Denial crashed into concern as my worst fear was confirmed. Ash had been that weakened by battle. I needed to get to him. He was completely vulnerable.
My chest began to tighten. Mostly, I reminded myself. He was protected. I clung to that and asked, “So, he’s…been taken to ground?”
“He has.”
Aware of his keen stare fixed on me, I didn’t allow myself to show even
the minuscule amount of relief I felt. The ground would protect and heal him. I swallowed, looking over at Kolis as a thought occurred to me.
“Why didn’t the earth attempt to protect him in the other chamber?” I asked. “I was under the impression that it happens pretty fast if a Primal is weakened.”
“It normally does. That is if the Primal isn’t killed outright.” He jerked his chin at the floor. “You see these tiles? They’re made of shadowstone. Do you know how shadowstone was created?”
I shook my head.
“Dragon fire. Not the draken, but their ancestors. Shadowstone is what became of any life form burned by dragon fire—from trees to mortals, even
the Ancients. Perhaps even a few Arae.” He laughed, clearly amused by that idea.
Meanwhile, my stomach churned as I thought about all the shadowstone in just this one chamber, let alone throughout Iliseeum and the deposits in the mortal realm—like my lake and the Shadow Temples.
Wait.
The floor of my lake was originally trees or people?
More importantly, the entire exterior of the House of Haides had been constructed from it, as was the grand staircase in the foyer, the walls of many of the chambers, and even some of the floor.
Well, that was something I could’ve gone my entire life not knowing. “That’s…a lot of melted-down people,” I murmured, my lip curling.
His laugh was lighter. Friendly, even. “It actually doesn’t take that much
to have a rather large deposit of shadowstone. Once the living creature is, as you put it, melted, they in essence become slag, soaking into the soil and
sometimes spreading into rivers and streams. Once that cools, everything the slag touches becomes shadowstone.”
“Oh,” I whispered, thinking that explanation didn’t make the fact that my feet were resting upon the slag of people easier to swallow.
“There are only a few things in either realm that can penetrate
shadowstone,” he said. “And the earth is not one of them. There only needs to be a few slivers in a floor or area, and the roots will not be able to break
through.”
I frowned, only knowing of one thing shadowstone was vulnerable to, and that was shadowstone itself.
I bet the bones of the Ancients were the second thing.
“I may have gone a bit overboard in here.” Kolis gave the outer room a scan, then shrugged. “The walls and ceiling of the chamber and your quarters are constructed of pure shadowstone, but it was my brother who built the
House of Haides, what good that did him.” His silver-and-gold gaze returned to me as he slowly unhooked one leg. “Shadowstone also weakens eather— the Primal essence—although it does not block it completely.” Really?
Surprise flickered through me. If that were the case, I hadn’t expected the embers in me, a mortal, to be strong enough to get past the shadowstone. I glanced at the faint cracks I’d created in the tile and walls. Did he notice
them? And if so, assume they were due to him and Ash battling? Ash had said the hit of eather he’d taken from me was strong.
“How does that work?” I asked, my curiosity getting the better of me. “How does the shadowstone weaken eather?”
“It absorbs the energy, just as it does light, and doesn’t allow us to pull as much of the essence from the environment,” he stated as if that explained everything. “I believe you, by the way.”
I stopped thinking about shadowstone immediately. He did? Holy damn, I was so surprised, a breeze could’ve toppled me. “Good,” I said. “Because I’m telling the truth.”
“About Nyktos?” His chin dipped as his smile became tight. “Yes.”
My relief vanished in an instant, almost like it never was. The unease
doubled, and it suddenly struck me that it wasn’t just my response to Kolis. It was also Sotoria’s. The feeling was stronger now than it had been when Attes was here. She was more than aware. Maybe actively listening in. I…I
instinctually knew I was right, and I also knew she was wary. Very much so. A great sense of foreboding slithered up my spine like a slow-creeping vine.
“I doubt you’d have known that removing the kardia can be done.” Kolis stood. “And it sounds like something Nyktos would do.”
“It does?”
