"He's as powerful as you, but he is like you. You are Freya's descendent. You are the most powerful of us all—a goddess by descent, by right, and by birth.
"Castine has spent centuries trying to recreate the specimen Kane is. She assumed her amulet gave him the same powers it gave her. It had nothing to do with it. But had she not bitten him, he would have died when he turned.
"The mind is our strongest tool and our weakest handicap. Your night stalker was raised as a human. Therefore, he thought like a human. Humans rationalize the irrational. So every time he did something, such as use the witch powers most creatures like you have in the beginning, he wrote it off as something perfectly explainable. He wouldn't have been ready for the change, since he never practiced his gifts. The same bite that condemned him, saved him.
"He wasn't ready to control the shifting side of his powers, and they would have revealed his true identity to the oblivious vampiress. So I cursed him, kept him from showing her the hidden secrets he didn't know he kept. Only some of his abilities crept out, but his eyes kept his secret, his body never shifted, and his full powers never came—but they will. They will very soon.
"Once she's dead, my curse will be broken. He'll embody the creatures better than you because he has journeyed through our world for longer, and he has learned to deal with the demons that
haunt his mind. You—you still need help, and you will for a while."
I swallow hard, still trying to soak it all in. It's not possible. Does he—
"So there's no way he knew this? Even now?" Chaz asks, voicing the question I was only brave enough to ask in my mind.
"No. He never knew. His real family was slaughtered centuries ago when our world hunted the creatures. He was born from a warlock and witch, but his father came from a creature goddess. Someone learned of his origins, and the hunt began because people believed he'd turn into one as well. Fools.
"Kane wasn't supposed to exist. His mother saved him by abandoning him as an infant. His mortal parents never told him about how he came to be their son. But he knows now. By now he's met the child."
"Stop speaking in riddles," Chaz scolds.
Her eyes change into glowing orbs of dark gray, and I shiver as it takes me off guard. It's not like the others. Her irises aren't the only things to change; everything in her eye socket is the same gray.
"I saw it. Years and years ago. Centuries in fact. I can't summon a vision, but I can see one already seen. She's the gate keeper and a visionary. They have her. That's what they've been waiting on all these years—one who is connected to all the planes. She sees us for who we are without any guiding auras or eyes. She sees us to our soul. She can open any plane, no matter how locked the gate is. She's with him. Now. I've seen it before. Two lost souls seeking rescue from the prison that holds them."
She sucks in a sharp breath as her eyes fade down to normal. My whole body is shivering right now.
"Who is trying to open the planes? What planes are they trying to open?" Chaz asks quickly, rushing the words out into almost a ranted ramble.
"I wish I knew. The visions only hold so much information before they shut down. I haven't had one in over a century."
I think the air has gotten too thick to breathe. Kane is like me. Just like me—
"It's about Kane," I whisper, tearing up as relief and angst fill me at once.
"What's about Kane?" Chaz asks, bemused.
"The prophecy. It was never about Gage. Everyone is so fucking stupid. It even said I'd be drawn to my dark lover—that I'd gravitate toward him until at last we met. I never gravitated toward Gage. He found me. Kane and I ran into each other. I was drawn to Pine Shore. I moved there after he did. It's about Kane."
I whimper, sob, and hiccup all at once, as uncontrollable tears of pain, joy, and madness drip without mercy. She seems unaffected by my laughter that mingles with sobs as I celebrate and panic at the same time.
"This," she says, leaning over and taking my wrist in her hand, motioning to Castine's faded locator mark. My hysteria simmers down as I stare at it. "It won't work for her again. Once you killed the spirit, your power grew too strong for Castine to contend with. You opened yourself up that night by giving in to the power you truly held. Now this mark will only work if you're very, very close to her. She'll never find you otherwise."
I breathe out in relief.
"Why did you mention the dark user?" Chaz asks.
"Because," she says, smiling sadly, "he destroys their love in my vision. He's tied her to a spell, one which is powerful—"
"Been there, made it through, now I have to go save Kane. How do I break into the prison?"
Chapter 18
Kane
"How do you know this?" I ask the child who has literally knocked the air out of me with so much realization.
"You should lie down and play like you're asleep again. They come to take me now. I'll be taken to the woman in white," she says, sounding so fucking tragic. I have to get us out of here.