Promise of Shadows (13 page)

easily. There’s something strange about the whole thing, and it takes me a moment before I figure out what it is. Cass’s hair is different. It no longer hangs in jagged hanks. Instead it swings around her face in chunky layers that make her look younger and prettier all at the same time.

“What happened to your hair?” I ask, interrupting Nanda’s discussion about Gorgons and their nasty tempers.
Cass turns to me with a frown. “What do you mean?”
I make a chopping motion next to my face. “You cut it.”
“Yeah, Nanda cut it last night. She’s a hairstylist. She thought it would be a good time for a change, and I agreed.” Cass shrugs. “I thought you’d like it.”
“I do. It looks good.” Too good. It’s easier to see how pretty Cass is now, and it makes me nervous. Harpies aren’t really anyone’s idea of beautiful, and standing next to Cass with her shampoo-commercial hair just makes it more apparent.
It also reminds me how outclassed by Cass I am. She’s thousands of years old, comes from a long line of heroes, wields magic like an Æthereal, and is beautiful. Next to her I feel pretty insignificant.
Nanda puts a plate of French toast on the kitchen table, and the smell is heavenly. “You girls better hurry up and start eating before Blue and Tallon come down. Those boys are bottomless pits.”
My face heats as I think about Tallon. Ugh. I’m supposed to be forgetting he even exists, not swooning at the mere mention of his name.
I collapse in one of the kitchen chairs and put my head on the table, covering it with my arms. I groan. What is wrong with me? I went seventeen years without going crazy over a boy. Why does it have to happen now?
Nanda sets a plate near my head, and I sit up. She watches me with a worried look, but luckily I’m close enough to the French toast that all I can smell is cinnamon. “Is something the matter?” she asks, pulling out a chair and sitting down.
“Ummm,” I say, debating how much to tell her. I can’t mention that Tallon spent the night in my bed, even if nothing happened. She’ll freak. Hells, I’m freaking out.
So instead of telling Nanda the truth, I change the subject. “I’m worried about Whisper.” I quickly relate to her my visit with Hades, and the revelation about Whisper not being in the Underworld. There’s enough truth in the story that she doesn’t notice my lie of omission. Because there
is
something wrong, but a hopeless crush isn’t exactly breaking news.
Cass takes the seat on the other side of me and begins loading up both of our plates. “Did you want to try scrying for your sister today? That’s usually a good place to start. It would at least give us a basic idea of where you sister ended up.”
Nanda sits across from us and frowns. “Maybe you girls should go talk to my neighbor first. Kyra’s a Hecate, and they know more about the journey of the dead than any other vættir.”
“That’s a good idea. I can see if she’s noticed a lack of shades on the Paths recently.” Cass puts a bite of food in her mouth. She’s remarkably dainty, considering she’s eating with her fingers.
We eat in silence for a few minutes before Cass suddenly pushes her chair back and stands. “I’m going to talk to Kyra now. You almost finished?” I want to ask Cass why she’s in such a hurry, but then I remember Hermes’s promise to take her to see her dead boyfriend in the Underworld. Is helping me find Whisper’s shade also part of the deal?
Bitterness surges through me, and I’m surprised by the emotion. I push it aside. I shouldn’t care what her motivations are as long as she’s helping. Besides, maybe she’s really just helping me because we’re friends.
But I’m not ready to leave yet. My plate is still half-full. I’ve been daydreaming more than I’ve been eating. There’s just too much going on. It’s overwhelming.
I start to stand, but Nanda gestures for me to sit back down. “You finish eating. Cass can go by herself. We need to catch up, anyway.” The dismissal in her voice is clear, and Cass nods.
“I’ll fill you in when I get back.” Nanda gives Cass directions to Kyra’s house, and then she’s gone.
Cass has only been gone for a few minutes when Nanda sits down at the table. “Tell me how you met the Pellacis.” Her tone is harsh, and in that moment she reminds me of my mother.
I shove a forkful of French toast in my mouth to give myself time to answer the question. “Why?”
Nanda shrugs. “Humor me.”
I sigh. “I met her when I first landed in Tartarus.”
Nanda shakes her head. “No, I want you to tell me everything. It’s important.”
I nod. And I tell her the entire story.

