“I don’t understand,” I whispered, moving once more and then stopping a few feet from Sir Holland.
“You know him?” Nyktos had shifted closer as he stared down at the man before us.
“She does,” Sir Holland confirmed, his dark eyes searching mine. “I’ve known her for most of her life.”
“He trained me,” I whispered. I wanted to touch him to see if he was real, to hug him. but I couldn’t move. “It’s Sir Holland. I don’t understand how this is possible.”
“You can just call me Holland,” he told me. “That is my name.”
“But you’re…why are you here?” Confusion pounded through me as Penellaphe glided past him, entering the airy chamber. “Are you a viktor?”
“No. That honor is not mine,” he said.
“He’s here because he’s a Spirit of Fate,” Nyktos stated coldly. “He’s an Arae. One who’s apparently been masquerading as a mortal.” He eyed Holland. “Now I understand how you had knowledge of a certain potion.”
“He’s not a spirit.” To confirm this mostly for myself, I reached out and pressed a finger against the rich brown skin of his arm.
“Spirits of Fate—the Arae—are like gods.” Nyktos reached over, pulling my hand away from Holland. “They are not like the spirits near your lake.”
Holland’s gaze followed Nyktos’ hand, one side of his lips curving up.
Stunned, all I could do was stare. That pragmatic part of my mind kicked in. Out of everyone, Holland had always believed…he had always believed in me. His unwavering faith now made sense. It was still a shock, but after learning the truth about Kolis, I knew I could process this. I could understand. And the knowledge that he was okay helped. Tavius hadn’t done something terrible to him. So many questions rose. Mainly, I wanted to ask if he’d always known that I could never fulfill my duty, but I
recognized that now was so not the time for that. “So, you weren’t sent to the Vodina Isles?”
“I was, but I didn’t go,” he answered. “I knew my time in the mortal realm had come to an end. I came here to wait.”
“Because you knew we…we would come to speak to you?” He nodded.
That was…well, unnerving. How much did Holland know? More than I probably wanted him to. I swallowed.
A thought occurred to me. “This is why you never seemed to age.” “It wasn’t the liquor,” he said.
“No shit,” I murmured.
Penellaphe laughed as she came to stand beside Holland, the gown settling around her feet in a puddle of silk. “Is that what he said?”
I nodded, staring at the man I’d considered the closest thing to a friend. A man I’d trusted. Someone who wasn’t mortal. I didn’t know yet if I should feel betrayed or not. “There is…there has been a lot I haven’t understood, but this, I really don’t get.”
“I think I might know,” Nyktos said, drawing my gaze. He was watching Holland as if he were a few minutes away from pitching him through the open ceiling. “The nursemaid spoke the truth. The Arae had been present upon her birth and you, being one of the Arae, learned of the deal somehow and took the place of the one who was supposed to train her.” He paused. “To kill me.”
“To kill,” Holland corrected.
“Did it not occur to you to inform her of the pointlessness behind that endeavor?” Nyktos demanded, and I was glad he’d brought it up.
“I couldn’t. All I could do was train her.”
“I should thank you for that part,” Nyktos replied, and I could already tell that wouldn’t happen. “But you’re Arae. You’re not allowed to intervene in fate.”
“He didn’t.” The goddess smiled, and Nyktos shot her an incredulous look. “Not technically,” she amended.
“I never directly interfered,” Sir Holland said, and I really needed to stop thinking of him as a knight when he was basically a god. “That’s why I couldn’t tell you who I was or that the Rot wasn’t tied to the deal. If I did, then it would have been considered interference. I was pushing it when I gave you the tea.”
“You were pushing it by even being around her. So, it sounds an awful lot like semantics.” Nyktos folded his arms over his chest. “Does Embris know about this? Of your involvement?”
My heart skipped. That was why Nyktos didn’t sound exactly thrilled by this reveal. If Embris knew, the Primal could tell Kolis about me.
“If I had truly intervened, he would have known. But he’s currently unaware of the deal and who the source of power is.”
“Wait. How is that possible?” I asked, realizing something I hadn’t before. “If the Arae answer to his Court, how could he not know about the deal—about everything?”
“Because the Arae don’t answer to Embris. They just live there,” Nyktos explained, angling his body so that the side of his hips brushed my arm. “Fate answers to no Primal.”
“Unless we overstep,” Holland tacked on. “By directly interfering.”
I had to agree with Nyktos that it sounded like semantics, but I had more pressing questions. “Why did you even get involved? You were with me for so long. The number of years…” Did he not have a family? Friends? Those he missed? Or had he gone back and forth?
“It was a long time,” Penellaphe spoke up. “Those years were a very long time.”
“I did it because I knew I needed to. It wasn’t easy, being gone for so long and so often, but this was bigger than me. Bigger than all of us.” Holland leaned against a pillar and lifted his gaze to Nyktos. “I did it because I knew your father. I knew him when he was the true Primal of Life. I considered him a friend.”
I glanced up at Nyktos, but nothing could be gained from his expression. “Did you know what was to become of him?” he asked.
Holland shook his head. “No. The Arae cannot see the fate of a risen Primal.” Grief crept into his voice. “If I could have, I don’t know if I would still be sitting here today. I don’t…I don’t think I could’ve sat by and done nothing.”
My brows knitted together. “You would’ve intervened? What is the punishment for that?”
“Death,” Nyktos answered. “The final kind.”
