
He slowly leaned forward. “Your safety is worth everything.”
“Even the Shadowlands?”
His now-swirling eyes had never left mine, but, somehow, he’d moved without me even realizing, crossing the space between us. “Yes.”
The breath I inhaled rattled through me, full of his citrusy scent. “You can’t mean that.”
“I mean it with every part of my being, Sera.”
Sera. Not liessa. He hadn’t called me that since I’d been in his bed, after I’d given him my blood. That had been a slip of the tongue then, something done in a moment of pleasure.
Nyktos loomed, a good head or two taller than I was. “You are…” His jaw flexed, nostrils flaring. “What you carry inside you is far too important. They have to be part of the key to ending what Kolis has done. You may value those embers as little as you do your life, but I do not.”
What I carried inside me. The embers were important. Not me. Never me.
I backed off, taking several steps. Did I expect him to say something else? That I mattered? To him? And that he cared for me, even though he couldn’t love? After what I’d plotted? I didn’t.
I just wanted it to be different.
Nyktos’s chest rose sharply. “Sera—” A knock on the door interrupted us. His head cut in the direction of the sound. “What?” he barked.
My gaze flew to the entryway. I wouldn’t have been surprised if whoever was there had simply backed away.
The doors opened to reveal Rhahar, his skin a warm, deep brown in the soft glow of the lamplight. Though nothing about his expression was warm as his gaze flickered over me. “There’s a problem at the Pillars.”
Most souls faced judgment at the Pillars of Asphodel. They were either rewarded with the Vale or sentenced to the Abyss. The Pillars couldn’t judge some; their lives were far too complicated, and it required Nyktos’s presence.
“How urgent?” Nyktos demanded as Rhahar’s cousin drifted in behind him.
“Urgent enough to risk interrupting you,” Saion replied blandly, a hand resting on the hilt of the sword strapped to his hip.