The blow Kolis landed knocked Ash back, and horror seized me.
The blade was just shadowstone. It should have little effect on a being as powerful as a Primal, but the numerous injuries marking Ash’s body had weakened him. That much was clear.
Ash caught himself, reaching for the hilt of the blade as he staggered forward, his wide eyes fixed on me and the wet warmth I could feel dripping down my throat. He dropped…oh, gods. He fell to his knees.
“Run,” he choked out, pitching forward onto one hand.
A high-pitched, terrified sound blasted my ears. It was a scream. My scream. The embers fluttered, briefly swelling before stalling. Pressure built in my chest and head, rapidly becoming an unbearable weight. I started toward Ash but didn’t make it. My legs collapsed, and I hit the cracked floor. Starbursts exploded across my vision.
Snarling, Kolis grabbed a fistful of Ash’s hair, yanking him back. The dagger was still in his chest, in his heart. “I offered you grace.”
“Stop,” I wheezed, my fingers pressing into the tile as I crawled forward on my belly.
Kolis threw Ash onto his back. “And you tossed it back into my face.”
Arms and legs shaking, I pushed up onto my knees. “Please,” I forced out, blood dripping onto the floor beneath me. “Stop—” My throat seized, cutting me off.
“You, of all people, should know better.” Kolis swung his leg up and then brought his foot down on the dagger’s hilt.
Ash’s entire body jerked.
A hand smacked down on my mouth, silencing my newest scream. “Listen to me,” Attes hissed in my ear. “Ash is still alive. A shadowstone blade will not kill him. He’s just weakened from battling Kolis. But if you keep screaming, Kolis will kill him.”
Kolis stomped his foot down on the dagger once more, and I felt it. I swore I felt the blow in my chest. My entire body shook.
Everything felt like it was rushing and spinning. The chamber. Attes’s words. What I saw. I strained against the Primal of War and Accord’s hold, desperately needing to get to Ash. Kolis was…oh, gods, he pulled the blade
free and then thrust it into Ash’s chest again. A spasm went through me, swift and sharp. I went boneless and limp. Lifeless.
Attes cursed under his breath as he shifted me in his arms. “Sera?” Bright tendrils of eather whipped through his eyes. “Sera?”
My mouth was open, but only the thinnest bit of air got in, and there was this godsawful thumping and a wet, fleshy sound. I struggled to breathe, to turn my head toward Ash.
All I saw was the rise and fall of Kolis’s arm. Up. Down. Up. Down. A blood-slicked dagger glinted in the moonlight.
I screamed. I knew I did, even if there was no sound. I screamed and screamed, still shaking.
“Fuck.” Attes’s head shot up. “Kolis! She needs your help,” he shouted, his skin thinning. “Godsdamn it, listen to me. Sotoria is about to die.”
Thump. Thump. Thump.
“If you let that happen, you will lose her. Do you hear me?” Attes squeezed his eyes shut, and I thought I saw panic flash across his features. But I wasn’t sure what I was seeing. My eyes couldn’t focus. “You will lose your graeca.”
The horrific thumping ceased. “No,” Kolis croaked. “No.”
The faint scent of vanilla and lilacs—stale lilacs—enveloped me, and then Attes was no longer holding me.
Kolis had me in his arms. He lifted me as he rose, my head lolling. “Put him in the cells,” he said. “I will deal with him when I return.”
If more was said, I didn’t know. A rush of wind whirled around us, and I was vaguely aware of warm night air touching my skin.
I struggled to open my eyes, but they no longer responded to my commands. The darkness smothered me, suffocated. My breaths came in
shallow gasps, and my heart raced before it stuttered. Time. It sped up and slowed down, leaving me to exist in those too-long gaps between the beats of my heart and the ceaseless roar of the wind.
I didn’t want to die. Not like this.
Not alone in the darkness with this monster.
I wanted to be with Ash, in his arms at my lake, as he’d promised we would be when my time came.
This wasn’t right.
It’s not fair, I swore I heard Sotoria whisper, her thoughts briefly mingling with mine.