He nodded. “You see, I know my nephew better than he knows himself.” I doubted that, but I wisely kept my opinion to myself.
“He’s likely convinced himself that removing his kardia prevents me from hurting him by striking at someone he loves.” The kind of smile I was familiar with returned, and, gods, there was something off about it. Like it was an expression he’d learned but didn’t quite understand. “What do you
think?”
I pressed my fingers into my knees. “I think…I think what happened to his parents would’ve drawn him toward such a conclusion.”
Kolis’s laugh was short and flat. “Possibly, but it’s not the real reason, my dear.” He knelt. “It’s because he fears turning into me.”
The breath I drew in got stuck. Nektas had said something similar.
Kolis’s gaze tracked over the tangled length of my hair. “And he fears that because he knows he would do the same as I did if the one he loved were taken from him.” He lowered his voice. “He knows he would be capable of
worse.”
Maybe Kolis was right. If Ash still had his kardia, perhaps he would be capable of worse. But he was also wrong in a big way.
Sotoria had never been his to lose.
That was the godsdamn crux of the whole issue.
“Do you know how I know he fears becoming me?” His tone turned sly as if he were sharing a secret. “I made sure of it.”
Fury surged through my veins and poured into my chest, stoking the Primal essence. It hit me so hard and fast there was no tamping it down. My skin tingled, seething—
“So, yes, I believe what you said about Nyktos.” That hollow smile remained. “Calm yourself.”
I jolted, only then realizing I had stood.
“Pull it back in.” He spoke softly as a fine sprinkle of dust and plaster floated from the ceiling. “Now.”
Looking down, I saw the glow of silver filling the veins of my hands. My heart stuttered with trepidation as my gaze flew to Kolis.
“Sit,” he ordered.
I sat, my heart pounding as I struggled to rein the power back in.
“The eather is a part of you.” His voice had thinned, the smile fading. “Show some restraint and will it back in.”
Show some restraint? He had no idea the level of restraint I was already displaying. My chest rose with a deeper breath, and I told myself to, well, to knock it off. The essence was a part of me. I could control it.
After a moment, the glow faded from my skin. “Good girl.”
My narrow-eyed gaze shot to his before I could stop myself.
Kolis chuckled. “As I was saying,” he said with a smirk, “I believe what you said about Nyktos, but what I don’t believe is what you’ve claimed about
how you feel. I know for a fact you’re lying, and it’s not only your behavior just now that confirmed it.”
“I—”
Kolis was suddenly in front of me, causing me to gasp and jerk back. I didn’t make it very far. He grabbed my wrist, lifting my hand so he held it between our faces—my right hand.
“This,” he sneered, forcibly turning my hand so the golden swirls of the imprint faced me. “This tells me you feel far more than fondness for my
nephew.”
Oh, shit.
My heart started banging all around my chest. I hadn’t even considered the imprint.
“Only a union formed out of love can be blessed.” The wisps of eather slowed in his eyes. “You love him.”
Pressure clamped down on my chest. I didn’t know what to say. My thoughts raced, but nothing my mind spewed provided a way out of this.
“So, tell me something,” he said, that cold bitterness seeping back into his voice. “What are we going to do?”
“I…I don’t know what you mean.”
“With you. My nephew.” He paused, looking down at my hand. “With
this.”
I swallowed thickly, the word fuck on a constant loop in my mind. “Cutting off your hand won’t change how you feel.”
My eyes went wide. Had he seriously considered that?
“So, tell me, what am I to do?”
Acid churned in the pit of my stomach. “I don’t know how this imprint happened. It wasn’t something I decided on,” I said in a rush. “It just
appeared.”
“Whether it was a conscious act or not is irrelevant.”
A tremor started deep within me, birthing an icy fear that had little to do with my safety and more to do with Ash’s. The only thing I could think about was the truth—and I thought I could make it work. “I don’t know you.”
He frowned.
“I don’t remember you or…or anything from my past lives, only what I’ve been told,” I continued. “But I know Nyktos. I got to know him. And,
yes, I do love him, but…” My chest ached with what I was about to say next. “I’m not in love with him.”
