The Crown of Gilded Bones (Blood and..

“That was some four hundred years ago.” She faced us,
holding the glass to her breasts. “It would’ve taken more
than half of those years for him to become weak enough to
die, but he would’ve been dead by the time you were born.”
Casteel’s brows furrowed as he looked over at me and
then back to his mother and then his father. “Then how is
Malec Poppy’s father?”
“Maybe you’re wrong,” Kieran suggested. “Maybe Malec
isn’t her father.”
King Valyn shook his head. “There are no other deities.
Malec killed the last of them when he ruled. But it’s not just
that.” His gaze flicked to me. “You do look like him. Too
much to be a child several generations removed.”
I opened my mouth, but I didn’t know what to say.
“And what you did for that child yesterday?” his mother
said. “From what we’ve heard, she was too far gone to be
healed. Malec could do the same.”
“But he rarely did?” I said, repeating what Alastir had
said.
She nodded. “He did when he was younger and less
embittered and bored with life and death.” She took another
drink, and I noticed her glass was nearly empty. “He actually
saved my life. That’s how we met.” Her throat worked on a
swallow as I glanced at Casteel, unsure if he had known
that. “No other deity could do that. Only those who carried
the blood of Nyktos. And there was only ever Malec. And he
was Nyktos’s grandchild. That was why he was so powerful.
That partially explains why you are so powerful, as Nyktos
would be your great-grandfather.”
“Besides that, Malec was the oldest deity.” Casteel’s
father sat forward, rubbing his palm on his right knee. “The
rest were the children of great-grandchildren, born of the
gods.”
Which meant that if Casteel and I had children, they
would be…they would be like the deities who once ruled