Around him, scenery blurred, walls replaced by trees...water...buildings. Faster and faster, the objects blurred together. The deeper he traveled, the more his brand cooled.
When he stopped, he hovered in the midst of an endless night sky—a private room within the god’s home. No sign of his sisters.
He stemmed his disappointment. Suspended nearby was the enigmatic god known to many as Ocean of the Dark.
“Roc.”
“My lord,” he said, bowing his head in a show of respect.
Chaos possessed rich black skin, his eyes a perfect match. When the sun rose, those eyes lightened, tinted with hues of pink, yellow and blue. By midday, his irises turned a blue so pure they rivaled the purest body of water. Then the process began all over again. A cloud of white smoke encompassed his hair. He wore a black robe, the ends covered in frost.
Roc’s curiosity magnified, but he said nothing more. The highest-ranked warrior should start a conversation. Something Taliyah had yet to learn.
He stabbed his hands through his hair, as if he could scrub her from his mind. No thoughts of the harpy.
Finally, the god began. “You are wed again.” Chaos’s voice boomed, a lightning storm contained in every word.
“I am, yes.” He offered no more. With Chaos, silence proved wiser than chatter. The god often used your own declarations to teach you a painful lesson.
“My son remains determined to break you.”
“I’m sure.” Roc didn’t understand why Chaos loved the male, after everything Erebus had done to the Astra, to others. On the other hand, Roc admired his mentor for loving his son the way Roc’s own parents should have loved him and his siblings.
“You chose Taliyah the Terror of All Lands. The Cold-Hearted.” The god never asked questions, even when he asked questions. He stated, his unwavering gaze boring into Roc’s soul, sifting through his innermost thoughts. “She draws you as no other ever has, yet you will slay her. Other warlords might have wed another and kept the Terror for themselves.”
Seemed he’d be thinking about the harpy after all. Careful. Admit as little as possible. “The harpy-snake makes the better sacrifice.”
“I’m told the preferred term for a harpy-snake is snarpy.”
Taliyah...a snarpy. Yes, he liked the label very much.
“If given a chance to start over, to choose another female, my Roc of the Ages will change nothing.”
Another question without being a question. “You are correct.” Anything less than the best was an insult to the male who’d saved his sisters and spent centuries overseeing Roc’s advancement. Repay greatness with garbage? Never.
Roc desired Taliyah, yes. In a few short hours, she’d excited him in ways no other female ever had. A part of him eagerly anticipated their next sparring match. But that anticipation wouldn’t save her. Nothing could.
“You will waver in your duty.” The statement chilled him. “The only facet of this I don’t know is whether you’ll refuse to kill her.”
Waver? No. “I’ll do my duty without delay or excuse. I will kill her.” He must.
The god floated closer, gliding around him. A trail of frost glittered in his wake, the frigid temperature sizzling over Roc’s skin. “You will kill her...even if Taliyah the Terror of All Lands is your gravita.”
Horror stirred within him, quickly conquered by disbelief. His gravita? The bride he could never replace. No, absolutely not. “An Astra produces stardust for his gravita. I’ve produced none.”
“No, you haven’t. Yet.”
The final word hovered between them, a black hole of destruction.
Heat and aggression filled Roc, his muscles expanding. Taliyah...his gravita... Was it possible? It explained the intensity of his attraction to her. Not to mention his unwillingness to harm her as they’d sparred. The way he hungered for her, even now. “I... No. She isn’t, and she won’t be.”
“Or she is, and she will always be.”
No. He would prove it. “I won’t change my mind about her or my duty.” He wasn’t like Solar. He wouldn’t put a bride’s life before his men, heaping a curse upon their heads.
“I suspect you lie to us both.” In front of Roc once again, Chaos smiled, revealing razor-sharp teeth. “Perhaps, with her death, you’ll finally ascend.”
His greatest desire. Will do anything.
“We shall learn the truth together.” A wave of Chaos’s hand, nothing more, yet Roc tumbled into the next realm and the next, hurling to Harpina before he fully processed the god’s words.
His momentum barely tapered by the time he accessed his bedroom. He stumbled about, slamming into a wall and cracking the stone. His brain rattled against his skull. Dust plumed the air and tickled his throat.
When he stilled, he cast his gaze to the door that separated his bedroom from Taliyah’s.
The urge to close the distance nearly overpowered him, but he resisted. Taliyah wasn’t his gravita. No need to contemplate or debate the notion. He hadn’t lied to his god. Duty came first, no matter the consequences. For his men, for the blessing—for the downfall of Erebus—Roc performed his duty always.