The embers of life vibrated wildly. Panic surged like a wild animal trapped in a cage, desperate to break free, but there was no escape.
Death had always been inevitable.
I sensed that we’d stopped moving, stopped shadowstepping. A palm pressed down on the center of my chest, and my breath, my heart, snagged as a strange pins-and-needles sensation swept over me.
Then, there was nothing.
 |
Ash.
That was the first thing I thought as I came to. The battle between him and Kolis, the blade striking him, moving up and down, up and down, stabbing into Ash’s body.
My eyes peeled open, going wide. The sky above was drenched in starlight, and I gulped salty, damp air that turned into thin breaths that barely did anything to ease the constriction in my chest. The buzzing in my ears
retreated, and I heard voices coming from every direction. Whispers followed us as I caught the vague impression of people lowering themselves to their knees, and glimpsed twinkling lights inside sandstone buildings and larger
structures in the distance. I couldn’t be sure, though. All I knew was that I was still being carried as I struggled to breathe.
Ash.
I didn’t know where I was or where he’d been taken. I had a vague memory of hearing a cell referenced. And before that, a wet, fleshy, thumping sound and the flash of a blood-slick dagger.
Oh, gods.
The edges of my vision turned white. I felt like I couldn’t breathe— “Calm yourself,” a voice full of bitter warmth and cold sunshine ordered
from above me.
Startled, my gaze swung to silver eyes laced with golden flecks. Kolis’s attention shifted, and shimmering sweeps and swirls churned beneath the flesh of his cheeks. A shudder rolled through me.
“You will live,” Kolis stated, glancing down at me. “As long as you are who you claim to be.”
Nothing about his words made it easier to breathe. With each passing second, it felt like my lungs shrank. My heart no longer pulsed listlessly. It raced, skipping beats. White static crowded the edges of my vision when I fought to remember what Holland had taught me, what Ash had shown me. Breathe in. Hold—
The ground moved under us, the soil turning to sand. Kolis’s steps slowed, his hold shifting. A rhythmic sound reached me, the gentle rise and
fall of waves lapping against a shore. My head slid, my cheek catching on the golden band around his biceps. For a moment, I forgot about suffocating as I stared at the rippling moonlight reflecting off the vast, midnight-hued sea.
Kolis had stopped at the edge of pearly white sand, but there was no gradual incline to the water like there was on the beaches of the Stroud Sea. This was a steep drop with no bottom in sight, but something in the water moved.
They swam in circles, over and under one another. Dozens, maybe even
hundreds of them. Their powerful arms and sleek, bare bodies were half flesh and half scales, creating fierce currents beneath the surface. The tails of those closest to me were radiant in the moonlight—vivid, glittering blues, intense pinks, deep greens, and streaks of bright yellow.
My gods, they had to be the ceeren. “Phanos!” Kolis roared.
I flinched as the shockwave of his shout hit the water, sending the ceeren
scattering into the deeper parts of the sea. Their frantic flight stirred the tranquil waters. Small, white-tipped waves rippled across the surface and a form appeared amid the ceeren.
His entire body moved in a wave-like motion, propelled by the rapid swishing of the large fin at the end of his tail. Faster than the others, he swam toward the surface.
As he neared, a bolt of silver erupted from his hand, forming a long spear that came to three points at one end. A trident.
One made of eather.
Phanos, the Primal God of the Skies and Seas, erupted from the sea in a spray of water, the trident spitting sparks of amber against the warm, dark brown skin of his shoulders and broad chest. Beneath him, his undulating tail keeping him in place, the ceeren calmed enough for me to see there were smaller ones farther down. Children who still darted back and forth, appearing briefly before scurrying behind the older ceeren’s tails.
Phanos’s stare drifted over Kolis and then me. In the bright moonlight, the handsome lines of his face tensed. He bowed his head. “Your Majesty.”
Kolis knelt. My calves slid over warm, rough sand. He didn’t let go, he just held the top half of my body upright and against his chest. “I am in need of your assistance. She has lost too much blood.”
