Chapter Four

King Eoin called his home the Shadow Palace.

“How big is this place?” Orion asked, turning in a circle as they walked down an endless corridor of silver tiles. The floor glimmered like liquid mercury beneath his feet, and wherever he stepped, it rippled outward, mimicking the shallows of a lake. The only light came from Orion himself, his skin glowing like torch flame even through his clothes, and the stars behind Eoin’s eyes.

“As vast and wonderful as my imagination allows,” the god answered, not bothering to temper his pride. “Just as the Shadow Kingdom is a part of me, the palace is my hjerta—my heart—born from will and wishes. Here, I’ll show you. Close your eyes.”

“Why?”

“Don’t you want it to be a surprise?”

Orion obliged him. There was a pop. When he opened his eyes, a doorway had materialized to his left, its surface adorned with etchings of birds midflight. He looked to the god with a question in his eyes.

“Go ahead,” Eoin encouraged.

Orion tugged at the handle, but the door didn’t budge.

“Try pushing,” said Eoin.

With a pink tinge rising in his cheeks, Orion gave the door a push and it swung open.

Orion gasped in awe as they emerged into a cavernous chamber with a ceiling open to the stars. The room was furnished with ornate rugs and metallic golden ivy that snaked along the walls, along with glimmering bronze candelabras dripping with jewels that set the room softly aglow. Dozens of windows of every shape and size opened the walls like paintings, each revealing a different impossible view of the Immortal Realm. There, through a diamond-shaped window, were the mountains he had spotted earlier, though they were much closer now. The panes were positioned so close to a waterfall that droplets of gold actually splattered upon them. An elliptical window next to the diamond one showed an orchard filled with fruits he could not name being plucked by creatures with foldable, knobby stilts for legs. And there, through a hexagon, he marveled at the Shadow Palace itself, and when he waved he could see a tiny glowing figure in a hexagonal window waving back.

“This is incredible,” Orion breathed, rushing from window to window, utterly mesmerized and eager for each new wonder to reveal itself to him. He suddenly whirled on Eoin, the light from his body blazing so brightly that he almost blinded himself. “You’re extraordinary.”

Eoin raised a hand to shield his eyes, but Orion still caught his bewildered expression. “The windows won’t actually lead you to any of these places, so please don’t go around trying to open any of them.”

“Can they, though?” Orion asked.

Eoin shrugged. “Maybe. I’ve never had any reason to try, since I can just—”

At that moment, Orion’s stomach interrupted with a loud grumble. He flushed. When was the last time he had eaten?

“Poor thing, you must be famished,” the god murmured. A table so long it verged on ludicrous unfolded before them, spanning the entire breadth of one wall. Perhaps a hundred people could have fit comfortably around it, and the amount of glistening dishes that sprung from its surface could have fed just as many. Steaming platters covered every inch of the table like something from a splendid dream: sizzling steaks and tender cheese pies, smoke-glazed vegetables stuffed with rice, grilled salmon with lemon and herbs, poached eggs in creamy tomato sauce, spiced lamb stew, and just about every other dish Orion could possibly imagine.

Two lonesome chairs appeared at each end, and Eoin pulled out the nearest one for Orion. As soon as he sat down, the entire room literally whirled around him with Eoin as the only anchor, so that after the table had rotated, the god needn’t walk to his seat at all.

Eoin lowered himself and raised his glass of amber liquid in toast. “May this realm never eclipse you, Orion Galashiels.”

Orion lifted his own glass, filled with something pink and bubbly, and took a sip. It tasted of fresh summer peaches. Four butterflies flitted over to him, carrying a satin napkin between them. They draped it across his lap. “Why are we sitting so far apart?”

Eoin shrugged. “Wish me closer, and so it shall be.”

Orion frowned, and without much effort at all, the middle of the table suddenly sucked inward, like a taut rubber band snapping back into shape. He yelped as baskets of rosemary bread and tureens of pumpkin soup launched into the air.

The butterflies that had delivered Orion’s napkin darted upward. Their wings and slender little bodies turned inside out, swelling and transforming into gaping maws with vicious pearly white teeth. They consumed the food—tableware and all—in a gulp so voracious that it caused them to flip inward once more, teeth nowhere in sight.

Orion stared slack-jawed as they fluttered back over to Eoin to rest delicately upon his shoulders.

Eoin raised an eyebrow. “Well, they have to eat somehow,” he said, as if this were the most reasonable fact in history—and who was Orion to think otherwise? “It’s either this or they go and infest the nectar arboretums. And that never ends well.”

“Nectar?” asked Orion, sampling a bit of sausage and immediately forking an entire half of it into his mouth. He restrained a groan. The food here didn’t just look beautiful—it tasted beautiful, too.

Eoin laughed at his bliss. “Yes. Nectar. The fare of the Immortals. A few spoonfuls are enough to revive us from exhaustion beyond your scope. Currently, I’m drinking nectar wine. I would offer you some, but it would turn your bones to ash.”

“How very considerate of you,” said Orion. He suddenly noticed Eoin wasn’t eating—no plate, no silverware. “So . . . you live off nectar?”

“Yes. Though I do allow myself to indulge in these sorts of things on occasion.” The god swirled a finger in the air and a rib cutlet levitated toward him. It sliced itself midair and floated into his mouth. As he chewed, he propped his hand beneath his chin and gazed into his wine glass with a quiet solemnity. “Mostly to keep myself sane. I have forced myself to learn how to savor the finer things in this life . . . especially if I don’t deserve them.”

“But . . . why wouldn’t you deserve them?”

Eoin looked up, blinking, as if he couldn’t fathom the question. Then understanding flickered across his handsome face. “Ah. I forget that few mortals living today have read the Legends of the Immortals.”

“I have,” said Orion in surprise, though he couldn’t remember when or where. “Are they true?”

“Indeed,” Eoin replied. “Soraya penned them, in fact, centuries ago. She is the eldest of my shadowlings. Perhaps you’ll meet her one day. But if you have read the legends, Orion, then you’ll know that as the God of Shadow, my existence serves no pleasant purpose.”

“But you saved me,” Orion argued. “Or your shadows did, at least. Besides, no other Immortal could handle such enormous responsibility, so you stepped forward to shoulder the burden. Surely you aren’t a complete wretch. That counts for something, doesn’t it?”

A soft, secretive smile bloomed on Eoin’s lips, the subtle curl of chrysanthemum petals turning toward the sunshine. “If you say so, Orion Galashiels, then I suppose it does.”