Sister?
Choking on the water, I spit some out as I coughed, staring wide-eyed at the false King.
Kolis’s mouth spread into an untried, lopsided smile. “Are you all right?” “No,” I wheezed, flapping my hand in front of my wide, stinging eyes.
There was no way I’d heard him correctly. No way. “What did you just say?”
Kolis’s forehead creased and then smoothed out. “Ah, you don’t remember. He is your brother, your younger brother.”
My stare remained fixed on the false King, so paralyzed by the shock of his revelation that I wasn’t even thinking of that thing he’d done to me. “You can’t be serious. He’s not…” I couldn’t even bring myself to say it. The fact that Callum was Sotoria’s brother and not mine didn’t matter.
“I’m not what?” Callum demanded.
“Sane?” I snapped. “Likable? Reasonable? Not vomit-inducing or the opposite of a murderer?”
“Charming yet again,” Callum retorted. “She’s Sotoria but doesn’t know I’m her brother?” His lips pursed. “She recognized me the last time we met.”
“She does not remember those lives,” Kolis told him as he entered the cage, his eyes…gods, his eyes fucking twinkled. “Souls reborn don’t have memories.”
“She did last time,” Callum countered.
“That was different, and you know it,” Kolis said. “Her life was restored.
She was not reborn.”
“Whatever,” Callum muttered, glaring at the opposite wall. And, man, if looks could kill, that wall would be, well…it’d still be a wall, but the Revenant looked…
He looked as disturbed as I felt.
Dear gods, could this really be Sotoria’s brother?
That palpable unease in the center of my chest near the embers that wasn’t entirely mine told me he was.
“Holy shit,” I whispered, taking a step back. I placed the glass on the table before I dropped it. “You really are…” I still couldn’t say it. “Good
gods, what is up with there being such an abundance of terrible brothers?” “What is that supposed to mean?” The golden strands of Callum’s hair
whipped out as his head cut toward me. A faint twitch in his nostrils hinted at
his rising annoyance. “Wait. Do you think to compare me to the mortal trash known as Tavius?”
“I can’t argue with that descriptor,” I said. “But if the shoe fits, lace that bitch up and wear it.”
Callum’s mouth dropped open, and he looked positively aghast.
“You’re siblings,” Kolis remarked dryly. “You two argue just like Eythos and I once did.”
We both fell silent as we turned to him. Kolis smiled broadly.
“And look how that turned out,” I murmured under my breath, needing
liquor. Hard, mind-numbing, and memory-destroying alcohol. But something occurred to me then. I turned back to where Callum stood. “I asked if you
were Chosen. You lied.”
His chin went up a notch. “I didn’t lie.”
“Bullshit.” I stepped forward. “How else—?”
“He was not lying,” Kolis interrupted, drawing my gaze to him. He was less than a foot from me.
I couldn’t stop myself from taking half a step back from him. I hated the reaction. I hated how my heart started pounding, and I especially hated how he frowned. It was as if he had no idea why I’d do such a thing.
As if he’d forgotten how he’d shamed himself.
“You had two siblings. An older sister named Anthea, and a brother.” He nodded in Callum’s direction. “When you left me, I visited your family.”
Pushing the incident as far as I could to the back of my mind, I refocused. I assumed he meant when Sotoria died the first time after being frightened by him. But she hadn’t left him. She’d run from him.
“I wanted to apologize,” Kolis shared, a distant look creeping into his features. “And to explain to them that I petitioned my brother to return their daughter to the realm of the living.” His jaw flexed. “But that was as fruitful as speaking with Eythos. Your parents…” He sighed, his eyes narrowing on
the bars. “They were frightened of me, too. It didn’t matter how many times I said I wasn’t there to cause harm, they cowered in the corner of their small
home, shrieking and wailing in their mourning clothes.” A muscle throbbed in his temple. “Only your brother wasn’t afraid.”
I glanced at Callum. He’d now turned his death glare on the shadowstone tile.
“He spoke to me. Answered my questions about you,” he continued, the skin between his brows creasing. “He admired you greatly.”
“Really?” I drawled.
“Yes.” Callum’s head shot up, his pale eyes burning. “Sotoria was kind and fierce. She always looked out for me, taking on my chores if I overslept or wasn’t feeling well. She never grew annoyed with me. I loved—” His breath hitched. “Yes, I admired her.”
I didn’t know what to say to that as I closed my fingers around one of the silky tassels on the gown’s belt.
“He grieved your death deeply,” Kolis said. “Felt responsible.” I looked between them. “Why would you feel responsible?” Callum didn’t answer.
