Killing Kolis wouldn’t be easy.
Obviously.
Even if Kolis recognized Sotoria’s soul—saw me as her—I doubted it would be as simple as me plunging a dagger into his chest. I would have to be sure that he loved me first, and I couldn’t even let myself think about what that would involve as I ran under the canopy of crimson leaves. If I allowed myself to entertain those ideas, I would be vomiting all over myself. So, I filed that away.
I didn’t even know what killing Kolis would do—what kind of impact it would have on Iliseeum and the mortal realm—but Holland wouldn’t have told me what he had if it were something catastrophic. The fact that Nyktos was a Primal of Death must mean there would still be balance.
Until I died.
Which would likely be as soon as I succeeded in thrusting my shadowstone dagger into Kolis’s chest. I imagined that he, too, had draken that would immediately retaliate.
But right now, luck was on my side for once. I entered the Dying Woods without any issues. Probably because I’d run the whole way. The hood of my cloak had slipped, but I left it down as I doubted I would run into anyone in an area occupied by Shades—souls who had entered the Shadowlands but refused to face judgment for deeds committed when they were alive by passing between the Pillars of Asphodel. I had yet to see a Shade, and I really hoped that didn’t change, considering I’d heard they could be bitey.
The muscles in my legs and stomach were beginning to cramp, forcing me to slow as I continuously scanned the thick rows of bent and broken trees. Each breath I drew reminded me of the Rot—stale lilacs. At least there was no ache in my jaw and temples or dizziness. I had no idea how long I had before the mixture of herbs—chasteberry, peppermint, and a
whole bunch I couldn’t remember—wore off, and the effects of the Culling set in once more. But when it did, I would have to do what I always did.
Deal with it.
Just like I knew Ezra would if she learned there was nothing to be done about the Rot. We might not share even a drop of blood, but she was resilient. Like me, she wouldn’t give up. Nor would she pretend as if the end weren’t coming, or hope for a magical fix like I knew my mother would. Ezra would do everything in her power to ensure that as many people as possible survived for as long as they could.
According to Holland, she was already doing that. Even if I could never get word to her, she was taking necessary steps—
A rattle from above drew my gaze to the dead, gnarled, and leafless branches. I jerked to a complete stop as a hawk—an enormous silver one— glided through the twisted branches, its massive wings spread wide, slowing its descent. The bird of prey landed on one of the limbs, its sharp, dark talons digging into the dead bark.
It looked just like the hawk I’d unintentionally healed in the Red Woods. But then again, I imagined most did. I was still surprised to see any animals in the Shadowlands other than horses and whatever the hell the dakkais were.
While I was relieved that it wasn’t a Shade perched above me, silver hawks were notoriously fierce predators. I hadn’t believed my old nursemaid Odetta when she’d told me stories of how they could pick up small animals and even children. But now, seeing one up close twice, I totally believed the hawks could do just that—maybe even snatch a slender adult.
I’d never been more grateful for my love of bread and pastries than right then.
The silver hawk slowly lowered its wings as I took a tentative step forward, hoping it remained right where it was and didn’t try to make a meal out of me. The last thing I wanted was to harm any animal—well, except barrats and serpents. Those, I’d gladly kill all day and night.
I’d taken no more than three steps when the hawk’s head swiveled toward me, its sharply hooked beak tipping down. Eyes full of intelligence locked onto mine—eyes that weren’t black like the bird I’d healed, but a vibrant, unnatural, intense shade of blue even brighter than the goddess Penellaphe’s eyes. It was a color I’d never seen in a bird before.
The hawk let out a soft chirping sound, reminding me of a less powerful version of the staggering call the draken made, and then it suddenly launched from the branch. Wings spread wide, the hawk darted straight toward me. Heart lurching, I quickly crouched, reaching for the dagger in my boot. I jerked the weapon free just as the hawk veered suddenly, swooping over my head—
A shrill shriek of pain sent a chill crawling down my spine. Rising, I whirled, swallowing a scream as fear exploded in my chest.
A heavy gray mass convulsed a few feet from me, flailing as the silver hawk sank its blade-sharp talons into something shaped like a head. The thing rapidly became more solid as the hawk’s heavy wings beat across shoulders and a chest. Arms became visible, and hands and fingers made of shadow reached for the hawk, but the bird tore at wispy fingers, ripping off tendrils of gray that floated toward the grayish-brown ground.
