I stared at the bodies gently bobbing in the moonlight-drenched water, so utterly shocked by what the ceeren had sacrificed that I was numb, deadened to the point where I felt incredibly empty.
Why had they done this?
But they hadn’t been given a choice, had they? Kolis had demanded that Phanos assist, and this was how the Primal of the Sky, Sea, Earth, and Wind helped.
You know what you ask of me.
Kolis had.
But I hadn’t.
If I’d known, I would’ve done everything in my power to prevent the
unnecessary loss of life. Because it was unnecessary. Phanos had said it himself. What the ceeren had given their lives for was only temporary. I would still die. But even if I wouldn’t? I wasn’t okay with this.
“Why?” I whispered into the wind, my voice hoarse.
“Because I will not allow you to die,” Kolis answered, speaking nearly the same words Ash had but…
When spoken by Ash, they had always sounded like a tragic oath birthed of desperation, stubbornness, and want—so much want. A tremor started in my hands and swept through my body. Kolis’s words sounded like a threat and reeked of obsession.
My gaze skipped over the lifeless ceeren. I had never wanted anyone to lose their life because of me. Like those who’d perished during the
Shadowlands siege.
Like Ector had.
The image of the god flashed in my mind, momentarily obscuring the horror in front of me. It wasn’t how I’d seen him on the pike when Ash and I returned from the mortal realm. While that had been bad, I preferred it to how I’d last seen him; when he’d been nothing more than red, slick pieces. Ector hadn’t deserved that. Neither had Aios, who I’d at least been able to bring back. But had she wanted that? I had no idea how long she’d been dead.
Could I have ripped her away from peace? And that act had a ripple effect— ending how many other lives? The eather I’d used to restore Aios’s life drew the dakkais and caused them to swarm those fighting in the courtyard.
Now, dozens of ceeren had died—were murdered—for me. And for what?
This wouldn’t stave off the Ascension. It was only a reprieve.
Instead of being rushed toward the end, I was now inching toward it. But it was still coming. There was no stopping that. Just like there’d been no changing what had been done to Ector. Or to the ceeren and countless others.
“I don’t want anyone dying for me,” I choked out.
“You do not have a choice,” Kolis stated. “And if you are who you say you are, you should know that.”
I flinched at the sickening truth of his words. Sotoria had never had a
choice from the moment Kolis saw her collecting flowers along the Cliffs of Sorrow. And I’d never had a choice from the very second Roderick Mierel made his desperate bargain with the true Primal of Life to save his dying kingdom.
It wasn’t fair.
It never had been.
Rage and panic swiftly swelled inside me, but I wasn’t sure it was entirely mine. My fingers curled into the sand as my heart rate sped up. Raw, jagged
emotions lodged in my chest and throat. I pushed to my feet, my breath coming in short, too-quick pants. And turned to Kolis.
The false King of Gods looked down at me, a curious pinch to his features. The wind lifted the flaxen strands of his hair, sending them against high, arched cheekbones. Golden smudges of eather snaked through the
bronze flesh of his bare chest. There was no evidence of his battle with Ash. He was completely healed.
I spared a glance around us. We weren’t alone. Others stood several feet back in the shadows of leafy palms. I only saw them because their
shadowstone blades glinted in the moonlight. I didn’t know if they were
Kolis’s guards or Phanos’s, but they had weapons, and that was all that mattered.
“She had fewer freckles than you, and her face was shaped more like a heart. The hair isn’t right. Hers was like…like a polished garnet in the sun.” Kolis’s voice was soft, almost childlike in its awe, but his words slithered along the sand and brushed against my skin. “But if I look hard enough…if I let myself see, I do see her in you.”
I reacted.
There was no hesitation. No thought. I took off, darting past him and running hard and fast, my feet kicking up sand as the material of the soaked gown clung to my skin. I ran straight for the guards.
Surprise flashed across the face of a pale-skinned guard, his blue-green
eyes luminous with eather widening a second before I slammed my palm into his chest. The god grunted, stumbling back as I reached for the hilt of his short sword.
“Fuck,” he gasped, reaching for me when I yanked the blade from its sheath.
I’d caught him off guard. I was simply quicker than he was. I jabbed the
elbow of my other arm out, catching him under the jaw and snapping his head back.
“Do not touch her,” Kolis ordered as another grabbed for me. “Ever.” The other guard froze.
Spinning toward the false King, I firmed my grip on the cool iron hilt the shadowstone blade had been forged to.
