From Blood and Ash by Jennifer L. Armentrout

and connect with nothing but vast emptiness. A shiver danced over myy
skin.
“Do yyou feel anyything, Penellaphe?”
Closing down the connection, I shook myy head. “I don’t feel
anyything, Your Grace.”
The Duchess exhaled sharplyy through her nostrils, and then she
downed her drink in one impressive gulp.
Myy eyyes widened as myy mind rapidlyy processed her reaction. It was
almost as if she…expected me to feel something from her, but I’d never
been able to. I didn’t think I ever would be able to.
“Good,” she breathed, her skirts swishing around her ankles as she
turned back to the cabinet, placing the glass down.
“I was wondering if I was trulyy feeling something or…” I trailed off
as she faced me.
“I believe yyour gift is…maturing,” she said, coming toward me. The
bright light above her glittered off the obsidian ring on her finger as she
gripped the back of the chair. “It would make sense that it would be
happening as yyou’re nearing yyour Ascension.”
“So this…is normal?”
She clucked her tongue off the roof of her mouth. For a moment, it
appeared as if she were about to sayy something, but then she changed her
mind. “Yes, I do believe so, but I…I would not speak to His Grace about
this.”
Tension crept into myy shoulders at the thinlyy veiled warning. I was
never sure if the Duchess knew about her husband’s…predilections. I
couldn’t imagine how she could be completelyy blind to them, but there
was a part of me that hoped she was. Because if she knew and did nothing
to stop him, did it make her anyy better? Or was I even being fair to her?
Just because she was an Ascended didn’t mean she held power over her
husband.
“It would…remind him of the first Maiden,” she whispered.
Shocked, I stared up at her. I had not been expecting her to bring up
the first Maiden, the one before me—the onlyy other Maiden I knew of.
“Did this…happen with the previous Maiden?”
“It did.” Her knuckles started to turn white, and I nodded. There had
onlyy been two Maidens Chosen byy the gods. “What do yyou know about the
first Maiden?”