I stared at The Star in silence, absolutely shocked that the all-powerful diamond had been above my head for weeks.
“What do you think, so’lis?” Kolis asked. “Is this more or less than the one you once coveted?”
“More,” I whispered as he turned the diamond in his hand. The sharp angles glimmered silver. “It looks like a star.”
“That is what it is called,” he said. “The Star.” “Oh.” I feigned surprise. “It’s a fitting name.” “That it is.”
The heat of his chest bore down on my back as I turned slightly. “How
was such a diamond created?” I asked, already knowing the answer, but I was interested to see how Kolis would respond.
“From what I understand, it was created by dragon fire.” As he spoke, he drew his thumb over the diamond, and I could’ve sworn the sheen of silver retracted from his touch. “Long before Primals could shed tears of joy. I came upon it by pure chance.”
That was exactly how Delfai had said it was created, but I knew Kolis hadn’t stumbled upon it. “It truly is beautiful.” I watched the milky light
ripple through the diamond as he turned it once more. “Why would you change its appearance and keep it here, where it’s hidden?”
“Because where else would I place such a beautiful stone than where I keep what I cherish the most?”
My stomach churned at his response, but I managed a smile. “May I hold it?”
“Of course,” Kolis purred.
I swallowed the sourness gathering in my mouth as he moved the diamond closer. My fingers folded around it—
A jolt danced across my fingertips the moment my skin came into contact with The Star. The rush of energy flowed over my hand and up my arm as the embers in my chest immediately thrummed to life, humming and buzzing so fast I couldn’t stifle the gasp or hide how my entire body jerked.
The intense current bordered on painful as it pumped through me, forcing my hand to tighten around the surprisingly warm stone. A tremor started in my arm as the diamond heated. I tried to force my grip to loosen, but I couldn’t let go of the stone, couldn’t look away as its sheen intensified. The light I’d seen hadn’t been a reflection. The streaks of milky, silvery-white light were inside the diamond. They now expanded, filling the entire stone—
Images appeared in my mind without warning, rapidly forming and flipping as if a tome of paintings. I saw a lush forest—a heavily wooded area atop a mountain—and a man caught in a windstorm with long, whipping
strands of dark hair around features partially covered in russet-hued ink. And his eyes…
His eyes.
They were the color of the realms—blue, green, and brown, with stars filling his pupils. He yelled at the sky, his words lost to the wind.
Hot, violent air came from the open jaws of a massive, winged beast. A
dragon the color of the ground and the pines its breath toppled.
Red sparked from inside the dragon’s mouth, along the sides. Bright
flames erupted from the majestic being, a funnel of fire that swamped the man on the mountain. And the flames kept coming, obliterating the entire crest of the peak until nothing remained where the man had stood.
Nothing but scorched earth and a diamond that sank deep into the ground, burying itself—
The images rapidly changed again. The mountain and the dragon were gone, replaced by another man, a black-haired one this time, who held the diamond just as I did, tightly, his knuckles bleached white. His arm shook as mine did. His entire body trembled as he lifted his head, shock filling his silver eyes and flickering across his broad cheekbones, slackening his wide mouth and strong jaw, paling his golden-bronze skin. He stared at the man
across from him, one with golden hair who shared his features.
I knew who I saw now.
“Nothing can erase the past,” Eythos rasped.
A hand the same shade as Eythos’s closed over his. “I have no interest in erasing the past. I will change the future,” Kolis swore.
Their stares locked as lightning erupted above them. “Not the way you
think you will,” Eythos pleaded, his large body trembling as he struggled to lift his other arm and clasp the back of Kolis’s neck. “Listen to me, brother. It won’t bring anything but pain to the realms—to you.”
“As if I don’t already live with nothing but pain!” Kolis shouted. “That is all there has ever been for me.”
Tears filled Eythos’s eyes. “I wish nothing more than for your life to have been different. If I could change it for you, I would. I would do anything—”
“But you had your chance to make me happy. You had a choice to do anything for me, yet you refused,” Kolis snarled. “And now look at us. Look at where we are!”
“I’m sorry.” Eather crackled from Eythos’s skin. “I am. But it’s not too late to stop this. I swear to you. I can forgive you. We can start anew—”
“Forgive me?” Kolis laughed roughly as thunder roared. “Come now.