Once Hermes dragged me to the Æthereal Realm, my life was pretty much over. After I spent a couple of days in a cell, the Æthereal High Council took a remarkably short time to find me guilty. But instead of killing me, a few of the dark lords spoke on my behalf, and I was sentenced to eternity in Tartarus. No sooner had the sentence passed than I was pushed through the portal to Tartarus, my wings shredding as I fell through the abyss. The pain was incredible, fire along my back. But it was nothing compared to my despair. Wings are the pride and joy of a Harpy. To lose them, after I’d already lost so much, was more than I could handle.

I grabbed for the razor sharp feathers as they swirled around me, cutting my exposed skin. But I couldn’t stop the destruction of my wings.

I slammed into the mud of Tartarus broken, bleeding, and utterly hopeless.
My first few moments in Tartarus I didn’t do much more than struggle to breathe.The hard landing had knocked the wind out of me, and when I finally managed to gasp, I gagged. The air tasted like iron and sulfur. It was heavy and damp, and the landscape was something out of a nightmare.
The sky had a twilight cast to it, the color somewhere between gray and a bruised purple. The dark shapes of trees pressed in all around me, even though the spot I lay in was clear. I’d landed in a clearing, close to the tree line. I rolled over and stood up.
A few feet away a group of about twenty people watched me, their expressions ranging somewhere between pity and triumph. A mixture of emotions drifted off them, the burned-popcorn scent of excitement, the crap-and-iron smell of bloodlust. I couldn’t pick out where each of the scents came from, but it didn’t matter. There was a predatory air about them that set my heart pounding.
“Godslayer!” someone screamed. A Cyclops ran forward, his shovel held high over his head. I stared at him openmouthed, and somewhere in the back of my mind a little voice told me that I was about to die. This strange Cyclops was about to bash my head in. No more than a few breaths in Tartarus and I already had my first assassination attempt.
I never even got a chance to react. A blond girl broke free from the crowd and tackled my attacker. She moved faster than anyone I’d ever seen before, a deadly whirlwind of motion. The Cyclops landed face-first in the muck, and the girl jumped to her feet before severing his head from his shoulders with a clean stroke of her shovel. Behind her people murmured and moved back. I swallowed hard, my heart beating out an erratic rhythm against my ribs. There was no way I would stand a chance against this girl.
I took half a step back as she moved toward me. She bent down and grabbed the dead Cyclops’s shovel and held it out to me. I took it reluctantly.
“A Harpy? In Tartarus? That’s new,” she said in heavily accented Harpy. I hadn’t heard the language of the Aerie since I’d fled. Not many spoke it, since it’s all clicks and whistles, and the sound made me smile.
“Not many speak Harpy,” I responded in Æthereal. It was a more common language, and easier to speak.
“I’m not like many people,” she said, hand out. “Cassiphone.”
“Zephyr. I think you just saved my life.” I clasped her arm in the way of warriors meeting each other on a battlefield. Cassiphone’s eyes brightened.
She tilted her head as she examined me. “Zephyr Mourning? The Godslayer?”
I nodded, and took back my hand.
“Well, Zephyr Mourning, welcome to Tartarus. Try not to die.”

Nanda sits back as I finish the story, her expression a mystery. She’s silent for a long moment before she says anything. “How did she know who you were without your wings?”

I shrug. “No idea.” The lie sits woodenly in my mouth. But I’m not about to tell Nanda about the deal Cass struck with Hermes. There’s no need to add napalm to the fire. Nanda already doesn’t trust Cass.

