Page 122 of A Kingdom of Wild and Power
The child trailed after them, still clutching the bread like a treasured relic, thin legs working hard to keep pace. Rowan swallowed the surge of triumph that leapt into his chest. He schooled his features carefully; too much enthusiasm might frightenthe boy back into the trees.
‘We are not keeping it,’ Elowen muttered.
‘He’s not anit,’ Rowan replied at once, casting her a reproachful look. ‘He’s got a name.’
‘Which is?’ she challenged.
Rowan bit the inside of his cheek, caught.
A soft, hesitant voice answered for him.
‘Me name is Edur.’
Rowan turned so quickly he nearly stumbled, a grin breaking free before he could restrain it. It felt indecently bright in the quiet wood.
Elowen rolled her eyes with theatrical despair. ‘Wonderful. Now we’ll never be rid of it.’
Rowan punched her arm lightly, laughter bubbling from him before he could contain it. The sound faltered when he noticed the worry flicker across Edur’s face. At once, Rowan straightened, adopting a solemn air, as though this had been his intention all along.
‘Oh, for crying out loud, Rowan,’ Elowen muttered.
‘Careful,’ he said primly, pinching her arm in return. ‘Roll your eyes like that and you might lose them.’
Then he glanced back at Edur.
This time he caught the small, uncertain smile tugging at the boy’s mouth.
Rowan’s own smile softened in answer, quieter now, but no less sincere.
…
Rio Hawthorne studied the two men before her with quiet fascination. They bore a resemblance to one another at firstglance; black hair, pale skin, the elegant sweep of wyverian horns crowning their heads, and yet the likeness ended there.
Kage’s features were softer, almost gentle; his face rounder, his dark eyes heavy with an old sorrow that seemed to cling to him like mist. His stare was as black as the abyss itself. Not merely dark, but endless.
Zagreus, by contrast, was all sharp lines and cutting angles, carved as though by a harsher hand. And his eyes…his eyes were the strangest she had ever beheld. One burnt red as fresh blood; the other was a deep, fathomless shade. It gave the uncanny impression that two souls stared out from the same skull.
‘Why did a goddess give you her eyes?’ Kage asked at last.
They had drifted from the riverbank and were now making their slow way towards Tartarus, the air thick with the hush of the Underworld.
Out of the silver mist, a wolf emerged, padding towards them with calm assurance. Rio had met an enormous wolverian wolf before, on mortal lands—the creature accompanying Kage Blackburn when his lungs had still breathed in air. She wondered if the beast was one and the same.
‘My father struck a bargain with her,’ Rio replied. She paused when the wolf drew close, then smiled a warm, unguarded thing, and buried her dark fingers into the wolf’s thick fur. The creature gave a pleased rumble and promptly licked Rio’s face with enthusiastic devotion.
Zagreus pulled an expression of obvious distaste.
‘Jealous?’ Kage asked lightly, curiosity lacing his tone.
It was innocent enough and yet, at Zagreus’ low grumble and the way his shoulders stiffened, a small flicker of satisfaction sparked across Kage’s face. Rio tilted her head, regarding them both with interest. What a curious duo.
‘She seems to like everyone,’ Zagreus muttered, casting thewolf an irritated look.
The beast huffed in response, clearly unimpressed with his attitude.
‘Why would a goddess make a bargain with your father?’ Kage asked, pointedly ignoring the silent contest unfolding between Zagreus and the wolf.
Rio’s fingers remained threaded through the wolf’s fur as she answered. ‘She needed a vessel,’ she said. ‘Someone young. Someone powerful.’ Her voice held no tremor, only memory. ‘She didn’t ask for permission, if that is what you’re wondering. A god would not lower themselves to such courtesies. We did not realise my sister’s body had been taken over by Nyx. Not at first. It took six months, perhaps. We began to see it in the way she moved, the way she spoke. The way she looked at us.’ Rio’s mouth tightened faintly. ‘It then became obvious she was no longer my sister.’