Phanos glanced at me, his stare lingering on my throat. “Correct me if I’m wrong, but is that not Nyktos’s Consort?”
“Yes,” I gasped. Or I thought I did. I couldn’t be sure. My tongue felt leaden and useless.
“That is irrelevant,” Kolis responded.
“Perhaps to you. But I felt the loss of one of our brethren, and the rise of a new…sistren. All of us did.” Phanos’s gaze slipped past us, and I heard retreating footsteps. His gaze shifted back to me. “Is it because of her?”
“You ask too many questions,” Kolis growled, his smooth voice roughening. “And I have very little patience for answering them.”
“I apologize, my King.” Phanos bowed his head slightly. “But I want no problems with Nyktos.”
“My nephew is currently no threat to anyone,” Kolis said, and my heart felt like it twisted until nothing was left of it. “However, even you should be
more worried about inciting my wrath than Nyktos’s,” Kolis warned, cold bitterness filling his tone as gold-laced eather poured out of him. I winced when the essence glided harmlessly against my skin before spilling over to the sand. “Or do I need to remind you?”
Phanos eyed the tendrils of eather as they stopped short of reaching the water, where they lifted and coiled like vipers preparing to strike. I shuddered at the sight of them, having no idea what would happen if the eather reached the water. Whatever it was, I had a feeling it would be something terrible.
Phanos’s nostrils flared, and then the trident collapsed and vanished from his hand. “No, you do not.”
“Good.” Kolis’s voice was warm once more—gentle, even. The way he switched back and forth so quickly was unnerving. “She cannot die. I need you to make sure that doesn’t happen.”
Confusion arose. Between the blood loss and my worry for Ash, my addled brain was having a hard time processing everything, and many things were a blur. But even in this state, I had no idea how Phanos could assist.
“If you do not wish for her to die, can you not do what you’ve done to the others?” Phanos questioned. “Make her one of your Revenants. She is a godling, is she not? That shouldn’t be a problem, should it?”
But I wasn’t a godling—the offspring of a mortal and a god. However, it was how I felt to the gods and Primals because of the embers. Either way,
Phanos clearly knew about the Revenants. Maybe all the Primals but Ash did. But Phanos didn’t know about the embers.
I wasn’t sure what to make of that. Was there anything to gain? But I hadn’t even thought of Kolis turning me into whatever the Revenants were. Could he even do that? What would that—?
“That is only death reborn,” Kolis answered, the warmth straining. “And I cannot risk her soul being stolen away in the process of the rebirth.”
Two things happened at once. One, I realized that a Revenant had to die to become one. And the second thing? Phanos realized exactly why Kolis was here.
“Is that her?” he whispered. “Your graeca?”
A burst of anger lit my insides, temporarily replacing the coldness that seemed to have penetrated every part of me. Words scorched my tongue, and I wanted nothing more than for them to make it past my lips. I wasn’t his graeca. Neither was Sotoria. We didn’t belong to him. I willed my mouth to move, just as I had earlier when I yelled at Ash and Kolis, but the embers only sputtered weakly, and all I managed was a whimpering sound.
“She… I believe so.” Kolis’s fingers pressed into the flesh of my arm and hip. “I’m holding her soul in her body. I’m not sure…” He faltered, the weight of his words a whispered admission. “I’m not sure how much longer I will be able to do so.”
I thought of the pins-and-needles sensation I’d felt when he placed his hand on my chest. Was that it? When he grabbed hold of my soul—our
souls?
Shock rippled through me. The god Saion hadn’t believed that Kolis retained enough power to summon a soul like Ash could. Did this mean there were still some embers of life in him? Or was this a byproduct of the true
embers of death? I wasn’t sure, but it explained why I was still alive—well, barely.
“You know what you ask of me,” Phanos voiced quietly, wind whipping across the water and tossing the edges of my hair over the sand.
“I am not asking.”