Kolis did. “He was supposed to be with you when you were picking
flowers for Anthea’s wedding. Instead, I believe he was fucking the baker’s daughter.”
Callum turned his head, and my brows inched up my forehead.
“He believed he could’ve prevented the tragedy if he had been there,” Kolis said. “Could have calmed his sister.”
Could he have? Possibly. “But how did he become a…Revenant?”
“Before I took my leave, he asked me to take him to Sotoria to apologize. I explained that was not possible. Mortals who have not passed judgment are not allowed in the Vale. He became distraught.”
Weight constricted my chest, thinning the breath I drew in, and I knew that what I felt was Sotoria’s sorrow—and maybe even a little of mine— because I…I thought I knew where this was heading.
“He withdrew a small knife from his belt and slit his throat,” Kolis said quietly.
“Gods,” I whispered, rubbing the center of my chest.
“I held you as you died.” Kolis’s voice thickened, filling with the
heaviness of anguish carrying the sharp, bitter edge of regret. “And then, days later, I held your brother as he, too, took his last breath.”
I sealed my lips together with a firm press, not wanting to be affected by the emotion in Kolis’s voice—by the tragedy. It was hard not to be, though. Back then, it was quite possible that Kolis wasn’t yet such a monster. He had merely been Death…
Well, Death with obsessive tendencies and poor interpersonal relationship skills. Like really, really poor interpersonal relationship skills.
But he wasn’t what he was now.
“I couldn’t allow him to die, and knowing Eythos would not intervene on my behalf, I did what was forbidden of Death.” A wry, humorless smile appeared on Kolis’s features. “I gave life.”
“You…you Ascended Callum?” When Kolis nodded, I frowned. “But he’s not like the one I saw, the one you called an Ascended. She had pitch-black eyes. And he wasn’t a third son—”
“Because they are not the same,” Kolis answered.
My thoughts raced as I eyed Callum. If he wasn’t… “Revenants are demis then?”
Based on how dramatically Callum rolled his eyes, I was going with no. “No, my dear, they are not.” Kolis smiled, and my skin felt like it was
coated in slime. “We will discuss this more later when we don’t have other
pressing needs to take care of.”
Needs.
Everything revolving around Callum fell to the wayside. My body locked up with both dread and anticipation, the latter hoping these needs dealt with Ash, and the former… The bite mark on my throat just above Aios’s necklace burned.
I didn’t want to think about the former. “Please, go ahead, Callum,” Kolis instructed.
Stomach twisting, I almost did the unthinkable and shouted for Callum to
stay as I watched him bow and then stalk from the chamber. “So’lis?”
Lowering my hands to my sides, I searched for the veil of nothingness. It took too long for me to find it, but I did. When I felt nothing of myself, I shifted my gaze to him.
“I wanted to speak with you about the deal we made.” He was watching me. “He has not been released.”
My stomach hollowed.
“I am not reneging on our deal,” he added quickly. “My nephew was still in stasis. That is currently being resolved.”
This was what Attes had been talking about. “What does that mean?” “My nephew is young for a Primal, but he is quite powerful.”
Pride surged through me. Damn straight, Ash was powerful.
“He awakened briefly from stasis right before Ione came,” he explained as he turned to the table. Something about that tugged at me. It was the same sensation I’d had when I dreamt Ash returned. “I had to ensure that he behaved himself while I decided what to do with him. That was before we struck our deal.”
The odd feeling vanished as I gripped the tassel on the belt. “How did you ensure that?”
Please don’t let it be what Attes suspected. Please. Please.
He poured himself a drink. “If I tell you, I believe it may upset you.” “Not telling me will make me…worry more,” I said, choosing my words
carefully.
He drank from his glass. By the time he faced me, my anxiety had my
nerves strained and stretched taut. “To ensure that he caused few issues, I had him incapacitated. He will need to recover from that.”
I stared past Kolis, my breath snagging. Attes had been right. My hand flattened against my stomach as it twisted. Gods, I felt sick.
“It is not easy.”
My eyes snapped to him.
“Seeing you so affected by another,” he said. “The worry practically seeps from your pores.”
Warning bells rang in the back of my mind. “I told you that I care—”
“I remember. It’s all I think about when I look upon him.” Silver eather tinged in gold pulsed through his rapidly thinning flesh. The bones of his jaw and cheeks became visible, sending a chill down my spine. “I spent the last two days looking upon him while he returned to stasis,” he said, his voice dropping and losing its warmth. “Knowing that you care about him.”
