Leaning in, I kissed her shoulder softly and then turned to the pair both waiting anxiously on our answer, Kade looking like the young chocolate covered faeling next to him.
"Of course." Shooting Kade a warning look, I added, "Do I need to remind you of what would happen should anything happen to our daughter?"
Kade rolled his eyes. "Relax shifter, camphor are not dangerous here, they are but horned amphibian spirits searching for their lost water in this world. It's the nuckelavee you really have to worry about, those demon horses like feeding on their souls."
Remnant leaned in eagerly this time, all worry gone from her bright eyes. "There are nuckelavee here?" she whispered excitedly.
Riella's eyes widened even further as she glanced between her mother and her newfound uncle. I scrubbed my hand through my hair with a quiet groan.
Goddess help us.
Kade's eyes gleamed, evidently sharing the same interest as his sister. "Yes and they are much easier to catch than the nightmares of the Nocturnes."
Remnant smirked, "Do tell, brother. You have caught some yourself? Did they grant you the eternal flame?"
"Remnant…" I said with half irritation and half amusement. The eternal flame was a myth…wasn’t it?
Glancing back at me and seeing the amused worry now on my face, she reigned in her excitement and leaned back into my arm slung across her seat. "Don't worry yourself Emon, of course we will kill him if anything happens to our daughter on his watch."
Kade winked, “That’s the spirit.” Reaching for Riella who happily jumped into his arms, "But you’re old now sister, I don't think you can actually catch up to even attempt to kill me, Rem Rem." Shifting our daughter in his arms and attempting to avoid the chocolate massacre all over her tiny body, he looked down at her with a grin, "Ready, little chocolate bird?"
She nodded happily and then shadows swirled around them, shifting through the darkness leaving behind a singular tendril of black smoke floating on the air.
My soulmate stiffened and reflexively, I reached for Riella and I’s shared bond, the one she had solidified while in her healing sleep before I even knew her. Feeling her sudden euphoria like a bolt of energy racing through my body, I smiled.
Chuckling, I winked at Remnant. "She is ecstatic with her new beasts." Tucking a stray strand of hair from my soulmate's face, I trailed a single claw down her porcelain skin following the relief spreading over her fine features. “Just like her mother would be.”
Eve cleared her throat and a soft blush filtered through my soulmate’s face and I smirked, loving that color on her pale skin.
"You are different with your shifter, my little chickadee, and I am happy for you. You are good together." We both looked up to see Remnant's mother studying us intimately. She gave me an approving nod. "Which makes what I have to say that much harder. To answer your question Daemon, I am awake because of the extremum vitae spiritum edere,to death I give my last breath."
Remnant inhaled sharply, the blush immediately gone and her face paling. "You forfeited your soul to him?" Remnant turned a hateful glare on the death god. "That is worse than even a soulless sleep, mother. There is no afterlife for you now, should death take you, you will cease to exist and we shall never be together again. It erases you from the wheels of fate instantly."
Her blue green eyes glittered with emotion but her features remained reserved, Shea more than deathly quiet next to her. "Shea is my soulmate, daughter. We are already entwined, the only difference now is that I exist only because he does. It was the only way for me to be here for you when the time came, otherwise I too would be in The Well and as your father so nicely pointed out, I am needed to break the rules…" I didn’t fail to miss the subtle way her eyes flickered to me pointedly before falling back on Remnant.
Remnant's hand slammed down on the table again, the damned thing taking a beating with her frustration tonight.
"He is a death god for Faerie sake!" she turned her fury on the solemn Shea, his lips thinning and his face darkening the more Remnant raged. "You! You are a death god with unlimited power! Surely you could have found another way!"
He narrowed his eyes at his daughter and all my claws extended slowly, preparing to fight the god of death, I knew the vest was the right choice. "I am bound by rules just as all gods are. My power, while mostly unlimited, cannot be abused without seriousrepercussions. If it were not so, I would have saved us all from this misery thousands of years ago." Shadows spread across the table. "I knew of you the exact moment you were born and I paid the price by watching you grow up without a father. Then I watched my son have to do the same as the price for my involvement in the wars, but it was even more than that, all memory of me was wiped from the mind of my soulmate, while I remembered our love, she did not." The night sky lowered down upon us as his anger built. "Then I was forced to watch as she raised two children on her own, forced to watch and wait while you suffered because I was terrified of what the cost would be should I interfere again. You think my power great but it is a prison, a prison of the worst kind of torture. A prison of no power over what really matters."
Remnant jumped to her feet, shadows flickering around her and dying out. It was the first time I saw them respond to her since we came here. "Am I supposed to feel sorry for you then, death god…father?” she snarled. “You brought us here in deceit, forcing us to make the same sacrifices as you. Does that make you feel better somehow knowing that we shall all suffer the same as you?"
The night sky lurched and the death god glanced up with his eyes shifting to gleaming pride and it was then that I realized he no longer controlled the night, Remnant did.
Ignoring her accusations, but fascinated by Remnant’s power he encouraged her. "That's it daughter…show me," he said, still watching the night, "show me how you can pull down the night, just like you did when you first came here."
Glancing back at my soulmate, my brows drew together. Remnant usually commanded her shadows with ease, vast amounts of shadows, without strain, but watching her now—her body shaking, her chest rattling with quick breaths, sweat pouring down her brow and the shadows flickering in and out, I knew…knew something was horribly wrong.
Shea's dark look while he watched her also narrowed with concern and confirming that I wasn’t delusional.
Remnant truly no longer had control over her powers.
"You were already coming here daughter," Shea continued, his voice gentling, to ease the strain and her anger, the night swirling dangerously over us without control, "your shadow sphere made it possible for me to finally come to you, a way to hide from the universal laws that would punish us more had I stepped a singlefoot in Faerie. Your mother and I have been waiting for an opening to retrieve you for years. But after the loss of your lilin—"
"Lilin?" Remnant staggered, the darkness wobbling towards us. "Is that what they are called? What does that mean?"
The death god growled, glancing upwards. "Sit down Remnant and release the night slowly, you are not ready for this power and it is putting us all in danger—your daughter in danger."
