“Can I give you some advice?”
Ren nodded.
“The spirits that surround me come from all walks of afterlife, but they each agree on one thing: time is precious. You’ve been given the second chance that none of them received. I’d hate to see you squander it.”
“You think Munro saved me?”
Loa inclined her head.
“Even if true, that doesn’t mean he owns me,” she pointed out. “It doesn’t mean that we have a fated bond.” Though apparently, the worlds’ most powerful soothsayer believed they did.
Yet how could Ren be fated to a male who expected her to relinquish everything that made her who she was? “Loa, I understand that you turn needs into realities. Can you help me get back to the past?”
“You’re not tempted to stay? I lived in your time, and I greatly prefer this age.”
“I liked my life.” Though I felt incomplete.
“Maybe you could make a new life with a certain wolf.” Loa lowered her voice to say, “Munro’s one of the good ones, you know.”
“Is he? He lied to get me to this time.”
“Can you understand why? Matehood is a Lykae’s religion. If he didn’t pull out every wolfy trick to save his fated female, he would have gone against his beliefs.”
“I didn’t ask for this connection.”
Loa gave a laugh. “Yet so many others have. Scores of immortals would kill to be his mate.”
Ren raised her brows. “Such as you?”
“I’m not immortal,” Loa replied, not answering the question.
“You were alive in my time. So what are you?”
Cheshire Cat grin. “Complex.”
“Is there a way for me to return to the past?”
“What did Munro tell you?” she asked airily. “He knows more about time travel than I do.”
“You’re hedging.” Hope leapt in Ren’s chest.
“And you’re perceptive. Perhaps there is a magical way that I’m not aware of. But the cost of magic is always steep. The greater the feat, the greater the price.”
“I’ll do anything to return.”
“Anything?” Loa’s eyes flashed white, and the air seemed to go still. Out of the corner of Ren’s vision, she spied the snake raising its bulbous head. “The word anything is a dangerous one filled with bitter consequences. I would know.” Appearing to wake from a daze, she said, “Consider your future carefully, blade huntress. With an aim as honed as yours, you had best settle on the right target.”
Ren parted her lips to ask Loa to explain, but Munro walked over and announced, “Next order of business.” He pocketed his phone and pointed at Ren. “We need to make her undying.”
High-handed, arrogant immortal! She clenched her fists. “Whether I want to be or not.”
He told Loa, “I bit another version of Kereny, but she dinna resurrect. So what’s the best play here? Magic?”
“Be careful, Munro.” A shadow crossed Loa’s expression. “Once you start down this road, your only outcome is ruin.”
TWENTY-FIVE
Castle Pyrestone
Capital of the Pravus Rule
“Your only outcome is ruin,” Nïx the Ever-Knowing echoed from thousands of miles away.
When her companions frowned at her words, Nïx blinked to attention and said, “Apologies. I just saw a snippet of a vision, one wave in infinite oceans of them. Two players play their playful parts, their destinies becoming intertwined.” She shrugged, briefly waking Bertil, her pet bat, who was perched on her shoulder. “So, before that, what were we talking about?”
“Your impending execution,” Portia, the Sorceri Queen of Stone, answered from her throne, deep within the granite castle she shared with Emberine, the Queen of Flames.
For some reason, Nïx—the highest-value target in the Vertas—had waltzed right into this Pravus lair. Clad in a dented breastplate, a black miniskirt, and no shoes, she looked a fright; even her bat’s fur was frizzy.
“However shall we finish her off, Portia?” Emberine asked coquettishly. She sat sideways, legs propped up on the arm of her own throne. Yards of crimson silk from her plunging gown bunched around her thighs.
“Torture her first?” Portia answered. “Or get right to the decapitation? We’ll leave the Vertas alliance as headless as their leader.”
The capital’s courtiers—Horde vampires, demons, more Sorceri, and centaurs—clamored at that prospect.
Nïx merrily waved at some she’d met over the centuries, showing no fear, despite how infamous these foes were.
Portia and Emberine alone were two of the most powerful Sorceri alive. Gifted with the ability to manipulate fire, Emberine was as fast as flames and just as volatile. Whenever she experienced intense emotion, varying parts of her body would burn. Portia could control all stone, from gravel to a mountain. Grim Portia was more contemplative than Emberine, but no less feeling—the ground often rumbled from her emotions.
She’d constructed this grand edifice from slabs of granite. Emberine’s lava oozed down the walls inside and out.
“You don’t seem worried, Valkyrie,” Portia observed. Firelight illuminated her stony expression and lent a sheen to her spiky blond hair. “Give Ember and me one reason why we shouldn’t kill you.”