The Crown of Gilded Bones (Blood and..

resurfaced. “Or maybe more than once.”
Casteel glanced down at me. “Where did you see one?
In a painting or drawing like this?”
“No.” I shook my head. “There was one caged in the
castle at Carsodonia.”
Kieran’s brows lifted. “I don’t think that’s what you saw.”
“I saw a cat as large as you are in your wolven form,” I
told him. “Ian saw it, too.”
He shook his head. “That’s impossible, Poppy. Cave cats
have been extinct for at least a couple of hundred years.”
“What? No.” I looked between them. Casteel nodded.
“They roam the Wastelands.”
“Who told you that?” Casteel asked.
“No one told me that. It’s just…” I trailed off, my gaze
returning to the drawing. It was something that was just
known. But in reality, it was the Ascended who had said as
much. The Queen had told me that when I asked about the
creature I’d seen in the castle. “Why would they lie about
something like that?”
Kieran snorted. “Who knows? Why have they erased
entire gods and created ones that don’t exist like Perus? I
think they just like to make things up,” he countered—and
he had a good point.
I stared at the two cats. “Then what was in that cage?”
“Possibly another large wild cat,” Casteel answered with
a shrug. “But I think these two felines are supposed to
symbolize the children of Nyktos and his Consort.”
“When you say children, are you talking about Theon or
all the gods?” I asked.
“His actual children,” Casteel confirmed. “And Theon
was never his actual son. That’s another thing the Ascended
either lied about or they simply misunderstood due to his
many titles.”
It was very possible it was a mistranslation. I stared at
them, thinking how one of them was responsible for Malec.
“Could they shift into cats?”