Page 42 of Legacy

“Rumors that I wanted to investigate once it became clear that I had this Celestial connection. But things got in the way of that, so much was happening.AndI also didn’t know how to bring my suspicions up, especially with you, Ariana.” He screwed up his face as he revealed, “The rumors were that my grandfather, Malrik Titanus, was murdered by a Celestial being.”

“Oh my God,” I choked.

“Fuck,hewas the blood link, wasn’t he?” Kai asked.

“It’s honestly the only fucking explanation. The rumors said that he possessed power that was an affront to the True Celestials, that was seen also as a threat to the Celestial Plane.It stands to reason then that he somehow ingested Celestial power. And it must have skipped a generation, and was passed down to me through our bloodline. It makes so much sense.” He looked out at me. “With the timing, the being who murdered my grandfather could have beenyours.Cornelius Martel. Or, so I thought until I was face-to-face with him on that mountaintop and he had no reaction to me. He didn’t even sense my Celestial power either. Not at all. But the way Cassius struck me… it occurred to me that the culprit could very well have been him.”

“Your Celestial connection isn’t perceptible to anyone,” Kai told him.

“What?”

“As we’ve been working with your Primal Celestial Resonance ability, I noticed that there’s some sort of veil up. A special form of cloaking that’s not even perceptible to a True Celestial. Even Ariana didn’t feel it from you. We only found out from you displaying one of those special abilities to save me from that infection.”

“Someone’s cloaked me,” he breathed. “To protect me.” His eyes met mine. “From the wrath of the Celestial Plane. From someone just like Cassius.”

“I’m so sorry,” I told Vorzyr. “This… realizing all of this… it’s brutal. We’ll figure it all out, I promise. I’ll get you the answers that you seek, that you need. We’ll go to see my grandfather.”

“Are you sure that’s a good idea right now?” Nyx asked. “Given the way you feel about what they kept from you? It’s still really raw,” he warned.

Kai tensed and I looked to see that my power was sparking again, this time from my other hand. I snuffed it out again, but my hand shook with the force I had to use, the strain of doing so.

“You need time to process that first,” Kai told me. “And we need V stable before the week is out and you’re tangled up in Cassius’ teachings and designs for you.” He looked at Nyx.“Reach out to Warlow and ask him for a favor. An audience with Cornelius Martel for Vorzyr and me.”

“Yeah, I can do that. Good idea,” Nyx said.

“In the meantime, I need you to stay your hand.Weneed you to,” Kai told Vorzyr.

“I can’t just—”

“We don’t know who was involved regarding Malrik’s demise yet. It’s just guesswork at this point.”

“Wedoknow that Cassius is here to insert himself into Ariana’s life and force her to commit to a duty that she had no say in at all.”

“Fornow,”Kai emphasized. He looked out at me. “We wanted to tell you right when you arrived back with us, but you didn’t want to talk last night. But now we’re discussing this, just know that we’re working on a few things to solve this.”

Worry flared. “What sorts of things?”

“I’m working on a way to break the deal that’s been struck in your name. Vorzyr is finding a way to use his Primal Celestial Resonance to push back Cassius, make him submit, something along those lines. And, as a last resort, Nyx is working on a cloaking veil that could withstand tracking even from the Celestial Plane, thereby keeping you off their radar.”

“Wow, that’s… a lot.” I pushed off the couch. “But it’s also dangerous. You’re working with Celestial magic, and not just as a one-off like with the failsafe that we imbued the Aetherbound Scepter with. This involves a lot more experimentation. It’s a more time-consuming process. It could be detected by them, which would put you in their crosshairs. And when somebody is in their crosshairs—”

“They end up dead,” Vorzyr rumbled.

“Or severely manipulated. Until you’re nothing but a puppet on a string forced to do their bidding and not even knowing why.” I dug my nails into the couch, as an unsettling pins andneedles sensation rolled through me with every word that spilled from me, now unable to be contained.

I couldn’t keep an unaffected attitude any longer.

Because the more we talked about it, the more it cut into me.

That I was a servant of the Celestial Plane.

That I had no will of my own.

That my fate wasn’t my own.

And even if it was possible to overcome, like Kai was trying to put out there—that we could actually find a way out—the fight to achieve that would be immense.

I tried to suck in a breath in an attempt to re-center myself, to focus on strategizing and not allowing myself to be tormented or pushed into a depressive state of inaction and hopelessness because of all of this.

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