A tiny voice in the back of my head says maybe I shouldn’t either.
“She must’ve noticed your eyes.”
I frown. “What’s wrong with my eyes?”
“Nothing,” Nanda says, shaking her head. “But the eyes always tell.”
I don’t know what she means by that, so I say nothing and just keep eating.
Nanda sighs. “Let me fix up your hair,” she suggests when I push my syrup covered plate away. I nod, and she disappears to get what she needs.
When she returns, she doesn’t say anything. She unwraps my hair and spreads it out across my shoulders, her fingers deftly finding the path of the snarls. Once she’s done doing that, she opens a pot of styling cream, dipping her fingers in and using the stuff to twist up the loose curls nearer to my scalp.
“Your locks look a little rough.Who was taking care of your hair before you went to the Underworld?” Her hands move quickly, the rhythm hypnotic.
“Whisper.”
She doesn’t say anything, then finally there’s a long sigh and her hands still. “She’s not her, you know.”
I turn in my seat to meet Nanda’s eyes. “Who’s not who?”
Nanda straightens my head and goes back to twisting up my locks. “Cass. She’s not Whisper. You don’t owe her the same loyalty. She’s not family.”
“She’s my friend,” I say as Nanda tugs at my hair.
“You can’t trust her, Zephyr. You need to surround yourself with people you can trust right now.”
“Cass kept me alive in the Underworld.”
“For a reason, Peep. She kept you alive because she knew who you were!”
Nanda’s words skim too close to the truth. I don’t say anything, but Nanda says enough for both of us as her hands move across my scalp, twisting up my errant curls.
“What’s to say she wasn’t just using you, huh? Waiting for the chance to either kill you or to con you into helping her. She’s a Pellacis, Zephyr! Her people were the worst of vættirkind. They stole the Golden Fleece and put minotaurs in mazes for their own amusement. They hunted their own kind and put them on display to make a statement. There’s a reason they call her the Betrayer, Zephyr. She killed Elias, sure enough. Don’t let her fool you.”
Rage courses through me, swift and strong. I want to slam my fist on the table, to proclaim Cass’s innocence. I’ll tell Nanda to stop criticizing her, that she’s got her all wrong.
But I don’t. I tell myself that I keep my mouth shut because I’m a guest in her house and it would be disrespectful to argue with her. But the truth is that I don’t say anything because I’m wondering if maybe she’s right. What if Cass wants more than just some time in the Elysian Fields? After all, she could’ve just killed herself when she got back to the Mortal Realm if that was her plan. Death is a one-way ticket to the Elysian Fields usually. Maybe Cass hasn’t told me everything.
Maybe she isn’t really the friend she pretends to be.
I sit there quietly like the coward I am, doubting the one person who I owe more than anyone else. I hate that I no longer trust Cass, and I hate that Nanda isn’t helping the situation.
After a while Nanda sighs and taps me on the shoulder. “All done.” I force a small smile.
“Thanks,” I say. Then I head into the living room to find a mirror, fleeing Nanda’s critical gaze.
Tallon is coming down the stairs as I walk into the living room. A single panicked glance in his direction and I know I’m not ready to face him, or the turmoil in my heart. So I walk past him and toward the door.
“Hey, where are you going?” he calls.
“Out!” I yell before hurrying through the front door. The early morning sun is bright. But I don’t bother waiting for my eyes to adjust before I run down the stairs and away from Nanda’s house.

town, strike out on our own. I feel like I could be successful in the world with Cass by my side. We survived Tartarus, didn’t we? Maybe when it’s just the two of us, my doubts will disappear. I think I could trust her again if I didn’t have Nanda telling me otherwise.

But then I remember that Cass didn’t even know what a dishwasher was. She won’t be any better at surviving the Mortal Realm than I am after a lifetime spent behind the walls of the Aerie. Not only that, but I have no idea where she even is. I wasn’t paying attention when Nanda gave her directions to Kyra the Hecate’s house.

So instead of finding her and taking off for parts unknown I walk down the street, my boots clomping loudly while I wish I was wearing something more substantial than running shorts and a flimsy T-shirt.

While my feet move, I mentally work through Nanda’s latest salvo against Cass. I thought this was settled yesterday when I told her that Cass was my friend and I vouched for her. Nanda and Cass were sitting at the table chitchatting when I came down, for goddess’ sake. How can Nanda say one thing and do something completely different?

I stop, realization sinking in. It isn’t Cass who reminds me of Whisper right now. It’s Nanda. I’ve only been here a day, and already her expectations are starting to weigh on me, plans that probably don’t include Cass. That’s what this is really about.

I start walking again, my mind turning over the conversation with Nanda. Her suspicions niggle at me even as I increase the distance between me and the house. Have I been wrong to trust Cass all this time? I always knew there were things that she hadn’t shared. But it wasn’t an issue, because I always had my secrets too. But now, after she’s confessed all the things she never shared before, I trust her even less. It doesn’t make any sense. Where is all this doubt coming from?

Cass is dependable, and she’s loyal. Her actions should speak louder than anything else, and even when it has seemed hopeless, she has stayed by my side. She could’ve left the Pits at any time, promise or no. But she didn’t. She stuck it out with me. Cass said I was her friend, and I believe her.

That should be enough to let me move past all this, but I can’t. Instead I want to toss aside everything I know about Cass in favor of Nanda’s opinion, which is based on rumor and myth.