My body went cold. So that was what Kolis had been doing since I’d last seen him? Staring at Ash? Every time I spoke to Kolis, I believed it would be impossible for him to disturb me more, and each time he proved me wrong.
“I wonder what it is about him that inspires such emotion in you.” His lips had begun to draw back, losing color and then the flesh itself, exposing his teeth and fangs as the tissue around his eyes, his eyelids, and the skin below began to sink in, leaving nothing but the bone behind. “And what it is about me that incites fear from you.”
A sour taste gathered as a near-hysterical laugh choked me. Was he seriously asking that? While he was turning into a godsdamn skeleton right in front of me?
“It makes me want to hurt him,” Kolis snarled. “Destroy him.” Everything in me froze.
“But I won’t. I won’t. There must be balance, one way or another,” he said as if reminding himself. And holy fuck, that wasn’t reassuring. A shudder went through him, and the shape of his lips filled out. His eyelids returned, shielding the unholy burn of eather. “Without it, there is nothing.”
I stared at him, wide-eyed.
“There are no realms. No me,” he said. “No you.” “Uh-huh,” I murmured.
Those eyes opened. Several moments passed as Kolis became more… fleshed out. “You were afraid of me before, when I first lost you and brought you back. It wasn’t until the end of our time together that it changed.” He exhaled long and slow. “But this time, you’ve shown very little fear of me, even if you’ve felt it. That’s changed.”
Looking upon Kolis now, after watching him lose his hold on his temper and let go of the façade that hid what he was, all I could think about was how Tavius had physically changed when he grew angry or was about to do something particularly heinous. He hadn’t flushed or become erratic. When that darkness in him took hold, he’d grown very still, almost lifeless, except for the gleam in his eyes. That fevered, crazed look I’d seen once before in a dog that had become sick, causing it to foam at the mouth and bite at the air.
Kolis had the same gleam. “You showed it when I last left you,” he said, the eather receding from his skin. “And you show it now. I don’t need my nephew’s talent for reading emotion to know that, nor my brother’s
foresight.”
“Foresight?” I asked, unable to stop myself. “Eythos could see the future?”
“Not in the way you would think,” he said. “Eythos was given… heightened intuition. Knowledge of what should not be known to him.” A smirk twisted his lips. “He didn’t always utilize the ability or listen.”
Clearly.
“But I understand why I would frighten you now. I spoke of wanting to harm someone you care about. You saw me as I truly look—as I really am beneath the beauty and gold of the very last of the embers of life. You saw me as I was before and will always be. Death. That would terrify most,” he said. “But you were afraid before all of that. Uneasy from the moment I entered, in a way you weren’t before the last time we were alone. That, I don’t
understand.”
One thing I’d never managed to learn when dealing with Tavius was how to proceed with caution when he got that glint in his eyes. I had a sinking suspicion I was about to repeat that mistake as my mouth opened. “You truly don’t understand why I’d be uneasy after what you did?”
A muscle ticked at his temple. “I apologized and promised it would not happen again.”
As if that erased what happened? Kolis stared at me, waiting.
Apparently, he believed his apology and meaningless promises did change everything.
They didn’t.
But I had to say something. I cleared my throat, my mind racing. Of course, I knew I should accept his apology. Tell him it was okay. Say I’d enjoyed it, even though I clearly hadn’t. But I…I couldn’t. I couldn’t bring myself to say anything but the truth. “You…you did frighten me.” My fingers curled inward. “I wasn’t expecting that.”
The skin between his brows puckered. “I apologized,” he repeated.
“I know,” I said. “And you promised that it wouldn’t happen again.
Neither of those things makes what happened okay.”
“Then let me repeat myself once more. I told you it would not happen again,” he said, frustration sharpening his tone. “Which you just
acknowledged.”
My control slipped. “You forced yourself on me.”
The corners of his lips turned down. “I know the display of my love for you was intense.”
Love? He called that a display of love? It had been a show of jealousy- and-anger-fueled punishment—one he ended up enjoying.
“I lost control,” he said as the churning moved up my throat. “That is all.”
For a moment, I was struck silent by his response. “You didn’t just lose control,” I said, a part of me unable to believe that I had to explain this to a more-than-grown-ass man. “You bit me again without my consent, and you found pleasure while doing so. An apology and promise will not make that okay.”
“What will make it okay?” he demanded, his cheeks deepening in color. “I wish to start anew with you. Tell me how I can make that possible.”
I stared at him, trying to understand how he could think this was something one could make okay. Like what experiences had he lived that
gave him the impression that one could start anew after violating someone?
