His fingers partially hid his smile as he scratched his chin. “Nor will there be days-long celebrations.”
“I’m relieved to hear that.”
“But there will be a feast after the coronation.”
“Here?”
“No. The coronation will be in Lethe, at the Council Hall,” he said. “And we won’t see each other tomorrow. It’s tradition—a belief that not seeing one another before the start of the coronation will ward off bad luck.”
“You believe in that?” I asked, genuinely curious.
“You know, I’d rather not take any chances, so I will honor the tradition to the best of my ability.” He tipped his head back. “I will meet you before the ceremony. We will ascend the dais together, and it will be I who crowns you and bestows a title upon you.”
Realizing I hadn’t seen him with a crown yet, I wondered exactly what it looked like and if I would be expected to wear it. Crowns looked absurdly heavy. “So, what is my title?”
A wry grin appeared. “Not sure yet.”
I arched a brow. “Nice.”
“I’ll come up with something,” he promised. “If the Fates find us worthy and everyone behaves with the decorum that is expected, the feasts will begin.”
“And if they don’t?”
“You will be heavily guarded throughout the entirety of the event,” he shared. “I will not allow any harm to come to you.”
“I don’t need you to keep me safe.”
Thick lashes lifted, and those wisps of eather fragmenting the silver in his eyes were brighter than I’d ever seen them. “But you do.”
“I think I proved on more than one occasion that is not the case,” I replied, tensing.
“You showed no fear with the dakkais and didn’t hesitate when the entombed gods were freed,” he said as my gaze dropped to my hands. “I know you’re strong and can fight. Thatyou’re brave. Needing me or anyone to look out for you doesn’t mean you’re weak, that you can’t defend yourself, or that you’re afraid. We all need someone to watch over us.”
Heat crawled up my throat. “Do you?”
“Desperately,” he whispered.
My gaze flew to him. Nyktos might be the youngest of the Primals, but I’d seen him in his true form. He was a winged being of night and power, able to obliterate gods with a mere look. I’d seen him turn trees into ash in anger. But there was a truth in that one word, a vulnerability I found myself wanting to protect.
Nyktos pushed off the desk and walked to the credenza. He opened a drawer and pulled out a thick, bound tome. “We will also need to get a handle on what happened last night.”
“The dumping me on your bed and taking my clothing off part of last night?” I suggested.
He sent me a dry look as he sat. “The eather you wielded. Right now, that may just be tied to your emotions. I don’t know if removing those embers will stop you from doing it again until you complete the Culling. It may not. What I know is that the embers have already changed you. There is eather in your blood. That will not be removed, and you will still be able to harness eather once you complete the Culling.”
“But not restore life.”
“Not without those embers.”
I glanced down at my hands. I wasn’t sure if I would miss the ability to restore life. The ability to create life out of death didn’t always feel like a part of me, but itwasa part of me. The embers in my chest warmed at the thought, but they were also bound and determined to kill me.
“The ability could come to you more easily between now and then,” he continued as he began unwinding the twine. “Like it would for a god-born destined to Ascend to Primalhood.”
“Like you?”
He nodded. “There are ways we can try to draw it out of you again that won’t run the risk of weakening you, as long as you’re not using the eather in other ways and are taking care of yourself.”
“Really?” I sat forward, my interest more than piqued. “Is that something we can try now?”