“Tell me how you think you can be free of me when I created you,” she hissed, and it felt as though she were in my ear. I turned my head toward her voice, and while I could see nothing, I knew she was here because she was the darkness. She was the night that fell upon the world and the inky sky between the stars. “I gave you everything, even your lover. Shall I take her back?”

“You wouldn’t dare.”

“I would dare,” she said. “Do you think our pact means anything to me when you are plotting a way to destroy me? If she dies, she dies, and you will not follow. This world is your hell to live in, Adrian. You have created it.”

“If you touch her…” I began, but my voice trembled, unable to carry out the threat I wanted to make.

“What?” Dis snapped, her darkness sinking into my hair, pulling it back. “What will you do, Blood King? Will you beg Asha for vengeance against me? I am afraid she has found her own path forward.”

“What are you talking about?”

“I am not the only one who can create an incarnate, Adrian,” she said. “Did you forget what you really are? My hand upon this world. What power do you have that I did not grant?”

I had no answer, and my hate for her deepened.

“Pray to me, Adrian, and I will let you go with a warning.”

I gritted my teeth. I wished she were a physical body so I could dream of all the ways I’d kill her.

“Refuse and I’ll leave a gift for your lover.”

I rose onto my knees, my hands shaking.

“Say it,” she ordered. “Say, ‘I pray to thee, Goddess Dis, defender of my blood. Forgive my sins and guard against temptation, for you are my light in the darkness.’”

She had chosen her words to wound and likely hoped to provoke my violence, but I remained still, my nails digging into my palms, and I repeated her prayer, each word forced out between my teeth.

When I finished, she laughed again.

“Remember those words, Adrian. You will need them again soon.”

She was gone and so was her pain, as if she had reached into my mind and pulled it free. When my vision cleared, I found that I was still on the floor and Daroc hovered over me.

“Are you all right?” he asked.

“Far from it,” I said as I got to my feet.

I hated that he had seen me so helpless. I felt his eyes on me in the silence.

“Is it Dis?” he asked.

I did not respond. I did not like to say her name, much less hear it.

“You can tell me,” Daroc continued.

“I do not want to talk about it,” I said. Finally, I looked at him. “Did you need something?”