Icy air kissed the nape of my neck, sending a bolt of adrenaline through me. I reacted out of instinct, shutting down the fear. Spinning around, I swept up with the dagger. My eyes went wide as the blade met resistance within the churning, throbbing shadow. The thing screamed as it jerked back. Pieces of shadow broke off, spraying into the air like blood as the thing lifted off the ground, flying into the limbs, just as another darted through the trees, its tendrils of shadow billowing several feet above the ground.
I had a sinking suspicion that I knew exactly what I was dealing with. Shades.
And, somehow, everyone had failed to mention that they could basically fly.
I leapt to the side as a smoky arm swept out, then turned to see that the Shade the hawk had attacked was now gone as the hawk flew down, dragging its talons through the new Shade. Was the hawk actually helping me? Or just reacting to the bigger threat?
A low moan traveled through the Dying Woods. I wheeled around, catching glimpses of deep gray slipping in and out between the crooked limbs as if coming from the dead ground and trees.
“Gods,” I muttered. “I really don’t have time for this.”
I turned to the closest one, wondering exactly how in the hell they got bitey when they appeared to be smoke and shadows. I cursed as the Shade darted to my left. Another flew across the ground, slithering like a large,
shadowy serpent—because, of course, it would. Shooting forward, I slammed the dagger into what I assumed was its back as it began to rise. The blade sank into something, causing the Shade to screech and hit the ground. My eyes went wide as the Shade suddenly shattered into thousands of tiny filaments. Okay. I’d definitely hit something vital. Lifting the dagger, I noticed black splatter, some kind of oily substance, along the curve of my hand. A stale scent hit me, turning my stomach.
A teeny-tiny part of me felt bad as I wheeled around, thrusting the dagger into the widest part of the Shade. These things had been mortals once. They may have committed terrible sins or were simply individuals whose fear of consequence was greater than whatever indiscretions they may have committed. I had a feeling that when they broke apart into nothing, as the one before me did while I turned to another, it meant the destruction of their soul. There was no coming back from that.
I plunged the dagger into the next creature’s chest without hesitation because the guilt was fleeting. I didn’t want to become some wayward soul’s late-night snack.
A Shade swooped down, much as the hawk had earlier. I leapt sideways, and something snagged my cloak, tearing it.
Claws. Right. Apparently, Shades had claws you couldn’t see. I twisted, throwing up my forearm to block the Shade in front of me. My elbow connected with bone-deep coldness and something hard within the mass of gray—something that felt a lot like a throat as the sound of snapping teeth echoed from the void.
“No biting,” I grunted, pushing the creature back as I thrust out with the dagger.
Suddenly, something jerked my head back with such force that pain shot down my neck and back. My feet went out from under me as the hawk let out another staggering series of chirps. I hit the ground hard, knocking the air from my lungs.
The Shade came down over me, the thick wisps and tendrils of shadow flowing around it, clouding the entire realm. Icy shadow fingers encircled my wrist, pinning the hand that held the dagger to the ground. The touch— its hold—was almost mind-numbingly cold as I brought my knee up and shoved my left hand in the general vicinity of where I thought its shoulder might be. My fingers sank into the cold air within the mass of shadows, and
my palm flattened against what didn’t feel like skin but something hard and smooth. Like…bone. I pushed up with all my strength—
And several things happened all at once.
The hawk swooped down over us, dragging its talons across the Shade’s back. The creature shrieked, spasming as the hawk flew up into the trees. My chest suddenly throbbed, heating and humming. Static erupted over my skin—my arms and hands. There was no will, no demand, but I felt the eather in my blood building and building. I tried to stop it, but a silvery glow spilled out from my palm, beating back the Shade’s shadows, peeling back the layers of dull gray, stripping away the wispy shroud until I saw the white of actual bones. A rib cage and a spine and dry, withered organs—a wrinkled heart that was a flat, gray color.
A heart that suddenly beat.
The color deepened to a bright red as pinkish-white tendons and muscles rapidly formed around the ribs and bones. Veins appeared throughout where nothing but gray had once been. A skull took shape, tendons wrapping around a jawbone, straightening a mouth full of crooked, broken teeth.
Oh, gods. Oh, gods. I was never going to unsee this. This would haunt me for however long I lived.
Lips began to take shape, turning a pale pink as they moved, and a throat that was barely put together vibrated with sound. “Meyaah,” it rasped. “Liessa…”
“What in the actual fuck?” I gasped as a milky white substance filled the eye sockets. As—
My chest warmed once more and hummed, the eather inside me—the embers of life—vibrating in response to the wave of pure, unfettered power. A silver, crackling light suddenly filled the woods, so bright and iridescent that, for the briefest second, I saw the swirling, circling Shades above me. And then they were simply…gone.
That kind of power was unthinkable.
