Redeemed (House of Night #12)(93)

“The Seer Stone heats up around Aurox,” Stark added, sending Aurox an annoyed look.

“But not all the time,” Damien said.

“Z, is it hot right now?” Stevie Rae asked me.

I closed my fingers around it to be sure before I answered and shook my head. “Nope. It’s just a stone. Not hot. Not cold.”

“Neferet can’t be killed,” Aurox said. Everyone looked at him in surprise. He’d been sitting off to the side of our group, listening but hardly saying anything, for hours.

“Yeah, genius. We know that. She’s immortal,” Aphrodite said.

“But Zoey just said she needs to use Old Magick to kill Neferet. Damien said it an hour ago. You even said it forty-five minutes before that. Stevie Rae mentioned it as soon as we all sat—”

“Okay, we get it,” I interrupted him, feeling the irritation level in the room rising with each of his comments. “We know she can’t be killed.”

“At least we think she can’t be killed,” Rephaim said. “Father was immortal, and he is dead.”

There was a long, sad silence, so when Aurox spoke, it sounded extra loud and extra awkward.

“I believe that is the core of your problem. You’re not asking yourselves the right question because of what happened to Kalona. You know Neferet is immortal, yet you believe if Zoey wields enough power, she can still be killed. I think that is a mistake that is keeping you from finding your plan.” As if he was warming to the subject, Aurox leaned forward in his chair, studying Rephaim. “No one has explained it to me, but you all seem to know the answer unsaid. Forgive me if this brings you pain, but can you tell me how it is your father was killed, though he had been immortal for eons?”

Stark stood and put his hand on Rephaim’s shoulder. “I’ll answer that for you.” He gave Aurox a hard look. “When Heath, the kid who’s soul is inside you, was killed by Kalona, Zoey’s soul shattered and she was trapped in the Otherworld. I followed her there to try to get her back. Kalona did, too, because Neferet got control over him and sent him to be sure Z never made it back. Kalona and I fought in the Otherworld. He won. I lost. He killed me. Nyx interceded because Kalona cheated. He should have never been there to begin with. He was banished from the Otherworld by the Goddess, and he slipped back in under a technicality.”

I saw Aurox’s confusion and I explained, “Nyx banished Kalona physically, but didn’t specifically say his spirit wasn’t allowed in the Otherworld, either. He came back as spirit, not body.”

Aurox nodded. “I see.”

“Because Father disobeyed the Goddess’s edict, she commanded him to give Stark a piece of his immortality,” Rephaim said.

“And because Kalona obeyed her command, I’m alive today,” Stark said.

“But he’s dead because of it,” Aurox said. “I understand.”

“Do ya also understand that’s a pretty sore subject right now?” Stevie Rae said, taking Rephaim’s hand and sliding closer to him.

“Of course I understand that. I did not mean to cause anyone pain. Rephaim, you have my apology,” Aurox said.

“Accepted,” Rephaim said. “We all know Father made many mistakes. It’s just difficult to relive them right now.”

“And yet we need all of the information we can get to defeat Neferet, and that includes understanding that her immortality is intact,” Aurox said.

“So she doesn’t have an Achilles’ heel, like Kalona did,” I said.

“She doesn’t have a literal weakness, as did Kalona and Achilles,” Damien said in his teacher voice. “But maybe we can find something from her past that we can use against her.”

“We already tried that. The Seer Stone turned into a mirror that showed her past, when she’d been beaten up and raped by her dad,” I said. “The reason that worked then was that she was shocked enough that Aurox had a chance to gore her and throw her off the balcony. She won’t be surprised by that again.”

“But she was weakened enough to be defeated—even temporarily,” Aurox said.

“Talk about fighting creepy with creepy,” Aphrodite said. “No offense, Bull Boy, but you can be as gross as those spiders when you do that change-up thing.”

I shivered, not liking the memory that flashed in my mind of what lurked beneath Aurox’s normal-looking façade.

“No offense taken,” Aurox said.

“Aurox, can you kill her?” I asked.

He shook his head slowly. “I used all of my power against her at the penthouse, and that did not kill her. What we need is something like what you and I did to her, only more permanent. We need a prison fashioned to hold an immortal, not a weapon to slay one.”

“Holy crap,” I said, sitting up straighter. “A-ya!”

“What is A-ya?” Aurox asked.

“She’s a who, not a what,” I said, speaking fast, trying to keep up with my zooming thoughts. “A-ya was a maiden created from earth and breathed to life—”

“With Old Magick,” Aphrodite finished.

I nodded. “Yeah, with Old Magick. She lured Kalona underground.”

“Because unless they have ties to the earth, immortals are weakest underground,” Damien said, his voice mirroring my excitement.