You speak as if you’re still capable of looking upon me as your brother. As if you could after Mycella. You’ve never forgiven me for her loving me.”
Eythos drew back. “Never forgiven…? Brother, she once held a tender spot for you—”
“She was only with you because I wouldn’t have her.”
Anger flashed in the Primal’s face. “Why must you say things like that?” “It’s only the truth.”
“No, it’s the truth you’ve decided to believe,” Eythos shot back. “Mycella may have loved you when we were younger, and she continued caring about you until the moment you slaughtered her.”
Kolis looked away, his jaw tensing.
“But she loved me, Kolis. She did not choose me because she could not have you. That is not love. What we had? What grew between us? That was love. She loved me, and I never held what she may have once felt for you against you.”
“Fucking liar.”
“Never!” shouted Eythos. He took a deep breath, visibly attempting to rein in his temper. “Yeah, I wasn’t happy about it at first. Who would be? But I never blamed you.”
Kolis scoffed. “You just cannot stop yourself from playing the role of the better one—”
“It is no role!”
“Bullshit,” Kolis shouted. “You’re not as good of a liar as I am. You never were. There’s no coming back from this—any of this.”
“But there is. There has to be. We are of the same flesh and blood.
Brothers. I love you—”
“Shut up!” Kolis screamed, his other hand thrusting out.
Eythos jerked, his eyes flaring in disbelief. He looked down at a rod of dull white penetrating his chest, entering his heart.
Time seemed to stop.
The swirling wind. The building storm. Everything ceased as pure, unadulterated energy ramped up.
Kolis snapped his hand back—his bloodied hand. His mouth parted. “I knew… I knew you were capable of this.” A shudder rolled through
Eythos as he lifted his gaze to his brother’s. Shimmery blood leaked from his
lips. “But I…I hoped I was wrong. I always…had hope.”
“Eythos,” whispered Kolis. He shook his head, denial etching into his features. “No. No!”
Kolis caught his brother as Eythos’s legs went out from under him and then held him as energy exploded from his twin, filling the air and the realm.
The…vision or whatever it was faded away. I was still holding The Star, still staring at it, but all I saw was the red flowing down Eythos’s chest. The red streaming from Kolis’s eyes.
A wave of incredulity swept over me because I knew—I knew two things at once. “You cried.”
“What?” Kolis demanded, and before I could answer, he gripped my arm and whipped me around so I faced him. Silver wisps of eather erased the
flecks of gold. “What did you say?”
Oh, damn, I shouldn’t have said that. Shock had gotten the better of me. “I…I don’t know what you mean—”
“Don’t lie to me.”
“I’m not.” A hiss of pain went through me as his grip tightened on my arm, stoking the already thrumming embers.
His wild stare dropped to the diamond I still held. He sucked in a sharp breath and lifted the arm of the hand that held the diamond so it was in my face. “What did you see?” Kolis shook me, causing my head to snap back and then forward again.
A burst of sharp pain radiated down my spine. My already too-tight skin prickled as I gripped his arm.
He reached across the arm holding me and pried the diamond free from my grasp, throwing it into the air. My eyes shot to it, my gaze following The Star as it returned to the cage’s ceiling, once more becoming the cluster of diamonds.
The milky streaks of silvery light throbbed down upon us. I shuddered.
Because I now knew what was in that diamond.
What had witnessed everything that had happened in this cage.
The center of my chest throbbed as Kolis shook me like I was nothing more than a rag doll.
Fangs protruded below his fleshless lips. “Me? The King of Gods. And you? A once frightened maiden turned whore?”
My grip on his arm loosened as I stared at him. The blank canvas was
nowhere to be found as the embers inside me swelled. There was nothing but messy rage—hot, powerful fury. The edges of my vision turned white. I thrust my hands out, slamming them into his chest as power flooded my veins.
I saw a flicker of shock on Kolis’s face that echoed through me before he released me. I fell to the floor, almost toppling as he skidded backward from the blast of eather. He caught himself before he slammed into the bars. There was a brief moment when I realized that I shouldn’t have been able to do that to him in here, surrounded by shadowstone and the bones of the Ancients.