Spitting, hissing energy swept over the Shade above me, filling the newly formed veins with burning white light as it threw the Shade into the air, and it shattered into utterly nothing.
I lay there, hand still raised as the intense, silvery light receded and faded, and the world turned gray and almost lifeless once more.
Above and among the warped branches, the silver hawk called out softly and then lifted into the air. My heart thundering, I watched it spread its wings and disappear from view.
Not even the fierce predator wanted to hang around. “Seraphena.”
My chest seized at the hard, cold voice that had to be conjured from the darkest hours of the night. What I’d done to the Shade fell to the wayside, replaced by the knowledge that I should’ve seen this coming. He had my blood in him—lots of it now. He would’ve felt the extreme burst of fear, even if it had been brief—just as he had in the courtyard earlier. Maybe it wasn’t even the blood as much as the Primal ember inside me that had once belonged to him. Who knew? None of that mattered at the moment. What did was the fact that I couldn’t just lay here, wishing I could sink into the ground. My heart still hammering away, I slowly rose to my feet. Pressure clamped down on my chest as I faced him.
Nyktos stood several feet from me, appearing every bit the Primal ruler of the Shadowlands he was. He cut a striking figure in a deep gray tunic, his hair swept back. The lines of his face were harder and colder than I’d ever seen them.
And his skin…it was thin.
The longer I stared, the more I saw the shadows gathering beneath his flesh. His eyes were swirling, silver orbs. I didn’t need his talent to read emotions to know that he was beyond furious.
The reality hit me with the speed of an out-of-control wagon. I wasn’t going anywhere. My true destiny wouldn’t be fulfilled. Nyktos would never let me out of his sight now. I would be trapped here, with all the people who would likely die because of me. The pressure on my chest and in my throat ramped up. The tightening became unbearable, and I did something I had never done before.
I turned and ran. I ran as fast and as hard as I could, racing through the twisted and bent trees, ignoring the sharp slices of pain as bare, low- hanging branches reached toward me like bony fingers, snagging my cloak and hair and nicking my skin.
The pressure in my chest was cool and thick, leaving little room for control or rationale. Like when Tavius had pinned me down, and I couldn’t breathe. I’d reacted like a wild animal then, and I was that animal again.
He would burn through the Shadowlands.
Damp, clammy sweat broke out across my forehead as the wound left behind by the Shade ached. The gray, bare limbs of the trees were a blurred maze of twisted, gnarled, bone-like branches. My boots pounded over rocks and uneven ground as I kept running, not even knowing where I was running to. But I knew why. Desperation. Foolish, idiotic desperation propelled me forward, each step putting distance between me and the nightmares that were sure to become a horrific reality. I would never have a chance to reach Kolis. I would be nothing more than a bull’s-eye, guiding Kolis right to everyone—to Nyktos.
Kolis has done all manner of things to him.
I couldn’t stop the Rot. I wouldn’t be able to stop Kolis. I had no duty
—no higher purpose. I would die. And, worse yet, I would be the cause of untold horror. I was nothing but—
A rush of citrus and fresh air was my only warning. Nyktos’s weight suddenly crashed into me, hard and solid. The ground raced up to me as his arm folded across my waist. He twisted, and then all I could see was the twinkling of stars between a spiderweb of bare branches.
Nyktos hit the ground first, and…gods, that must have hurt. He absorbed the impact of my weight against the rocky surface with a grunt. The back of my head bounced off the wall of his chest, momentarily stunning me. There was nothing but our ragged breathing for a beat and then…
“Did you seriously just try to run?” Nyktos’s breath stirred the hair on the top of my head. “From me? Why? Why would you do that?”
“Why not?” I shot back, cringing at how utterly childish that sounded.
“Are you fucking kidding me right now?” he snarled. A tremor ran through me as I strained against his hold. “You fled the safety of the palace and ran straight into the second place I warned you never to enter. Was my very short list of rules that confusing? Or are you just that incapable of following rules meant to save your life?”
“Fuck your rules,” I spat, tremors skating through me.
“And my sanity right along with them,” he bit out. “Do you even understand how close you were to death, Sera? Even if you killed the Shade above you, there were at least a dozen more waiting. If I hadn’t felt you and intervened—yet again, if I might add—”
“No, you may not.”
“You would be dead,” he seethed. “They would’ve torn into you, and no amount of my blood would’ve saved you. There would’ve been nothing left of you to even bury. For me to even—” He cut himself off as the fury backing his words punched into the air around us in a wave of icy-hot energy. My eyes went wide as the ripple hit the trees above, shattering them into ash.
Holy shit. My throat dried as I watched what was left of the trees fall to the ground like snow.