Kolis’s eyes searched mine. “There’s a difference between the two?”
I hesitated, seeing that he truly didn’t know there was. “Yes, there is a whole realm’s worth of difference between the two.”
“Explain,” he demanded.
“It’s hard to put into words—”
“Then think very hard so that putting it into words will not be so difficult.”
“Loving someone isn’t…it isn’t less than being in love. It’s just not as strong or as irrevocable. Loving someone can change,” I rambled, my heart thumping as he listened closely. “It can grow into being in love, and it can fade. Being in love…it doesn’t do that. It only gets stronger, and you would
do anything for that person. Anything.” My throat thickened as I thought about the dream I’d had. “Being in love is…it’s unbreakable.”
Kolis fell quiet and looked as if I’d spoken an unfamiliar language to him.
Then again, this was the very same person who believed a prisoner could become a companion.
My anxiety ramped up. I felt as if I were standing on the edge of a cliff, my toes curling into the abyss. I had a plan to free Ash, and I knew what it would take to carry it out.
Breathing shallowly, I counted. Breathe in. Hold. Breathe out. Hold. And as I did, I shut it down. All of it. My concern. The fear. My rage. Everything. Just as I’d done so many times during my life until Ash.
Doing so now caused a suffocating sense of sorrow to settle in my throat and chest, but it had then, too. I breathed past it, though. I shut it all down as I exhaled, even my awareness of Sotoria, breathing long and slow as I became nothing.
An empty vessel once more.
A blank canvas down to my bones, suitable and ready to become whoever I needed to be. Strong but hollow, and whatever Kolis wanted me to be.
The racing of my heart slowed. The trembling ceased. The embers quelled. I was just like his smile. Learned but hollow. “If…if you don’t know the difference between the two, then how can you claim to love me?”
Kolis sucked in a sharp breath, dropping my wrist as if I’d burned him.
He rose, his movements shaky. “I love you—” His eyes shut, his large shoulders tensing. “I’m in love with you.”
“Then prove it,” I whispered.
His eyes flew open. “Release Nyktos.”
The madly whirling eather stilled in his eyes. “And why in the fuck
would I do that?”
“Because I asked you to.”
“Let me repeat myself.” His voice grew thick with fury, each word spat like a venom-tipped arrow. “Why in the fuck would I do that?” A muscle in
his temple throbbed. “When your demand proves what’s so plainly visible on your hand and in your behavior.”
“I ask for his freedom because it doesn’t make sense for you to do so. He’s your enemy. My husband.” I lifted my chin at the low snarl coming from him, allowing myself to only feel a smidgen of fear. I could control that. My tone. Him. The eather. The learned instinct was like slipping on a gown that only felt a little too tight, and it was so obvious to me then that I hadn’t fully become nothing until right now. “My husband, whom I love but am not in love with. I wouldn’t do anything for him, but will you do anything for
me?”
“I think that should be obvious,” he spat. “Considering I killed my brother to bring you back to life and then spent what has felt like eons searching for
you.”
“But I don’t remember any of that.”
His nostrils flared. “Do you remember me not killing you after you stabbed me? Should that not be proof enough?”
“No.”
Kolis’s eyes went wide. “And why not?”
“Because not killing someone you love is the bare minimum. That’s not doing anything for them,” I told him, thinking this was something I’d never thought I would actually have to explain to someone. “No matter what you have to gain from their death.”
He snapped his jaw shut.
“But freeing Nyktos?” I picked up my glass and rose. Kolis took a step back from me.
I could barely hide my smile. “That is something you don’t want to do, but you would be doing it simply to please me.”
“And why would that please you?”
“As I said, I love him. I don’t want to see any harm come to him,” I reasoned, more calmly than I’d ever done in my entire life. I crossed to the table and boldly turned my back on Kolis. “I don’t want to have to worry about him, and I will. And that has nothing to do with love.”