Why do I let others’ opinions steer my life? It’s the Aerie all over again.
After my mother died, I no longer wanted to be a Harpy. All I could think of when I studied for my Trials was the Matriarch. She had come to our door at dawn, as is customary when serving death notices. As soon as I heard the single knock, I knew what it meant. We were taught to celebrate our dead, not mourn them. But when the old Matriarch with her drab green snarls and plain brown wings handed Whisper the wooden box, I wasn’t proud. The small box that Whisper held would contain nothing more than a single flight feather from our mother, proof her days of soaring had ended.
My sadness was so strong that it weighed me down, pulling me to my knees. I began to cry, deep sobs that racked my body. Whisper and the Matriarch looked at me in revulsion.
“I thought you’d be stronger,” the Matriarch said, her creaky voice heavy with disgust and disappointment. Not a single scent of emotion wafted off her, though. That’s how disciplined she was. In that moment I knew I couldn’t stay in the Aerie forever. I would never be like them. I couldn’t blindly follow custom or turn off my emotions so easily.
And I didn’t want to.
Whisper trained me day and night. She made me read texts on battle tactics and drilled me on scenting out emotions. We practiced the One Hundred Ways until I tired of pretending to rip an adversary’s heart out with my talons. Whisper did everything she could to show me how to be more Harpy. The afternoon we spent at the mall, one of my favorite memories of my sister, was the exception, not the rule. Most of our time together she was a drill sergeant. I was going to pass my Trials, whether I wanted to or not.
“You won’t disgrace our mother’s memory with your failure,” she said when my initial evals came back low. But we both knew the truth. I was never cut out to be a warrior.
And I’m probably not cut out to be the Nyx.
It’s too easy to imagine Nanda looking at me and saying in her twangy drawl,
I thought you’d be stronger.
This thing with Cass is just the beginning of Nanda trying to manage my life, to force me to live according to her expectations. I love Nanda, but I can’t go through that again.
Assuming I’m not too afraid to tell her how I really feel.
I kick a rock and swear. The memory lets go of me, and I look around. I lost track of both the time and my direction, and now I have no idea where I am. It looks like it’s still part of Nanda’s neighborhood, but I am hopelessly lost. I should turn around and go back, but then I’d have to face Nanda and all her expectations. Maybe another lecture about what a terrible person Cass really is.
But it doesn’t really matter who Cass is, if she’s a villain or a friend. I know how this story will end. I’m going to let Nanda down. The bitter scent of her disappointment will slam into me, burned coffee and rubbing alcohol, just like Whisper’s. And then she’ll give me that look, the same look that Whisper gave me the day I failed my Trials. An expression of sadness and surprise, like I was a stranger who’d just tried to mug her.
I let people down. It’s what I do. Yay me.
A scream shatters my thoughts, followed by a woman sobbing. It’s the kind of sound that sends shivers down my spine and makes my arms break out in goose bumps. Sharp words slice through the quiet morning. I don’t understand the language at first, but then I realize it’s some bastardized version of Æthereal. Answering shouts echo, followed by a child’s scream that rips through my middle. The sound is the by-product of pure terror.
Normally I would head in the opposite direction, looking for help. But I start to run toward the sounds of scuffle and fighting. My darkness already boils in my middle, anxious for release. It’s spoiling for a fight more than I am.
I round the corner, and there, in the middle of a front yard, are a woman and a little girl. The pink-haired little girl hides behind the woman’s giant wings, which are midnight shot through with silver. Her locks have been cut off in favor of a short halo of bright red curls. Her skin is pale instead of dark, but there’s no mistaking that she’s a Harpy. It surprises me, because the only Harpy I’ve ever known to live outside the Aerie is Nanda.
I guess I’m not the only Harpy to dislike the restrictive customs of the Aerie.
The strange Harpy swings a sword wildly. “Stay back,” she yells at the men circling her and the little girl. Up and down the neighborhood people have come out on their porches to watch. From the look of them they’re vættir as well. Nanda said there were very few full-blooded humans in the town, and those who do live here are connected to the vættir in some way.
So if they’re vættir, why in the hells aren’t they helping the woman?
The men wear uniforms. Short black jackets paired with brilliant purple pants and knee-high black boots. On their shoulders is the distinctive peacock feather insignia of Hera’s Acolytes.
