A Shadow in the Ember (Flesh and Fire 1)

“Don’t apologize.” He stretched his neck from side to side. “I don’t tell you this to make you feel sorry for me.”

“I know,” I said, clearing my throat. I resisted the urge to ask how they’d died. I wanted to know, but instinct told me the more I knew about their deaths, the harder it would be for me to do what I must. “This is why you never collected on the deal.”

“You never consented to it.”

The ball of tension inside my chest tightened even further when it should’ve loosened. As did the knowledge that he hadn’t been the one to make the deal that had made me what I was today. A killer. A deal that had taken away every choice I could make. A deal that had set my life on a path that would ultimately end with the loss of my life.

But, gods, I wished he had. Because I could hold onto that. I could convince myself that he was getting what was coming to him. I could justify my actions.

“You didn’t consent, either,” I stated flatly, looking up at him.

He watched me in that intense way of his. His gaze flicked away. “No, I did not.”

I looked down at my drink, no longer feeling as if I would be sick. Instead, I felt like I wanted to cry. And, gods, when had I cried last? “Do you know why your father asked for a Consort?”

“I have asked that question myself a thousand times.” Ash laughed, but there was no humor to the sound. “I have no idea why he did it. Why he would ask for a mortal as a Consort. He died loving my mother. It made no sense.”

It really didn’t, which made all of this so much more frustrating. “Why didn’t you come to me at any point and tell me this?” I asked. It wouldn’t have changed anything, but maybe it could have? Perhaps we could have found another way.

“I considered it—more than once—but the less contact I had with you, the better. That is why Lathan often watched over you.”

Watched over me? “The one who was killed?”

“He was a…trusted guard,” he said, and I caught that he did not refer to him as a friend then. “He knew about the deal my father made, and he knew I had no intention of fulfilling it. But that didn’t mean that others wouldn’t learn that a mortal had been promised as my Consort. Either because of your family speaking about the deal, or because you were marked at birth, born in a shroud because of the deal.”

My breath caught as a shiver danced along the nape of my neck.

“And that mark, while unseen by mortals and most, can be felt at times. That would make some curious about you.” Ash drew his booted foot off the table. “It was Lathan who noticed the gods’ activity in Lasania—the ones we saw that night.”

“The ones that killed the Kazin siblings and the child? Andreia?”

“There was some concern that they may have felt this mark and were searching for it.”

My stomach hollowed. “You think they died because of me? Because they were looking for me?”

“At first, possibly.” He tapped his fingers on his knee. “But who they killed never really made sense or fit a pattern, other than the possibility that they all might’ve had a god perched somewhere on their family trees. That’s the only thing I could figure out. They weren’t true godlings, but they could’ve been descendants of a god.”

“Godlings?” I repeated, brows pinching.

“The offspring of a mortal and a god,” he explained. “If a godling then has a child with a mortal, that child would carry some mark upon them, too, but they would not be a godling.”

I understood then. Children could be born of a mortal and a god but it was rare—or at least that was what I’d believed. “I haven’t heard them called that before.”

“It is a term we use. Some of them will have certain godly abilities, depending on how powerful the parentage is. Most godlings live in Iliseeum,” he continued, his lips pursed. “Only the seamstress was someone you seemed to have had any contact with. And as far as we know, what was done to her wasn’t done to the others.”

There was a little relief there. I didn’t want their blood on my hands. There was already enough. “The Kazin siblings? Magus? Apparently, he was a guard, but I don’t know if I ever saw him or if he was even stationed at Wayfair.”

A thoughtful look crept into Ash’s face. “Still, if you did not know him nor the seamstress well, I don’t see how their deaths are related to you.”

I didn’t either. But it also seemed…too close to me. “Have you found out anything more related to what was done to Andreia?”