Yes, he was a Primal god, and they operated under rules and norms I would likely never understand, but that didn’t excuse his behavior now or before with Sotoria. That wasn’t a good enough reason.
But then it struck me. And it was plainly obvious. There was no excuse.
Just as with Tavius, this was simply how Kolis was. And maybe something in his past made him this way, but I couldn’t give an actual fuck about what it might be, because no reasons were good enough. Mortals and gods alike had all been through horrible things, but not all of them turned into this. Aios was a good example. So was Ash.
So was I.
But what I did care about was Ash, so I tamped down my rage and gave Kolis what he wanted. Mostly. “I need time.”
“Time?” he repeated, his brows lifting.
Taking a deep breath, I nodded. “I need time to trust that you will honor your promise.”
“My word should be good enough,” he stated flatly.
My gods, I was two seconds from losing my shit. “I don’t know you—”
Kolis was suddenly right before me, eather crackling in his eyes. “I am the King of Gods. You know that. It should be enough.”
He was out of his mind.
I held myself still, even as my heart hammered. “This is not helping.”
Several long, unsettling moments passed, then he stepped back. “You’re right.” The essence faded from around him. “I will give you time.”
I didn’t believe that. If he couldn’t understand the wrongness of his
actions or chose not to, he wouldn’t respect my request for time. He wasn’t capable of doing so. And that wasn’t a justification or an excuse. It was the terrifying reality of who he was, whether he was all the beauty and gold of the embers he’d stolen or Death.
“I will give you time to feel more comfortable around me,” he continued.
His shoulders bunched in my silence. “Say something.”
Go fuck yourself. I wanted to say that. Or I hope you die a slow, terrible death that lasts thousands of years, you sick motherfucker.
“Okay,” I forced out instead. “Thank you.”
“Good.” Some of the rigidness eased from him, and that well-practiced
smile instantly returned as he placed his glass on the table. “Nyktos is coming out of stasis and should be in a position to be released in the next couple of
days.”
There was no mistaking how he attempted to downplay what he’d done to Ash with his word choice. It wasn’t a change in position. It was a change in
his health.
A demand to see what kind of state Ash was in rose to the tip of my
tongue—one that would surely make things worse for Ash. Because I’d heard the struggle in Kolis’s voice when he reminded himself that there must
always be balance. It was something he was very much capable of forgetting.
But it would also make things worse for me. Asking to see Ash before had… well, I knew how that had ended. A tremor went through me as Kolis adjusted the pitcher so the handle faced toward the chamber.
Kolis then turned to me. Several moments passed before he looked at me. My skin began to crawl as if a thousand spiders were swarming over me.
“I am… sorry, so’lis,” he said, the skin twitching at the corner of his mouth. “For whatever distress I have caused you.”
I said nothing, only managing a nod of acknowledgment.
Kolis lifted his hand and cupped my cheek. I didn’t flinch. I didn’t pull away as he drew his thumb over the fading bruise on my jaw. I didn’t adopt the veil of nothingness. This was different as he touched me. It was like I was here, but not. “What did I tell you about using the embers?”
I jolted, having forgotten all about that. I opened my mouth, but Kolis pressed his finger to the center of my lips, silencing me. “That was a rhetorical question, my dear.” He smiled, and it reminded me of suffocating, sweltering heat. “I felt the essence. I know it came from you. I warned you not to use it unless you wish to be punished.”
Every part of me flashed hot with rage. I wanted to break the finger against my lips. Better yet, I wanted to bite it off. “I’m sorry. Callum—”
—”
“I’m sure he provoked you. He can be quite vexing when he wants to be. But that is no excuse.” His fingers curled at my chin, tipping my head back as his lowered.
Heart stuttering, I locked up as his mouth neared mine. Panic snaked through me, tightening my chest and taking my breath. This was not giving me time. I desperately tried to empty my thoughts and erase who I was, who I wanted to be, and who I wanted.
His lips halted less than an inch from mine. “The essence does not belong to you. It is not yours to use.”
The embers throbbed in denial.
“And to be clear, this has nothing to do with what we discussed moments earlier,” Kolis said. “This will be your last warning, so’lis. Do not use the
essence again.”
Kolis left then, and there was nothing but silence. Closing my eyes, I exhaled roughly as I made myself the same promise I had when it came to Callum. One way or another, I would see Kolis dead.
And I knew then that the moment Ash was free, if I didn’t escape, I would not live long—no matter how important the embers were. Because I would
become Kolis’s worst fucking nightmare.