Back in the Aerie, they would come to recruit once or twice a year. Whisper and I would always make fun of them and their effeminate uniforms, especially their too-tight pants. But there’s nothing funny about them now that I know firsthand what they’re capable of. I don’t know what they’re up to, but I know it can’t be any good.
One of the men reaches for the little girl, who screams and rakes her talons down the man’s arm. He laughs and dances backward.The Harpy swings the sword at him, but she’s hopelessly bad with the blade. It’s a claymore, one of the largest weapons Harpies use. She’s too small to wield the sword properly. She knows it. And so do the Acolytes.
They’re just playing with her.
Rage silences the voice that begs me to go find help. My heartbeat pounds in my ears. Everything is so twisted together in my mind. Whisper’s death, my past failures, and my burning shame that I couldn’t save my sister. Time slows and all the sound bleeds away. There are only the Acolytes and the scared face of the little girl trying to hide behind her mother’s wings.
I run forward, catching the nearest Acolyte and jumping on his back. He’s so surprised that he goes to his knees. I cup him under the chin and yank his head to the left. Inside, part of me shrieks. I’ve just killed a man. But the rest of me remembers the move as one of the One Hundred Ways. Number 43: Broken neck.
The darkness is jubilant.
It’s an unfamiliar sensation, but also welcome. In the heat of the battle I don’t question the feeling; I embrace it.
The other men turn around. There are five of them, not including the one lying on the ground by my feet. Six, the sacred number of Hera.
“You’re going to pay for that,” the tallest one says, a pale Fae with shining green eyes and copper-color hair.
The darkness rises up, eager to destroy. It makes me brave. It makes me reckless. “Says you.”
Distantly I know this isn’t me. I am never this calm, especially in the face of danger. But I don’t have time to contemplate the change. All five of the Acolytes charge me, coming at me all at once instead of one at a time like in the movies. It doesn’t matter. They’re already dead. They just don’t know it yet.
The first Acolyte reaches me, a guy who smells like the ocean and bloodlust. A Mer. In Hera’s Acolytes. What is the world coming to? I see his webbed fingers just as his fist slams into my jaw.
The punch connects, slamming my head back. The pain is so far away that I laugh. I feel so alive. The crippling fear is gone, and there’s only the excitement of the fight. I find the shadows in my middle, churning and willing, and ask them if they would like to come out and play.
The Mer before me pauses and takes a step back. I look at the others, who’ve also frozen, their faces identical masks of shock. They stink of rotten oranges with a hint of ozone. The scent of terror. I turn my head and see a wisp of darkness out of the corner of my eye. One look down at my hands shows them shrouded in darkness as well.
The shadows laugh, and it is the greatest sound I have ever heard.
I grin, and they all backpedal. “Someone owes me an apology,” I say. Then I send forth my darkness.
The roiling black cloud surges forward, wrapping around them like ropes made of shadow. It catches all five of them easily, their screams splitting the air. A couple of them beg for mercy, a couple others blubber. Only one stands there silently. The tall Fae who spoke earlier. He says nothing, even though I can smell the burning-rubber scent of his pain.
Deep down inside, I’m thinking I should let them go. I’ve already taught them a lesson.
But Tallon isn’t here to stop me this time, and I’d much rather destroy them.
And so would the dark. Its need is a physical ache, and it purrs and coos like a well-behaved pet. How can I say no to that?
The darkness swarms over the Acolytes, entering their noses and open mouths like some black plague. Winds whip around us, but I barely notice. Instead I am focused on the erebos. I can feel it searching, seeking out what it wants most. The silver shining brightness of their æther. The darkness finds it like a hungry dog digging for a buried bone. There’s a second of triumph when the erebos reaches the æther and a moment of hesitation as it waits for permission.
Good doggy,
I think. Then I let it off the leash.
Everything stops. The world holds its breath. Darkness boils forth, engulfs me and the Acolytes. I feel their final screams reverberate through my chest, pulsing in time to my heart. I am absolutely invincible.
And then the darkness collapses back in on itself, slamming into my chest. I take a stumbling step back, blinking. When I look around, the Acolytes are gone. The only people left on the street are the Harpy and the little girl clinging to her wings.
And about a hundred eyes watching from the rest of the vættir in the neighborhood.
