I crossed the training yard and laid a hand on Lux’s heaving shoulder as he caught his breath. “You’re getting better every day.”

The Dorian smiled ruefully. “I lasted five entire minutes. A record.”

The rest of our friends closed in around us, Peleus in the lead. “What in Hades was the water tentacle thing you created?” he asked Lux with a snorting laugh. “I think you might be spending too much time at sea if you’re getting inspiration from the octopuses.”

Cadmus rolled his eyes towards the heavens. “That manifestation had a dozen limbs, not eight. If it resembled any creature it would be a member of the cephalopod family nautilidae, which—”

Peleus threw an arm around the scholar. “Cadmus, my brother, the only tentacles I want to hear about are the ones belonging to Medusa. You know, I heard that she can perform all sorts of interesting tricks with that hair of hers…”

Cadmus shook his head. “Mock me all you like, but don’t you dare come crying for my aid when you can’t distinguish the octopus giganteus from the kraken mortiferum.”

Peleus ignored him. “Seriously, though,” he said to Lux. “I don’t understand why you bother dueling Aidon. Your water is never going to best literal death.”

Lux wiped the sweat from his brow with the back of a hand, heavily scarred and thickly calloused from a life of hard work and harder fights. “It’s good practice to test yourself against impossible odds. It’s not about besting your opponent, then, it’s about besting yourself. Pushing yourself just a little farther than you’ve gone before. You should try it sometime.”

“Not a chance. No offense, brother,” he said, turning to me with a dramatic shiver, “but sometimes that power of yours gives me the creeps.”

I flashed him a wicked grin. “Only sometimes?”

A gust of wind blew, rustling the olive trees in the grove above us and I froze. There, mingled amid the garden scents, was something else. Something I’d spent the last several days hoping to encounter—warm vanilla and the indescribable effervescence of morning sunshine.

The Korai.

Darkness rumbled through my core as I sensed her power. It was a strange feeling, this awareness. One I’d never encountered with another God-Blooded before. I glanced up, knowing through that unnamable instinct that I’d find her there.

She stood pressed against a stone wall. She was wet, and though I could only see the top half of her form, her blush gown clung to her in a way that was almost indecent. But it was not her appealing curves that the water revealed. No. Within days, her body had lost those sensuous lines and become all bony angles. Even her skin, normally flushed with a golden glow, was sallow.

Dacian, ever observant, tracked my gaze. “She looks like death,” he grunted out.

He was right. Since the morning after the Trial, when she was notably absent from the great hall, I’d wondered where they were hiding her, but every time I asked, the priestesses and servants had brushed past me like I wasn’t even there. And now here she stood, looking like she’d survived something horrific. The possibilities crowded my mind: deprivation, torture, poison. Doria had a penchant for wielding all three as a weapon. And after what she’d done in the Trial… What cost might she have paid for that interference? The thought had my hands balling into tight fists at my sides.

Her gaze turned away for a moment before returning, searchingly, to my face. Before I could school the anger from my features, she turned and fled.

Without a word to my friends, I followed.

It was half a thought to take the familiar, sideways step into the Ether. Into darkness that carried me between worlds until nothing but mist and shadow surrounded me. One more step and I was through and the cool silence gave way to warm sun and a startled cry.

Hands reached out, grabbing for purchase on the slick leather of my cuirass. I caught her beneath the elbows but her skin was so hot, I nearly dropped her. Wide amber eyes looked up at me and her heart-shaped face flushed.

“You could have said hello,” I teased, though nerves coiled tight in my gut. “I thought noble ladies like yourself were groomed to have impeccable manners.”

She jerked out of my arms and stepped away. “I wish you wouldn’t do that.”

“Do what, Princess?”

She waved a hand at the shadows still lingering in my wake. “Just appear out of nowhere like that.”

I glanced towards the evidence. I supposed darkness would be disconcerting to a lady who could literally shoot sunshine out of her hands. With a thought, I sent it retreating into the Ether. “Better?”

“What is that trick of yours, anyway?”

“Force of habit, really. When you live in a place as big as the Underworld, you get used to taking shortcuts.”

“Of course,” she said, biting off her words. “The Underworld.”

I frowned. This was a different creature from the mischievous little thing who’d poured fire into my arm at the feast. “Having a bad day, Korai?” I looked her over, trying to keep my gaze from lingering too long on the gauzy material at her neckline. But all libidinous thoughts left me when I realized her hands were trembling. “Perhaps you’ve had several bad days. Where have you been hiding, Princess?”

She backed away from me a step. “Don’t pretend that you care. You just want my power to strengthen whatever you did back there. How you killed the grass. And that was barely any power at all, was it? What happens when you use it all?”