“Leave us,” he instructed. “Now.”
I didn’t dare look away from Kolis to see if the guards listened to him. I could only imagine that they had, which suited me just fine.
Kolis and I stared at each other in silence while I willed my racing heart to slow. I needed to be calm, careful, and purposeful. Because even though Kolis questioned what I claimed about Sotoria, he believed deep down. That was why he’d shaken so hard when he held me, and it created the awe in his voice that I’d heard only moments earlier.
That all meant he was vulnerable to me—only me—and this was my chance. Possibly the only one I’d get to end this.
“I expected you to run from me,” Kolis remarked. “That’s what she would’ve done. She always ran.”
“Not always,” I said, remembering what I’d learned about Sotoria. She may have run in the beginning, but that changed.
Laces of golden eather swirled faster across his chest. “You’re right.” His chin lifted. A heartbeat passed. “Put the sword down.”
That would not happen. “Make me.”
“Come now,” he said with a low chuckle, his wide mouth curling into a mockery of a smile that bordered on patronizing. He started toward me, the wind off the sea tugging at his linen pants. “What do you think you’re going to do with that?”
Waiting until he was within reach of the blade, I showed him exactly what I could do. I thrust out with the shadowstone sword, aiming straight for the bastard’s heart.
Kolis’s eyes widened, and his brows lifted, creasing the skin of his forehead. The stunned look on his face was comical. It was as if he couldn’t believe that I dared to do such a thing. I would’ve laughed, but he was a Primal.
And he was fast, his reflexes as insane as Ash’s. But like with the guard, I had the element of surprise. Kolis didn’t really believe I would attack, which cost him a fraction of a second.
The shadowstone blade pierced his skin, and my lips split in a savage grin.
The second the sword sank into his chest, he knocked the hilt from my grasp with such jarring force that I lost my balance in the unforgiving sand and fell to one knee.
The sword vibrated where it was partially lodged in his chest, a half an inch—if that—to the right of his heart.
Son of a bitch.
Shimmery blood trickled down Kolis’s chest as he gripped the sword’s hilt, tearing it free. The very moment the blade was out of his body, the damn wound immediately stopped bleeding.
Thick, dark clouds raced over the once-calm sky, blotting out the stars and moon. A stuttered heartbeat passed.
Lightning suddenly streaked above and energy swamped the air, slithering over my skin and causing the embers in my chest to flare. The weight of the soaking power was oppressive, threatening to push me into the ground.
Heart thundering, my head jerked up. Fury was etched into every line of Kolis’s face and set the hard jut of his jaw. The veins in his cheeks lit up with golden-tinged eather. The embers in my chest responded, beginning to thrum wildly as the Primal essence turned his eyes into silver pools with flecks of gold.
“That is the second time tonight I’ve had a sword pierce my flesh.” Light pulsed from his hand, and the shadowstone sword he held evaporated into nothing, not even dust. “I did not appreciate it before, and that has not
changed.”
My stomach hollowed as I shot to my feet. I’d stabbed Ash more than once and threatened to do so again too many times to count, but I’d never
been afraid of him. Not even when he went full Primal on me in the Dying Woods after I accidentally hit him with a bolt of eather.
But I was afraid of Kolis.
I tried to swallow, but my throat seized. I took a step back.
Kolis swiped a hand over his chest and looked down at his blood-smeared palm. He tilted his head and lowered his hand. “That was very unwise.”
“It was,” I rasped. “I probably should’ve aimed for the head.” His gold-flecked silver eyes went flat. Absolutely dead.
I did the only sensible thing. Pivoting, I ran. This time, no guards stood in
the shadows of the sweeping palms. My arms and legs pumped—
Kolis caught my hair in a fist, jerking my entire body back. Fiery pain erupted in my scalp as my feet slipped. I landed on my knees again. Knowing this put me at a dangerous disadvantage, I attempted to regain my footing
while he dragged me through the sand.
Kolis hauled me up and whipped me around. “Now that, I am more accustomed to.” He yanked my head back.
I gasped as pain traveled from my scalp down my spine. Grabbing hold of his arm, I tried to loosen the tension.
“The running-away part, in case you’re wondering what I meant.”
A tiny part buried deep inside me knew this was one of the moments I needed to keep my mouth shut and think before I did anything. Not only for my life but also the entirety of the mortal realm.
But I refused to cower before him. She refused to do it, no matter the cost.