A woman comes crashing out of a nearby house, her hair a writhing mass of snakes. Her eyes flash, and I look away before she can freeze me. But she isn’t trying to attack me.
“Thank you!” She says. She grabs my hands and kisses them, her snakes an agitated mess. I try to take a step backward, but she won’t let go of me. She grabs me up in a hug, her snakes actually nuzzling into my hair.
I really don’t like snakes.
She releases me suddenly, and the little Harpy girl is there, tugging on my shirt. “Are you the Nyx?” she asks, eyes wide. Her question sends a hush across the gathering crowd, and I shake my head.
“No, no, I’m not—”
My protest is cut off by a Cyclops who breaks from the crowd and grabs my hand, pumping it up and down. “You’re real. I knew you were real. My grandmother used to tell me about you. I knew you’d come for us. I knew it!”
“No, I’m sorry, but I’m not the Nyx.”
I don’t have a chance to argue before I’m spun around to face the Harpy. She grins at me, her happiness a bright chocolate-chip-cookie scent. She presses a flight feather into my hand, the sharp edge cutting my palm a little.
“I am in your debt, Nyx. Me and my daughter.” I look down at the flight feather, and a lump forms in my throat. A flight feather is a huge sign of gratitude. And here I destroyed the Acolytes just as much because the darkness wanted to as for anything else.
I nod and try to give her back the flight feather. “It’s not a big deal.” She won’t accept the feather, just pushes it so it cuts a little deeper into my palm.
“You have to take it. Please. You saved Freesia’s life. You know that’s a debt that must be repaid.”
I nod, because she’s right. Harpies are very strange about repaying debts to the people who help them. I can’t help but think of Cass. She’s saved my life on more than one occasion. If I had flight feathers to give her, she’d have at least a dozen.
I frown. “Wait, what do you mean I saved your daughter’s life? What did the Acolytes want with her?”
“The Acolytes kill any vættir who can wield erebos,”the Cyclops answers. He points to a large, rust-colored spot on the sidewalk a little ways down. “Too bad you weren’t here last week. They’ve been busy lately.”
“Wait, what?” Sudden nausea makes me unsteady, and the more I look at the brown spot on the sidewalk the worse I feel. That could’ve been the little Harpy girl. My brain helpfully supplies an image of the last time I saw Whisper to put in her place. So much killing. Why can’t I escape it?
I look around at all the smiling, happy, hopeful faces. It’s almost a tangible thing, their expectations. It steals my oxygen and makes it hard to breathe. Not even the frowns of the few skeptics in the crowd can remove the hope of all those people looking at me, wanting me to be the answer to all their problems.
I can’t save them. I can’t even save myself.
I don’t want to be the Nyx. I just want to find out what happened to my sister’s shade.
An arm slips around my waist, steadying me. I look up in surprise at Blue, who gives me a quick nod before saying, “Maybe Nanda didn’t tell you, but the Acolytes kill anyone they suspect of being able to use erebos.”
“But . . . children?” I glance over at the brownish spot again before my eyes slide away. “And in the middle of the street?”
“They killed my brother Owen a few months ago,”he says, leading me through the gathered crowd with a tight smile. Despite the forced friendliness I can smell his sorrow, rain on hot asphalt. “We were coming back from a movie, and we weren’t careful. He started showing off with his magic for one of his friends. The Acolytes found him and slit his throat in the middle of the street. He was ten.”
“I didn’t know you had a younger brother.”The words are barely a whisper. What I really mean is that I didn’t know Tallon had another brother. This is the second time I’ve been surprised by a revelation about Tallon’s family ties. What other secrets is he keeping?
Tallon’s angry words come back to me.
Using any kind of erebos brings the Acolytes.
Now I feel even worse for blowing up at him.
“I’m sorry,” I say, stopping. Blue stops too. His eyes are sad, but he forces a smile.
“Now you know why we want you to be the Nyx so badly. We need you.” Blue’s usual teasing tone is gone, his words serious. Vættir crowd around us, some of them reaching out to touch me reverently, others murmuring in disbelief.
I shake my head. “I don’t know that I am the Nyx,” I confess.
Blue grins. “That’s okay. We do.”
He gently nudges me so I’ll start walking again. My legs feel like overcooked spaghetti.I wish Blue would carry me,but instead he just navigates us through the crowd. I can barely stand, so I lean heavily on him. He keeps his voice low as we walk. “That’s why we came to Tartarus, you know. After the news spread about Ramun Mar, people began to talk about you being the Nyx. No one else thought it was anything but a coincidence, but Nanda was convinced. When Alora had her vision, Nanda said it was time to find you.”