“What were you thinking, Sera?” He shook me.
What had I been thinking? That I could actually escape the Shadowlands—escape him? Somehow make it to Kolis alive?
“Answer me.” I realized he wasn’t shaking me. It was his body. It shook under mine. “Why were you running from me?”
I tried to sit up, but his arm shifted, holding me flat against him. Even in the chaos of my mind, I realized that he’d trapped my left hand against my stomach. Not my right hand. Not the one that held the dagger. That was a purposeful choice. No accident. The dagger may not be able to kill him, but it had hurt him before. A skilled warrior such as he would’ve removed the threat of a dagger first and foremost. It was what I would do. But he’d chosen not to. “I wasn’t running from you.”
“Then what were you doing? Striving to be the most difficult person I’ve ever crossed paths with?”
“Yeah, that’s exactly it. Not that I was actually trying to save you, you jackass!”
Nyktos went completely still and silent, and I realized my mistake right then. His chest rose sharply against my back. “You couldn’t have—no, Sera. No.”
I felt the moment the shock hit him. His arm loosened around my waist, and I knew it was my chance—my last chance.
Digging the heels of my boots into the ground, I launched myself upward, breaking his hold. I was free for a heartbeat before Nyktos caught my left forearm. Cursing, I twisted as he moved to sit up, clamping my knees onto his hips. He caught the thick braid hanging over my shoulder as I thrust the dagger down.
Nyktos’s eyes went wide as I pressed the edge of the blade under his chin. My hand didn’t shake. No part of me on the outside did. The inside was a different story—everything in there trembled.
“Let me go,” I ordered.
Moonlight-bright eyes locked onto mine. “No.” “You need to let me go, Nyktos.”
“Or what?” One side of his lips curled up. “You’re going to slit my throat?”
Frustration and hopelessness crashed into a bitter tide of desperation and anger. “If that’s what it takes.”
“Then do it. Slit my throat.” He wrapped the braid around his hand, putting just enough pressure on my neck to force my head down toward his. “Just make sure you cut deep. To the spine. Otherwise, all you’ll accomplish is getting us both bloody.”
My heart lurched. He couldn’t be serious.
“Do it,” he growled, his lips peeling back over his fangs. “Severing my spine is the only opportunity you’ll get to make a run for it.”
A tremor hit my arm, and I swallowed a gasp as he lifted his head. A bead of shimmery, reddish-blue blood appeared on the side of his throat.
“But you’d better run fast. Because I won’t be down long,” he warned, those wildly churning eyes never leaving mine. “You’ll have about a minute. If that. But just so you know, you won’t make it out of the Shadowlands, liessa.”
Liessa.
It didn’t just mean Queen in old Primal language. It also meant something beautiful. Something powerful. Hearing him call me that rocked me.
Nyktos struck then.
Grasping the hand that held the dagger, he flipped me with such shocking ease that it was clear he could’ve done it at any moment.
“That wasn’t fair,” I cried out.
He came down over me within a heartbeat, trapping me. “What about me makes you think I’m fair?”
“Everything.” Panic was a strange thing, sucking away one’s strength one moment and giving near godlike power the next. I lifted my hips and clamped my legs down on his waist. I rolled him and popped to my feet with a shout, then jumped back, turning.
A low rumble from the sky shook the bare branches of the remaining trees, rattling them like dry bones. I looked up, catching only a brief
glimpse of blackish-gray wings through the slowly drifting ash. Nektas. My heart seized—
Nyktos rose to one knee, twisting as he swept out his leg, catching mine. My feet went out from under me, and I hit the ground on my ass. Nyktos was fast—so damn fast. He rolled onto me again, but this time, he was smarter. One broad thigh wedged between mine as he captured both of my wrists, pinning them to the dry, dead grass as the shadow of a draken glided above us, coasting over the circle of land Nyktos had cleared in his rage.
“Drop it.” Eather spilled from Nyktos’s eyes and seeped under his skin, illuminating his veins as a thin trickle of blood coursed down his throat. “Drop the dagger, Sera. I don’t want to make you do it, but I will. Drop it.”
He could do just that, using compulsion. Panting, I forced my grip to relax. The hilt of the dagger slipped from my palm. It was over. Even if I managed to get free and somehow incapacitated Nyktos, I wouldn’t make it far. Not with Nektas in the air. “Happy?”
His eyes became pure silver with no discernible pupil—just glowing orbs. Those essence-lit veins continued spreading over his cheek and down his throat. In an instant, the minor wound there was gone. Only the faint trace of blood remained. “Tell me I’m wrong, Sera.”