No matter how foolish it was. I was not weak, and I’d been wrong when I first heard the legend of Sotoria. She was not weak either.
“That sounds like something to be proud of,” I spat, bringing my knee up fast and hard.
I’d missed his heart before, but I did not miss now.
My knee slammed into his groin. A roar of pain erupted from Kolis, and his arm cut through the air—
Agony exploded in my jaw and cheek. A metallic taste immediately filled my mouth. I went down, catching myself a second before I face-planted in
the sand. I didn’t even know what part of him had hit me. His arm? A fist? Whatever it was had my ears ringing. For a moment, the pain stunned me enough that I feared it was something Ash could feel if he was conscious.
Rocking back onto my knees, I breathed through the pain until the initial brutal shock of it lessened. I spat a mouthful of blood onto the sand, shocked that a tooth hadn’t come flying out with it.
“Godsdamn it,” Kolis snarled. “I didn’t mean for that to happen.” The white linen of his pants edged into my vision. “Are you all right?”
A spasm ran through me. He sounded…gods, he sounded genuinely concerned, and that sent a chill down my spine. “What do you think?”
“I told you not to push me,” he reasoned, the sound of his breaths sharp and short. “But you’re determined to make me into the villain.”
“Make you a villain?” A wet laugh left me as I pushed to my feet. I lifted my throbbing head. “You’re already that.”
“I never…” Kolis’s eyes tracked the blood running down my chin, and he flinched. The fucker actually flinched at the sight of the blood he’d drawn. “I never wanted to be that.”
“My gods,” I whispered. “You’re unhinged.”
In the moonlight, his cheeks deepened in color. “If so, then I am only what my brother made me,” he snarled.
“Is there anything you don’t blame your brother for?” I snapped.
Kolis shot forward so fast I sucked in a stuttered breath and jerked back a step. And I hated that I’d retreated, that I’d given him even an inch.
He halted, his chest rising and falling rapidly. A moment passed, then another. It was clear to me that he was keeping himself in check. Barely. “This is not what I want—us fighting.”
“I don’t care what you want!” I shot back, my stomach twisting. I wasn’t exactly sure that had only been me who’d yelled the words.
His hands fisted at his sides. “Do not push me, so’lis.”
So’lis? I had no idea what that meant, but I thought Sotoria might because her rage was palpable, and it was most definitely her that screamed what
came out of my mouth next. “Fuck you!”
I didn’t see him move before I felt his grip at my throat. My hands flew to his. I pried at his fingers, but it was no use. His fingertips pressed in, making it difficult to breathe.
“I warned you not to push me,” Kolis accused, his nostrils flaring. “Yet you do exactly that and more.”
Ignoring the fluttering panic in my chest, I met and held his stare.
“I think you’ve spent too much time with my nephew.” Kolis smirked. “And I saw him give me that very same look tonight. I’m sure I will see it again soon enough.”
“You touch him, and I—” I forced out the words amid gasps for air.
“You will do what?” Kolis cut in, faint wisps of eather beginning to stir in his eyes as his grip got even tighter. “What will you do for him? Because I
saw what he’d do for you. He’d kill his brethren. Attack me. Start a war.”
Some level of common sense returned, warning me that I needed to be smart when it came to Ash. It took no leap of logic to know that if Kolis suspected I was in love with his nephew, he would approach it as Sotoria being in love with him, and that wouldn’t end well.
The image of the dagger rising and plunging flashed before me. I could still hear the wet, fleshy sounds.
My heart raced with fear—potent, numbing terror. Ash wasn’t safe right now. He’d been weakened, and because of me, gravely injured.
“What?” Kolis demanded, his fingers digging into the bite he’d left behind as he lifted me onto my tiptoes. “What will you do for him that you will not do for me?”
“Just about anything you can think of, but that has nothing to do with him. At the end of the day, I couldn’t care less about him.” I forced out words that couldn’t be more untrue. My chest felt as if it were shrinking with each passing second. Kolis’s grip tightened, likely bruising, and I choked. “I would do anything for literally anyone else—a random guard, another Primal, a corpse, a piece of grass…” I wheezed.
“I think I get the picture.” His lip curled. One fang appeared. “And I also think you’re lying.”
Alarm quickened my pulse. I realized I needed to distract him from
thoughts of Ash, and the only way I knew how to do that was to direct his attention to me completely. “And I think you…I think you hit like a wanna- be Primal of Life.”