Small bumps of unease prickled my skin as Phanos tipped his head to the side. A muscle in his jaw throbbed. Then he slipped below the water. A moment or so later, the ceeren went still. The smaller ones, the children, swam deeper and deeper, disappearing from sight.
Phanos resurfaced less than a foot from the sand. Water coursed over the smooth skin of his head and streamed down his chest. Wordlessly, he extended his arms to us.
Kolis hesitated, not moving at first, and then he lifted me once more. “If she dies, I will destroy your entire Court,” he swore, handing me to the Primal who hadn’t approached neither Ash nor me during my coronation.
Once more, panic seized me as Phanos took me into his arms, and the
embers in me briefly flared. My heart rammed against my ribs, but I thought I felt Phanos’s chest rise sharply against mine. Warm, fizzing water lapped against my legs, and then everything below my chest was underwater. What thin breaths I managed seized. I loved being in my lake back in the mortal realm and enjoyed splashing around in Ash’s pool, but I couldn’t swim. And
this…this was the sea a Primal was carrying me into. “Nyktos once took what belonged to me.”
My wide eyes and frightened gaze darted from the star-strewn sky to Phanos. He was speaking about Saion and Rhahar.
“I should be amused to see something of his taken from him.” With his featherlight voice, it was hard to hear him over the seething water. “But I find no joy in this.” Wisps of silvery eather surged in his eyes. “I can sense your
panic. There is no need. What would be the point in harming you when you’re already dying?”
How in this realm and beyond was that supposed to be even remotely reassuring?
One side of Phanos’s lips kicked up.
On second thought, I didn’t think he’d meant what he said to be reassuring at all.
“You’re in the water off the Triton Isles, near the coast of Hygeia,”
Phanos continued. “Do you know what that means? Of course, you don’t. Most of the other Primals are not even aware, including Nyktos.” Phanos drifted out even farther. “I wonder if he’d have already brought you here if he’d known.”
I truly wasn’t following most of what he was saying. All I could think about was how deep the water must be.
“Water is the source of all life and healing. Without it, even the Primal of Life wouldn’t hold power…if that power was to be held.” A wry, humorless smile appeared. “Those born here, the ceeren, carry that source within them. It’s a gift that heals, just as the water does.”
His eyes met mine, and I heard…singing—soft strains in an unfamiliar language. The eather had stopped whirling in Phanos’s eyes, and I thought maybe I saw a shadow of sadness there. But I had to be imagining it. This was the same Primal who’d flooded the Kingdom of Phythe because he’d been insulted.
“For most in your…state, this would provide a cure. But for you? You are no godling, Consort. I felt them the moment our skin touched.” Phanos’s head
lowered, and he whispered, “The embers of Primal power. Strong ones. Too strong for a mortal, and that’s what you are.” The bridge of his nose brushed mine. “Or were.”
The suffocating feeling of helplessness rose, making me jerk. I had no
idea what he would do. Any Primal could attempt to take the embers, just as Kolis had from Eythos, and what could I do to stop it? Nothing. My fingers, all that I could move, curled into my palms. I wasn’t used to being unable to defend myself. The feeling made me want to scratch my skin off. Fury whipped through me, crashing into my panic until desperation choked me.
“You have embers of life in you. Which means Eythos dealt the final— perhaps winning—blow to his brother, did he not?” Phanos glanced at the shore, the tendrils of eather in his eyes burning as brightly as the moon. A low chuckle came from him. “Ah, you have always been his weakness, haven’t you? I could take those embers myself.”
I stared up at him, wondering if it would be better if Phanos did just that. Although considering how he’d flooded a kingdom in the mortal realm over the cancellation of a tradition meant to honor him, probably not.
“But then I’d be fighting Kolis and Nyktos, the latter likely to be as displeased as the former, at least based on what I saw at your coronation. I am no fool.” He turned us in the water so his back was to the shore. His damp forehead brushed mine. “What truly ails you goes deeper than blood loss and cannot be circumvented, Consort. It can only be delayed, no matter how steep the price or how often it is paid.”
A steep price? What—?