My muscles went weak and my neck limp.
The essence bled out around him in thick tendrils of black laced with silver. Shadows churned under his skin. “Tell me I’m wrong. Tell me!” he shouted, the shadows spreading until his flesh was the color of midnight streaked with starlight, and the fingers around my wrists became as hard as shadowstone. “Tell me you were not going after Kolis!”
“I had to.”
“Wrong,” he snarled, the flash of fangs a shocking white against his skin.
My lips parted as he took his true form. Twin sweeping arcs rose behind him—as wide as he was tall. Solid, teaming masses of power that blocked out everything beyond him. I hadn’t been this close to him in the courtyard when he took this form, but I’d been close enough that I recognized the striking lines of his features beneath the churning, hard flesh: the height of his cheekbones, the lush, full lips, and thick, reddish- brown strands of hair that fell against the curve of his jaw.
“Whatever you think you need to do,” he said, his voice soft as a breath
—it tripped up my heart even more—“whatever you believe you can accomplish, you are wrong.”
“How can you say that? I can stop him.” I trembled, the words spilling out of me. “You have to know that.”
“Turning yourself over to Kolis is not the answer.”
“You know it is!” I shouted. “Why else would your father put her soul in me? Why else would I have been trained to kill a Primal?”
His head was mere inches from mine, and the brightness of his eyes caused mine to water.
Instinct screamed at me to go quiet. That he was on the edge of losing whatever restraint he had. But I couldn’t. He had to understand that this was our only chance to stop Kolis. “I know what I’m facing.” I forced my voice to go steady and level like when I spoke to the wild kiyou wolf I had brought back to life in the Dark Elms. “But whatever happens to me will be worth it if I—”
Those twin arcs swept down, slamming into the ground and shaking the entire woods. Eather sparked from the tips of his wings, hitting the patches of dead, gray grass and turning it to ash.
“You h-have to understand.” I shuddered as frigid air blasted off him. “I’m his weakness. What I’ve been preparing for my whole life? It was for him. Not you.” My breath formed a misty, puffy cloud. “I can still try. Just help me get there, or…or let me go. Either one. I will fulfill my real destiny.”
Nyktos had gone silent.
I swallowed, hoping I was getting somewhere with him, praying to whatever Fates might be listening that he would understand. “You shouldn’t have to worry about hiding who I am. You’ll be free of me, and so will all those who seek shelter under your care. Everyone in the Shadowlands will be safer this way. You will be safer. No one else has to get hurt or die.”
“But you would be dead.” Nyktos spoke in a voice I barely recognized, his tone thicker and more guttural. “Kolis will destroy you.”
“That doesn’t matter—” I sucked in a breath when his wings lifted, whipping the strands of our hair across our faces as they spread out behind him.
“And you argue that you value your life.” A deep growl rumbled from his chest. “What little regard you have for it has never been more apparent
than right now.”
“I’m going to die no matter what. The mortal realm will be lost. You can’t stop that. No one can. But I can at least do something about Kolis. Then, he won’t be able to hurt anyone again. He won’t be able to hurt you.” He lowered his head even more, his mouth barely a breath away from mine. “I will gladly suffer anything Kolis dishes out as long as my blood is
spilled instead of yours.”
I pressed into the ground, stunned. “Why? Why would you do that for me?”
“The embers of life and you—”
“Fuck the embers of life!” I pushed against his hold, getting nowhere, but something deep in me, something that had been there, tightening and building for fucking years, began to crack.
A tangled knot of emotion spilled out—fear, need, shame, loneliness, sorrow, and a thousand other feelings I’d never been allowed to express. I felt carved into pieces by all the times my family had pushed me aside, treating me like an unwelcome guest, viewing me as nothing but a curse. Every glance of disappointment from my mother left wounds to fester, as if she wished she never had to look at me again. I was just a vessel carrying deep scars from the first life I’d taken and all those that followed, each leaving the wrong kind of mark. I felt like nothing more than bruises on a blank canvas, numb to it all. I didn’t mourn those losses; I didn’t care, because no one else ever cared about me beyond what I could do for them.
My skin felt too tight, prickling with discomfort. My chest ached, and that tangled knot unraveled into rage, morphing into something raw and untamed. I threw my head back, a scream of frustration and fury tearing from my throat. From within the vast chasm that had cracked open, a fierce heat rose from the emptiness. Power. It felt as though it had always been there—bright, burning, ancient, and limitless. Power surged through my veins, and a silvery-white light flooded my vision—
I slammed my hands into his shoulders as that energy, that pure Primal essence erupted from my palms and flowed into—
Nyktos.