I shouldn’t have been able to summon that storm to frighten Callum, either, but the embers…
Chest heaving, Kolis lifted his head. Through the curtain of blond hair, I saw that his eyes had turned into pools of endless nothingness, and his skin had thinned, revealing the bone beneath.
“Then you’ve seen death,” Callum had said when I’d told him I’d seen Kolis’s true form. “True death. No one sees that and lives very long
afterward.”
Panting, I took a step back, bumping into the wooden column at the foot of the bed.
“What did I tell you about using those embers?” he seethed.
Warning bells went off, kicking off instincts that told me I was in danger.
My gaze flicked to the closed cage door. I pushed off the column—
Kolis was on me before I took an actual step, his hand at my throat again. Gasping for any breath possible, I clutched his arm as he abruptly pulled me away from the column and lifted me into the air. My eyes went wide as my feet dangled.
“I want you to remember one thing.” There wasn’t a strip of flesh left on his face. “Do not blame me for my actions. You caused this.”
Suddenly, the pressure around my throat was gone. There was a moment of confusion as I found myself suspended in the air, then I went flying backward.
I hit the bed hard, the soft mattress doing very little to lessen the impact.
Air punched from my lungs, momentarily stunning me into immobility as
Kolis levitated, the bones of his chest and arms becoming visible beneath the crackling eather.
Instinct took over. There would be no pacifying him. No manipulating him with kind words. I knew at the very core of my being that I needed to get away from him.
Flipping onto my stomach, I rose onto my knees, making a mad scramble for the other side of the bed. The distance wouldn’t do much, but—
I shouted as Kolis was suddenly behind me, shoving me flat onto my stomach. There was no time for me to react. He grabbed hold of my hair, yanking my head back so far that I thought my spine would crack. I saw The Star above me, silvery light racing across it. Fury crashed into the building
panic as Kolis forced my head to the side. I tried to get my hands under me
and push up, to move him off me, but he was too heavy and strong. “Get off me!” I screamed.
His weight kept me flat, and the feeling of him against me, against my backside, was unbearable, robbing the breath from my lungs. I couldn’t breathe.
Panic exploded in my gut then, so all-consuming and intense that the golden cage around me vanished for an instant, replaced by the bare stone walls of my bedchamber in Wayfair. It wasn’t Kolis bearing down on me, it
was Tavius. I was there. I was here. Trapped. Unable to breathe. Unable to do anything to protect myself against my stepbrother or against Kolis as his breath coasted over my exposed throat. I knew his fangs would soon tear into my skin. And I also knew it wouldn’t stop there. Not this time.
There was nothing I could do. I was weaponless. Powerless. Nothing I did would change that. No amount of training or preparation would help. But
those embers…
They belonged to the Primal of Life. And they now belonged to me.
They were powerful enough for Rhain to tell me to bring the building
down. They were formidable enough to restore life, to break through the negating effects of shadowstone. My wild gaze landed on the bars.
“Clearly, the bones of the Ancients can be destroyed,” I’d said to Attes.
“Only by two Primals.”
The Primal of Death. And the Primal of Life.
My heart thudded as Kolis twisted my head back. I saw The Star once
more.
The embers of the Primal of Life were capable of so much, but my will… My will was capable of anything.
Because I was not weak.
I was not powerless.
The embers hummed. The sharp glide of Kolis’s fangs scraped my throat.
I wouldn’t let this happen. I refused to.
I didn’t lose control. I fucking took it.
Summoning the essence to the surface, I welcomed the heady rush of
power as it poured into my chest and veins. I embraced the all-consuming rage that I’d pushed down when he held me at night, when I realized he’d
manipulated me into killing Evander, when I smiled at him and thanked him for his hollow compliments, when he offered me to Kyn, when he bit me and found pleasure doing so, and so many other times. I let in the fury that had been building in me for the days, weeks, months, and years that had ticked by, and the centuries that didn’t belong to me. As my vision turned silver, I felt Sotoria rise inside me, and it was she who screamed, “Get off us!”
Kolis froze against me.
The burst of power rippled out from me in every direction, throwing the false King off me. I heard him hit the bars this time, his grunt of surprise giving way to a sound of pain.
Energy and essence pumped through my muscles, lighting up every cell in my being, and I knew then that I was truly more than just a few embers.
I was them.
They were me.
What I wanted. What I thought. It became reality.
