I stared up at him. “So, I’m a threat that must be dealt with because I’m descended from a deity, who may or may not have had anger-management issues?” A strangled laugh parted my lips. “As if I have no autonomy and am just a byproduct of what is in my blood?”

“That may sound unbelievable to you now, Penellaphe, but you’ve just entered into the Culling. Sooner or later, you will start to show the same chaotic and violent impulses as they did. You are dangerous now, but you will become something else entirely eventually.”

An image of the strange woman with the moonlight hair flashed before me.

“Worse yet, at the heart of you, you are mortal—far more easily influenced than an Atlantian or a wolven. And because of that mortality, you will be even more prone to impulsive choices.”

The woman faded from my mind as I stared at him. “You’re wrong. Mortals are far more cautious and protective of life.”

He arched a brow. “Even if that was the case, you descended from the ones born of the flesh and fire of the most powerful gods. Your abilities are strikingly reminiscent of those who, if angered, could quickly become catastrophic, their tempers all-consuming. Families were decimated because someone offended one of them. Towns laid to waste because one person committed a crime against them. But all paid the price—men, women, and children,” he told me, and unease grew under my anger.

“Then they began turning on one another, picking each other off as they fought to rule Atlantia. And in the process, they eradicated entire bloodlines. When the descendants of Saion were killed, the ceeren rose against the deities responsible. They didn’t die because they fell into depression, nor did their bloodline simply become so diluted that it eventually died out. Another deity killed them. Many of those bloodlines died at one deity’s hand—the one that so many believed was different.” Anger tightened the lines of his mouth. “Even I did at one time. How could I not believe that he was different? After all, he’d descended from the King of Gods. He couldn’t be like the others.”

“Malec?” I guessed.

Alastir nodded. “But a lot of people were wrong. I was wrong. He was the worst of them all.”

Tensing, I watched him come forward and lower himself to the stone floor before me. He sat with a heavy sigh, resting an arm on a bent knee as he studied me. “Not many people knew what Malec was capable of. What his godly powers were like. When he used them, he left very few witnesses behind. But I knew what he could do. Queen Eloana knew. King Valyn did.” His cool blue eyes met mine. “His abilities were a lot like yours.”

I sucked in a short breath. “No.”

“He could sense emotion, like the empath bloodline. It was believed that their line branched off from the one that birthed Malec, having mingled with a changeling line. Some believe that was why the gods favored the empaths. That they had more eather in them than most,” he continued.