Kolis’s laughter filled the air like a hiss as he hauled me against his chest. The contact of his flesh against the too-thin gown sent a shudder of revulsion through me. “You are so incredibly foolish and reckless. Too bold and entirely too mouthy.”
“You…”—I struggled for breath—“forgot one…thing.” “And what is that?” he asked. “Disrespectful?”
“Sure, but…I’m also soon…to be dead,” I wheezed.
He raised a golden brow. “Is that so?”
“Yes,” I croaked. “Since you’re killing me…again.”
For a moment, Kolis didn’t move. He’d gone completely still. Then his
gaze dropped to where he had me by the throat. His eyes widened in surprise. It was almost as if he’d had no idea he was choking me. He shoved me away from him.
Stumbling back, I barely managed to keep my balance. I bent at the waist, hands on my knees while I dragged in deep mouthfuls of salty air. A tremor coursed through me, and I swallowed, wincing at the soreness in my throat.
I could practically feel the bruises forming on the skin of my neck, but I learned something then. I laughed, the sound like nails against stone. It hurt, but as sick and twisted as it was, his love of Sotoria was a weakness in more ways than one.
“This conversation is over,” Kolis said. Another laugh almost snuck free. He thought this was a conversation? “We are going home, and once you’ve calmed down, we will talk then.”
“Home?” Slowly, I straightened, my disbelief, anger, and maybe a little of Sotoria’s, getting the better of me. “Go fuck yourself, you nightmarish piece
of—” I tensed, seeing his hand move this time, knowing it would hurt.
The blow never landed.
Kolis gripped my chin, and my heart stuttered. It wasn’t his hold. The
press of his fingers was firm but nowhere near as bruising as it had been on my throat. Still, what I saw caused my heart to continue skipping beats.
Primal essence sparked and ignited, spilling into the air around him. A bright, golden glow rose, arcing from his back like wings. The swirls of eather spread so rapidly over his flesh that, for a moment, he became as he had been when battling Ash: blinding, golden light and spitting eather that stung my skin.
But the light faded quickly, showing that his skin had thinned to the point where the bones of his arm were visible. A knot of dread twisted in my stomach as I lifted my gaze. I didn’t want to see, but I couldn’t stop from looking.
I saw the dull sheen of his cheekbones. His jawbone. The bones of his arm. And his eyes… They were just sockets filled with pools of black, swirling nothingness.
Kolis hadn’t looked like this when he battled Ash, but I knew instantly that this was what the true Primal embers of death looked like.
And it was terrifying.
The wings of eather lifted and stretched behind him, then disappeared into golden smoke. The aura in his veins faded as his skin thickened, hiding what he truly looked like. “I do hope you are far more aware and grateful of the
grace I’ve shown you than Nyktos was.” “Grace?” I exclaimed. “You—”
The whirling abyss of nothingness that had been his eyes flashed to silver and gold. “You will not speak.”
My body went rigid, the four words thundering through me. An aching pulse shot through my jaw, and my mouth clamped shut.
“You will not talk back,” Kolis said, and his voice was everywhere, both outside and inside of me. “Nor will you fight me.”
My muscles obeyed him instantly. I lowered my hands to my sides. What I’d feared in the ruined chamber as I held the dagger to my throat had come to fruition. He was using compulsion.
“That is much better.” Kolis smiled and drew me toward him with just the curl of his arm. He lowered his head, and his mouth was just an inch from
mine when he spoke next. “Much, much better.”
I felt his hand on my lower back and then his chest against mine. My heart lurched. I willed my mouth to open. Wished for my arms and legs to move, but nothing happened. All I could do was stand there. He could do anything to me. Fear blossomed at the loss of control.
“There is something you need to understand, whether you’ve spoken the truth of who you are or not.” One by one, he lifted all his fingers but his thumb. “If anyone dared to speak to me as you have, I would have their flesh flayed from their bodies and fed to them.”
Kolis wiped at the blood under my lower lip and then lifted his hand to his mouth.
I was going to be sick.
Hopefully, if I did vomit, I would do it in his fucking face.
He sucked on his thumb, drawing the blood into his mouth. The eather brightened in his eyes. “You saw what happened to Nyktos for daring to
strike me.” His head tilted, sending a lock of gold hair against a cheek. “So, if
it turns out you are not my graeca, and this is some sort of elaborate ploy?
There will be no limit to the atrocities visited upon you and everyone you’ve ever cared about before I take the embers of life.” His lips grazed mine as they curved into a smile. “That, I promise you.”