In the blink of an eye, I was on my feet, but I didn’t run for the door.
Slowly, I turned to where Kolis now stood. He was more bones than flesh.
Death stood before me. But I was Life.
“Us?” he whispered.
Eather roared to the surface of my skin, spinning down my arms.
Screaming, I threw my hands out to either side. Another blast of energy left me, evaporating the divan and the table. The bed rose as an area rug and
stacks of untouched books crumbled. The privacy screen collapsed as everything not bolted down in the bathing chamber took to the air. I caught sight of the damn key I’d hidden away but never had a chance to use. It disintegrated. The gilded bars exploded, sending shards flying outward.
“I am done with this,” I whispered—or screamed, I couldn’t be sure. However loud it was, eather filled my voice, and it sounded like air that carried the winds of time, rushing beyond the half-destroyed cage and speeding into the chamber beyond. The throne Kolis had sat upon shattered
into dust as the essence—as my will—poured from the narrow windows along the ceiling.
Kolis stumbled, the abyss of his eyes sparking gold and silver, but I didn’t see him. He wasn’t important as I held on to my will, picturing the silvery
strands of eather stretching above the sanctuary and whipping outward,
racing through the empty streets and between the sparkling buildings, past Cor Palace and the glittering wall of diamond and marble. I saw the winged
statues guarding Dalos, and because I was feeling petty, I turned them to dust.
Then I saw the mountains I’d looked upon earlier. I focused on the spots of
darkness—the shadowstone—as I summoned the tendrils of throbbing power. They blanketed the foot of the Carcers like a silvery web before spreading up the sides of the mountain and winding their way through the maze of trees, finding the targets of shadowstone and blowing straight through them— through all the walls, floors, ceilings, and the chains within them.
At the end of the tendrils of eather I sent out, I saw eather-streaked silver eyes snap open.
And I smiled.
Kolis’s head jerked to the right, his jaw clenching as if he sensed what I’d done.
Who I’d freed.
His stare whipped back to me, and, yeah, he knew who was coming. Kolis had to feel the ice-drenched rage hit the air high above Dalos, fueling an
unthinkable power, because I could.
A drop of blood hit the bodice of my gown as I shifted my focus to Kolis. The back of my skull tingled as the essence throbbed through what remained
of the cage. Chests toppled. Gauzy gowns of white and gold lifted into the air, whirling around us like dancing spirits.
Kolis’s flesh reappeared as he returned to his mortal form. “Us?” he repeated.
“Shut up.” Eather surged, and I latched on to the power—my power.
Crackling and spitting eather erupted from my fingertips, taking shape in my hand, stretching and lengthening into the thunderbolt I’d created before. My fingers closed around the humming mass of energy.
Kolis’s eyes widened. “Don’t.”
“Fuck you.” I threw the bolt as if it were a dagger. And I rarely missed when I threw a blade.
I didn’t this time, either.
The lightning bolt struck true, knocking him off his feet and throwing him through the hole in the cage behind him. He hit the floor and rolled several feet.
I walked forward, lifting my hands. What remained of the gilded bones rose into the air all around me, mostly just tiny shards with a few the length of my hand or slightly longer.
Kolis shot to his feet, the skin of his chest charred and smoking. His lip curled as his chin dipped. “You don’t want to do this.”
I glanced to my left. “But I do.”
His gaze followed mine to the shards. “Fuck.”
He darted to the side, escaping the full brunt of what I sent at him, but several embedded themselves in his stomach and thighs. His head lifted as he
grabbed one in his stomach, his face grimacing from the pain. “Stop this now.”
“Stop?” I laughed as a draken’s roar ended in a yelp in the distance. “Yes. It’s not too late—”
“Do you swear that to me? That you can forgive me?” As I stepped out of
the cage, silky material swirled around me, snagging on the shredded bones. “That we can start anew?”
Confusion flickered across Kolis’s features as he blinked. “Yes.”
I laughed as a thunderous roar of rage neared. “Come now, you speak as if you’re capable of still looking upon me as…her,” I said, changing only that in what he’d said to Eythos. “You’re not as good of a liar as I am.”
Kolis went still.
“You never were.” I walked through the spinning gowns. “There’s no coming back from this—any of this.”