People died. But that wasn’t an answer I was about to give, so I pursued her as she retreated until her back hit the trunk of a gnarled olive tree and she jumped at the contact. I rested one arm against the branch above her head and grinned down at her. “Oh, it’s not all bad.” My gaze drifted away from her eyes. Lower. Her cheeks flushed and the rise and fall of her breasts quickened. “You’d be surprised what I can do,” I said softly. “What I can sense about you.”

Her lips fell open with a hitched breath. Then snapped closed as she pressed her spine more firmly against the tree. Away from me. “Do you have no sense of personal space?” she hissed between her teeth.

I dropped my arm and rolled back a step, disappointed that she’d ended the game so quickly. “My, my, we are uptight today, aren’t we? You were more fun at the feast.”

Her blush deepened, though some of the tension went out of her shoulders. “You’re changing the subject.”

“It was worth a try.” I sighed, a hand running through my hair. For once, it didn’t snag on my ring and I vaguely wondered what I’d done with the thing. “Death is in my blood, but I no more chose my gifts than you did your own.”

“Perhaps not, but there must be some reason they call you the Butcher of Brigand’s Bay.”

Her words cut deeper than she could know. The memories rushed forward, and for a moment I was powerless to answer. I took a deep breath, willing the numb, nothingness of so much life wiped clean from the earth, from my mind. “And you know all about that, do you, Princess?” I asked, voice little more than a whisper.

“I’ve asked you not to call me that.”

“It is only what you are. Or does the truth bother you, Korai?”

“Of course not.”

“Well,” I said, closing the space between us, “then you should know both sides of that story. Ask your beloved about Megaris. Ask him what his armies did there and at Drifton and the Needle. Then you can speak to me about death.”

She bit her lip, drawing my attention back to her mouth. The anger drained out of me in a suddenness that left me reeling. Shakily, I turned away. “None of the story is pretty. But if you plan to marry Varian, you should know the truth of him first.”

A scoffing, bitter laugh sounded behind me. “My plans don’t matter to you. If they did, you wouldn’t be here.”

She pushed away from the tree, her chest brushing against my back as she started down the path. I stepped away, letting her go. Too busy fighting to keep wicked images of that wet dress out of my mind to follow. Back straight, she marched on, but within a few paces, her labored breathing filled the air.

It took only a few long strides to reach her side. “You seem ill. The God-Blooded are rarely ill. And first-generation children like you and I? Never.”

“I suppose the exception proves the rule.”

“That, Princess, is an absolutely moronic expression.”

The corner of her mouth lifted a fraction. Her steps lagged and her breath came easier.

“This illness,” I said, slowing my feet to match her pace. “This isn’t what happens after you heal, is it?”

She stopped dead and her hands went to her hips. “Worried you are competing for damaged goods, are you?”

“No, I just—”

Her anger flickered to life and the Ether between us trembled. It called to my power, which performed acrobatics in my chest. Heat suddenly filled me, warring with the chill of my magic. The feeling was… far from unpleasant. I liked when the Korai showed her claws. And this call to mischief… It was worse than a Siren’s song. “Well, it is said that you are the strongest Korai in generations. But rumors are misleading more often than they are true.”

Her eyes blazed and the air shifted, growing perceptibly warmer. “I’ve reattached limbs hanging by a thread,” she said, stepping closer, a finger hot enough to burn digging into my chest. “I’ve saved a man whose body was cut so widely his bowels hung from his belly. I’ve helped more children into this world than I can count and given even more people who were leaving it peaceful deaths. So no, Aidoneus, your insignificant little scratch did not make me ill.”

I grinned like an idiot. This was certainly not the spoiled little thing I’d expected to find when my plans to claim her were first hatched. “It’s Aidon.”

She blinked. “What?”

“My name is Aidon.”

“Oh…”

I chuckled at her sudden discomposure. And then it hit me. I liked the Korai. More than I’d imagined. Maybe more than I should if my plans were to succeed. So, I offered her my hand.

She crossed her arms over her chest and frowned.

“Oh, come now, Princess. I’m trying to answer your question.”

“Oh?”

“You asked about my trick. Let me show you.”

She watched me for a long moment, chewing on that full bottom lip again as she considered. It took a monumental effort to keep still. To keep my eyes on hers. After a long moment, curiosity won out. She placed her hand, still hot to the touch, in my larger, cool grasp. I folded my fingers over hers and pulled her close until the warm scent of her drowned out the garden smells.

“Hold on,” I warned. Then I took a sideways step into the Ether and the world fell away.