“When this is all done, and you still breathe?” The bridge of his nose brushed mine again. “Remember the gifts given to you tonight.”
Before I could even process what he’d said, churning water rose over our heads, and we dipped below the surface. Phanos’s mouth closed over mine, causing my entire body to go rigid at the contact. He didn’t kiss me. He breathed into my mouth, the panels of my gown floating around me and my arms following as we sank. Phanos’s breath was cool, fresh, and powerful,
like swallowing the wind.
His arms relaxed around me, and I slipped free of his grasp. My wide gaze darted through the cloudy water, and I continued sinking until—
Hands folded around my ankles, dragging me down. My mouth opened in a scream that sent bubbles roaring upward in the water. Fingers pressed into my waist, turning me around. A woman was suddenly before me, her long, dark hair tangling with my much lighter strands. She leaned in, the scales of her tail rough against the skin of my legs. Her eyes were the color of the Stroud Sea during the summer at noon, a stunning shade like sea glass. Her
bare chest pressed against mine as she grasped my cheeks. Like Phanos, she placed her mouth over mine and exhaled. The breath was fresh and sweet, pouring down my throat.
The ceeren let go and floated away from me, her eyes closing, and our hair separating. She didn’t fall. She rose.
Certainly! Here’s a rewritten version with the same tone:
A hand on my shoulder turned me once more. A man with those familiar blue-green eyes and pink skin held my face, bringing his lips to mine as beams of brilliant moonlight cascaded over us. He, too, breathed that fresh, sweet, cool air into me, filling my lungs. His hands slipped away like the first, and then another caught me, this one with hair nearly as pale as mine. Her lips met mine, and her breath filled me, the two of us drifting from the moon’s light into the shadows. She floated upward as another and another came. There were so many, and less and less moonlight reached us. I lost track of how many touched their lips to mine and exhaled, but with each breath, I felt changed. The coldness inside me faded, and the tightness in my chest and throat eased. My heart skipped beats, then began pumping steadily. The erratic racing of my pulse slowed, and sound finally reached me. I looked around and saw the ceeren in the shadows of the dark water. It was them. They were singing like the ones on land had. I couldn’t understand the words, but it was a hauntingly beautiful melody. The backs of my eyes burned.
A ceeren’s smooth hands cupped my cheeks, turning my head away from those singing and toward her. She didn’t seem much older than me. Her blue-tinged lips spread in a smile as her tail moved up and down, propelling us upward toward the now-dappled moonlight. Tears. I could see them, even in the water. They streamed down her ivory cheeks, and I closed my eyes against what I felt at seeing them. The urge to tell her I was sorry hit me hard, even though I didn’t know what I was apologizing for. But her tears, her smile, and the song the ceeren sang…
Her mouth closed over mine, and she exhaled, her breath filling my chest. The embers of life thrummed strongly, vibrantly, as if reawakening. It struck me then that it wasn’t their breath they breathed into me.
It was their eather.
We broke the water’s surface, and my eyes shot open.
Different hands took me by the shoulders, ones I knew belonged to Kolis.
He lifted me from the sea. Sparkling water streamed from my limbs and dripped from the hem of the gown and my hair, running into my eyes as he pulled me onto the beach.
I pitched forward, blinking water from my eyes and planting my hands in the warm, rough, white sand. My head no longer felt as if it were full of cobwebs. My thoughts were clear and already racing, preparing my muscles to fight or run. I started pulling myself free of Kolis’s hold when the
blurriness left my vision.
I froze.
Every part of my being seized as I stared at the surface of the water. I didn’t see Phanos anywhere, but what I saw made my tingling lips part in horror.
Bodies floated, some face-up, others on their bellies. Dozens of them just…bobbed in the now-still waters. My gaze skipped over scales, no longer vibrant and vivid but dull and faded.
Suddenly, I understood the mournful song that no longer filled the air.
The last ceeren’s smile. Her tears. The sadness I’d seen in Phanos’s eyes. This
was the price he’d spoken of.
The ceeren had given me life. At the cost of theirs.