Disbelief gave way to a mess of emotions I’d never seen on his handsome face before. Horror. Sorrow. Regret. “You saw…”
A longer piece of bone flew forward. Kolis lurched to the left, but his shock cost him. It got him in the shoulder, dragging him down to the floor.
My hand snapped out, catching one of the bones. The contact burned my hand as I prowled toward him, but I held on. The pain was worth it. “You didn’t believe Eythos when he said he loved you.”
Kolis struggled with the bone jutting from his skin, his wild gaze darting to the one in my hand.
“That is why you stabbed him. You didn’t think it would kill him. A wound to the heart wouldn’t have done that—not even with one of these.” I
kicked his hand away, then slammed my foot onto his arm, pinning it down. “But he was weakened, wasn’t he?”
Kolis stared up at me as if I was a spirit he’d known had been haunting him but hadn’t been able to see until now. “I…I didn’t know he had removed the last embers from himself. If I had—”
“If you had, you wouldn’t have…what? Killed him by accident?”
A heavy breath shuddered from Kolis. “I…I didn’t mean to.” His eyes were so wide, so full of gold, that for a moment he didn’t look like the false
King of Gods, but a man who had made many mistakes. “Because how could
he love me?”
“Good question. I suppose your brother was a much more forgiving being than the rest of us. Definitely better than me,” I said, kneeling so I hovered over him but kept his arm pinned. “I want you to remember one thing, Kolis.”
Understanding dawned in his features, his gaze going to the bone I held. “I want nothing more than to kill you.”
Kolis went completely still beneath me. He didn’t attempt to throw me off or defend himself. There was a flash of something akin to acceptance, and in the back of my mind, I thought maybe he wanted this. That he finally knew
his actions had caused him to lose who he believed to be Sotoria, and death would now come as a relief.
It would’ve been sad if he weren’t such a bastard.
I drove the bone down onto his chest, into his heart and against the floor, jerking his entire body. I tore it free and thrust it down again and again, turning his breaths into nothing but gurgles. I counted as I had after he’d
bitten me and kept stabbing Kolis. I counted as I had when I’d sat in that bath as I drove the bone into his throat, head, and stomach.
One.
Two.
Three.
Four.
Five.
Blood covered my hands and spotted my arms and cheeks as I slammed the bone into his heart again. My arms shook. My body trembled.
Then I felt him.
Sucking in a few too-shallow breaths, I yanked my aching hands free from the bone, leaving it buried deeply in what turned out to be a highly
sensitive part of him. I crawled off Kolis, scooting back against the floor until
I hit the legs of a chair, the still-spinning gowns falling all around me. I stared at the closed chamber doors.
Why hadn’t Kolis’s guards entered? It didn’t matter.
Pain pierced my temples and lanced across my jaw, slowly fading into a dull ache. Panting, I closed my eyes and focused on the embers. The eather throbbed inside me, in my veins and bones, no longer contained to just my chest. They were weaker than before—way weaker—but I pulled on them as I struggled to breathe. I wanted to see him. I needed to because the feel of the hot essence in my veins was likely significant. Final. A spasm ran through me as I remembered what Ash had told me about the essence. That it was my will.
So, I used it to give me what I wanted.
A weightless sensation settled over me, almost as if my consciousness
were leaving my body. I became a wraith that floated through the windows in the ceiling and drifted across the empty breezeway, through Kolis’s chamber and into the corridors, tethered to the wispy fingers of eather that searched and searched—
Until I found him.
Ash.
He stalked the halls of the sanctuary, his leather pants tattered and hanging low on his hips. His skin was ashen, those savagely beautiful features—broad cheekbones and strong brow—sharper than ever before. Dirt smudged his abdomen, where the packed muscles stood out more starkly, proof that he hadn’t eaten anything substantial in weeks.
But Ash had been feeding.
Blood dripped over the defined lines of his chest, drenching his throat and smearing his wide mouth.
A guard raced out from one of the halls, charging the Primal, the gold of his armor glinting in the fading sunlight.
Ash caught his arm before the sword blow could land. “Where is she?”
“Fuck you,” the guard snarled, but he quaked as he did so, his body revealing his fear.
“Wrong answer.” Ash snapped his arm in two.
The god howled as the sword clanged off the floor. Ash was as fast as the crack of a whip, tearing into the god’s throat. He drank deeply and fast before lifting his head.
