Page 207 of A Kingdom of Wild and Power
Mal felt the air grow heavier.
‘So we tried to hide them,’ Livyatan said slowly. ‘We tried to protect them.’
‘But he found out,’ Mal finished quietly.
‘Yes.’ The king’s voice rumbled through the sky. ‘The Sun God learnt the truth. And in his fury he went to his cousin, yourfather Hades, and demanded a prison be built. A place from which we could never escape. Punishment for defying him. For refusing to carry out his will.’
The sea rippled faintly beneath the great beast.
‘Each of us was cast into a ring,’ Livyatan continued. ‘And so we became the kings of Hell.’ He paused. ‘What the Sun God never discovered… was that we had hidden Nyx here as well.’
Mal’s grip tightened around the hilt of her sword, her purple eyes widening.
‘We concealed her within this realm,’ Livyatan explained. ‘Your father knew the truth. We fought over it, he and I. But in the end he carved out a place where she could remain hidden, and I became her guardian.’
The wind stirred faintly across the black sand.
‘Nyx remained here for many years with her child. Until…’
‘Until?’ Mal pressed.
‘Until Hades changed his mind,’ Livyatan said gravely. ‘He took the child beneath his own protection… and Nyx vanished. Disappeared.’
Mal felt her throat grow dry.
‘And the child,’ she asked slowly, ‘the son of Nyx and Lucifer… what was his name?’
Livyatan chuckled softly, as though he already knew she had guessed the answer.
‘His name,’ the ancient king said, ‘is Thanatos.’
I’ve heard rumours that there are more lands out there, across the sea. That a thousand years ago, a group of gods left to create more wonders. My plan is to find a way to take Hadrian and our child there.
Tabitha Wysteria
Rio explained her plan first to Rowan and Elowen.
The silence that followed stretched long and heavy enough to make her sigh in quiet frustration.
‘You can’t be serious,’ Rowan finally said.
‘I am.’
‘But you can’t.’
‘Rowan.’Elowen jabbed him sharply in the ribs. Rio smiled faintly at the grunt of pain that followed.
‘It’s the only plan we’ve got,’ Rio said.
Rowan exhaled slowly, clearly unhappy. ‘Fine. But only if he agrees.’
All three of them turned towards the small wolverian child.
Rio had no idea what the boy looked like, and an old, familiar itch stirred within her to step closer, to reach out and trace the shape of his face so she could build his imagein her mind. But she did not move.
She never did that with strangers.
Only Rowan and Elowen had ever allowed her that closeness, the only two Fae she trusted enough to map with her fingers. The rest of the world she understood only through the careful descriptions they gave her.
