Seeing them together caused another swell of emotion. I remembered what had been said in the Chambers of Nyktos about the bonds breaking. An ache started up in my chest as I disentangled myself from Kieran and glanced between them. “Is the bond really broken?” I asked. “Between you two?”

Casteel stared at Kieran, and a long moment passed. “It is.”

The ache in my chest grew. “What does that mean? Really?”

Kieran glanced at me. “That conversation can wait—”

“The conversation can happen now.” I crossed my arms. “Alastir and Jansen said some stuff while I was in the crypts,” I told them, inwardly cringing as I felt twin bursts of anger against my skin. “I don’t know how much of it was true, but neither really explained how me being a descendant of a deity….” I sucked in a sharp breath as I thought of who Alastir had claimed was part of my heritage. Did Casteel already know that? “I don’t understand how that supersedes something that has been around for ages. I’m not a deity.”

“I don’t think we know what you are exactly,” Casteel stated.

“I’m not a deity,” I protested.

“The fact that you are here and not a vampry means that nothing is off the table,” Kieran added. I was so taking that off the table. “But either way, you are a descendant of the gods. You are the only living one. You have—”

“If I hear I have the blood of a god inside me one more time, I might scream,” I warned.

“Okay, then.” Kieran scratched his face as he rose and then sat on the other side of me. There was a faint days-worth of scruff on his jaw. “Because of the blood you carry, the kiyou were given mortal form. Not to serve the elemental bloodlines, but to serve the children of the gods. If the deities hadn’t…” He trailed off with a shake of his head. “When the gods gave the kiyou mortal form, we were bonded to them and their children on an instinctual level that is passed down generation after generation. And that instinctive bond recognizes you.”

I understood what he was saying on a technical level, but fundamentally, it was utterly insane to me. “That’s just… I’m just Poppy, blood of the gods or not—”

“You’re not just Poppy, and that has nothing to do with you not becoming a vampry,” Casteel placed a hand on my shoulder. “And I mean it, Princess. I can’t say for sure that you’re not some sort of deity. What I saw you do? What I’ve seen and heard that you have done? You’re unlike any of us, and I still can’t believe I didn’t put it together when I first saw that light around you.”

“How did you not know?” I looked up at Kieran. “If my blood really is that potent, how did no wolven know what I was?”

“I think we did, Poppy,” Kieran answered. “But just like Casteel, we didn’t connect what we were seeing or feeling when we were around you.”