I supposed that was…fast food?
Two guards spilled into the hall. Someone threw a shadowstone short sword.
Ash twisted, using the guard he held as a shield. The god’s body jerked as he took the blade in the back.
Flipping the god around, Ash tore the sword free, letting the body fall to the floor. A bolt of eather streaked through the hall as another guard rushed him. I saw a flash of pale blue eyes. A Revenant. Ash shadowstepped to his
right, avoiding the blast of energy. He threw the sword, striking the god in the head as silvery streaks of eather fizzled out. Spinning, Ash caught the Revenant by the throat, tearing the dagger from its hand. “Where is she?”
The Revenant grunted something I couldn’t make out. Whatever it was, Ash wasn’t impressed.
He slammed the dagger into the Revenant’s chest, then tore out his throat, ripping the spine out through the gaping hole. He tossed the still-twitching body aside.
“Where is she?” he repeated over and over, leaving a trail of armored bodies in his wake, some that would wake up, others that wouldn’t. He passed quiet alcoves, their golden, gauzy curtains rippling gently.
Several guards appeared. Shadows rose from the floor, swirling around Ash’s leather-clad legs. “Where is she?”
“Back in the north wing, beyond his chambers,” a god answered, dropping his sword. “You follow this hall. You’ll enter His Majesty’s personal chambers. That is where she is kept.” He lifted his hands as he took a step back. “We didn’t—”
“I don’t care.” Ash turned his head toward him. That was it. Just a look, and the god halted. His back bowed, his body going rigid. He rose into the air, and his mouth stretched open as cracks appeared in his flesh. Eather poured from the suspended god as Ash shifted his attention to those ahead. The god shattered into shimmery dust.
Several other gods began backing away.
“Run,” Ash spoke, his voice calling the shadows from the walls and the alcoves. “But you won’t get far.”
The gods spun and ran.
Whatever circumstances had led to them siding with Kolis or any remorse these gods felt wouldn’t save them. As Ash had warned, they didn’t make it far.
The whirling midnight mist whipped out, racing across the floor. All around, gods rose to the ceiling, their arms outstretched, and heads thrown back. Armor exploded from their chests and calves. From the center of their midsections, a silver glow pulsed as they hung in the air like paper lanterns. Then they fell like stars.
A swarm of dakkais erupted from a corridor and entered the hall, their gaping mouths full of blade-sharp teeth. Either drawn by the eather or sent due to Ash’s presence, they shoved into one another, growling and snapping at the air as they raced toward Ash.
There wasn’t even time to feel concern because Ash was very, very well- fed at the moment.
Tendrils of shadowy eather lifted once more, streaking out from Ash and slamming into the dakkais, piercing their bodies. Sharp yelps ended suddenly,
one after another, until there was nothing before Ash.
Startling sharp pain flared once more, shaking my concentration. It severed the connection, and I suddenly no longer felt as if I were floating.
I pitched forward onto my palms, retching up nothing but air and the faint taste of something metallic. Through the tangled strands of my hair, I stared at my hands—my left one seemed as if the pores were filled with a faint silver light. Nausea surged, and I gagged, my stomach clenching. Even with my eyes closed, the chamber felt like it was spinning.
I didn’t feel right. My head. My body. I felt both too loose and too tight. There was a strange hollowness in my chest, one that felt final. My arms and legs trembled from the effort of keeping myself upright. Sweat dampened my skin as if I were caught in a rising and breaking fever.
The embers suddenly hummed in my chest as my right hand warmed.
Blinking back stinging tears, I looked down. The swirl across the top of my hand shimmered brightly.
He was almost here.
My arms gave out, and suddenly my cheek was pressed against the cool shadowstone tile. Gods, it felt good against my hot skin. My eyes drifted shut as I thought I heard shouts, but I couldn’t be sure. My heartbeat pounded in my ears. A loud crash sounded somewhere, the noise of doors slamming into walls and shattering. Charged air stirred around me, then blissfully cold fingers touched my cheeks. I was lifted and brought against something cool and solid. Safe. The scent of citrus and fresh air enveloped me, and a breathy sigh escaped my lips.
“Liessa,” Ash spoke, his rough voice a balm. “I’ve got you. Everything will be all right now. I’ve got you.”