I picked up the decanter and pulled out the stopper. “He protected me, even before I became his Consort.” I filled a glass for myself and then poured Kolis one. Hopefully, he wouldn’t destroy this flute. “You’ve endangered
me.”
“I have done no—”
“But you have.” Holding the glasses, I faced him. Kolis hadn’t moved from where he stood near the divan. “But you also didn’t know who I was. I didn’t either, not for a long time.” I offered him the glass.
He hesitated but then took it.
“Anyway, I don’t think I can fall in love with another if I’m worrying about the one I do love,” I said, taking a sip of the fruity water.
“And why would you be interested in…falling in love?” Kolis demanded, the hollows of his cheeks flushed.
“Because I’ve never known what it’s like to be in love and to be loved in return—” My voice cracked, as did the vessel I’d become. Closing my eyes, I turned my head and waited until the burn of the truth eased. The sting didn’t fade completely because what I’d said was true, and no matter how empty I made myself, I could still feel that agony. “I would like to know how that
feels.”
There was silence, and then the air around me stirred. My heart skipped a beat as I opened my eyes.
Kolis stood less than a foot from me. “This feels like a manipulation,” he said. “But the pain I just witnessed was real.” A moment passed, then his
voice lowered. “Why would you want to love me?”
Man, wasn’t that a damn good question? A very loaded one, with so many reasons why I could never, ever love him.
But Kolis didn’t want to hear that. It wasn’t what he needed from me.
I watched the bubbles in the water fizz as I racked my brain for what I knew about Kolis. It wasn’t much, but I did know why he’d frightened
Sotoria so badly that she fell from a cliff in her attempt to escape him. “Relate to him,” the Mistresses of the Jade had instructed. “Form a
shared commonality. Be sympathetic, but do not show pity.”
“I…I was never wanted as a child, not beyond what my mother believed I could do for her kingdom,” I said slowly, hoarsely. “You likely already know
that, but I was an outcast in my own home and avoided. Some even feared me. No one wanted to touch me.”
The glass I’d given Kolis sat untouched on the table. He watched, not even blinking.
“I suppose we have that in common,” I said. “And maybe from that commonality, love can blossom.”
His head twisted sharply to the side, away from me. “But only if I first release the man you already love?”
“Yes.”
Kolis’s chin dipped an inch, his voice a whisper of nightmares. “Do you think I’m a fool?”
A niggle of fear found its way in, but I squashed it. “If you weren’t, then I’d know you’re not in love with me. Being in love with someone makes you do incredibly idiotic things.”
“Idiotic enough to forget that you tried to kill me already?” he asked. “I’ve stabbed Nyktos,” I shared. “So…”
Kolis blinked. “You stabbed Nyktos?”
“Yep. Held a dagger to his throat, too.” I took a drink as the false King openly gaped at me. “I’ve also threatened him more times than I can even begin to recall.”
He gave a slow shake of his head. “You are…not what I expected.” I snorted. “You aren’t the first to say that.”
His frown deepened. “What will happen exactly once I free Nyktos?
What will that change?”
Hope sparked, but I would not let that little fucker grow. “I won’t fight you.”
“Explain,” he ordered impatiently.
“I won’t try to escape.” That was a lie. “I won’t run from you.” He inhaled sharply. “You will…submit to me?”
The feeling of thorns pricking my skin went up and down my body. I tried to get my mouth to form words, but I couldn’t. Well, I’d been wrong again.
My canvas wasn’t as blank as I needed it to be. Apparently, even I had my limits. “I will not fight you, Kolis.” I finished off the bubbly water. “Do we have a deal?”
The false Primal of Life studied me intently and a little warily. “We do.” Relief almost took me to my knees—almost.
“But only if you speak the truth about Sotoria and how you feel. I will
find out. All your truths.” He smiled. “And if you’re lying?” He retrieved his glass. “I believe you know what will happen.”
My throat dried. I remembered what he’d said. “There will be no end to the atrocities committed upon me and those I care about.”
Kolis’s smile spread. “In both life and for you in death,” he said. “I will take your soul, and it will be mine.”