I shuddered as my gaze swung back to him. Fear rose. “Is it okay that you’re here?” I felt the brush of Nyktos’ fingers against mine. The touch surprised me, but the soft hum of contact was calming. “Should you leave?”
“The Arae can do nothing to intervene in your fate,” Penellaphe advised. “Not anymore.”
Her words…they felt like an omen, leaving me chilled.
“Then you know why we summoned you. Can you tell us why my father did this?” Nyktos asked. “Why he would put such power into a mortal bloodline—what he hoped to accomplish from that?”
“The better question is what your father did exactly,” Holland countered. “As you know, your father was the true Primal of Life. Kolis couldn’t take everything. That would be impossible. Embers of life still remained in Eythos, just as embers of death remained in Kolis. And when you were conceived, part of that ember passed onto you. Just a flicker of the power. Not as strong as the ember that remained in your father, but enough.”
Nyktos shook his head. “No,” he said. “I never had that ability. I have always been this—”
“You wouldn’t have known if you had that ember until you went through the Culling. But your father took that ember from you before Kolis could learn that you had it in you,” Holland explained. “Eythos knew that Kolis would’ve seen you as even more of a threat. One that his brother would’ve extinguished.”
Nyktos’ eyes began to churn slowly. “My father…” He cleared his throat, but his voice was still hoarse. “He took it from me to keep me safe?” My heart squeezed as Holland nodded. “He took that ember, along with what remained in him, and put it in the Mierel bloodline.” Dark eyes focused on me. “That is what is in you. What remained of Eythos’s power
and what had passed on to Nyktos.”
I opened my mouth, but I was at a loss for words. Nyktos’ equally shocked gaze met mine. “I…I have a part of him in me? And his father?”
“You have the essence of his power,” Penellaphe said, and my head swung back to her.
“That still sounds really weird…and uncomfortable,” I said.
Penellaphe glanced away, her lips twitching before her gaze met mine. “That does not mean you have a part of Nyktos or his father in you or that it would somehow make you some sort of a descendant,” she confirmed—and thank the gods for that because I was about a second away from vomiting a little in my mouth. “You just have the essences of their powers. It’s like… how do I explain this?” Her brow wrinkled as she glanced at Holland. “It’s
like when a god Ascends a godling. The godling shares their blood, but they are not related to that god or any of that god’s bloodline. The only thing that could happen is the essence could…recognize its source.”
“What—what does that mean?” I asked.
“This would be even harder to explain, but I imagine it’s a lot like two souls meant to be one, each finding the other.” She was looking at Holland again, and my heart gave another leap. “Both of you may have felt more comfortable around each other than you would others.”
The breath I took was thin as I leaned back against the dais. There was no denying that I had felt far more comfortable around Nyktos than I did anyone else. That I never really feared him. “I…I felt this…warmth in me when I first saw you. A rightness.” I twisted toward Nyktos. “Not the night in the Shadow Temple, but in The Luxe. I never said anything because I wasn’t even sure what I was feeling, and it sounded silly. But the night in The Luxe, I had a…a hard time walking away from you. It felt wrong. I didn’t understand it.” I turned back to Holland and Penellaphe. “Could that be why?”
“And here I thought it was my charming disposition,” Nyktos muttered under his breath. I shot him an arch look. “I felt something similar. A warmth. A rightness. I…I didn’t know what it meant.”
My eyes widened. “You did?” He nodded.
“As I said, it would be like two souls shaped for one another coming together,” Penellaphe said.
Two souls coming together. Was that why I interested Nyktos so much, despite his intentions to never fulfill the deal? Why he was able to find peace in my presence? Could it also explain why I had been drawn to him even when I believed I had to end him? For me, maybe in the beginning. But now? I didn’t think so. It was him—who he was. His strength and intelligence. His kindness, despite all that he’d seen and surely suffered. His loyalty to his people—those he cared for. It was how ending a life still affected him. It was how he made me feel. That, for the briefest moments, I wasn’t a monster. That I was someone. Me. Not whatever I had been shaped into.
But for Nyktos? It really didn’t matter. He knew what I’d planned. Whatever had guided his interest was irrelevant. “And you don’t know why my father did this? What he thought it could achieve?”
“I had a…prophetic vision before your father struck this deal with a mortal King,” Penellaphe stated, sending a ripple of surprise through me. “It had never happened before, so I didn’t understand what I saw. I didn’t understand the words in my mind, but I knew they carried a purpose. That they were important. Especially when I told Embris, and he took me to Dalos.” She swallowed thickly. “Kolis questioned me quite extensively.”
I tensed, having a feeling her questioning was more like an interrogation
—a painful one.
“It was as if Kolis believed he could somehow force an understanding out of me. A clarification.” She shook her head. “As if I were hiding knowledge from him. But I couldn’t make sense of what I saw or heard.”
“That’s not how they work—visions and prophecies. They are rare and the receivers of them are only messengers. Not scribes.” Holland reached over, taking her hand in his. He squeezed, and I couldn’t help but wonder if there was something between them. I’d never known him to be with anyone, but obviously, there was a lot I hadn’t known.
“Kolis eventually gave up.” Some of the shadows cleared from Penellaphe’s eyes as she smiled at him. “Afterwards, I went to Mount Lotho. I figured if anyone could make any sense of it, it would be the Arae.”
“We weren’t much help at first. We hate prophecies.” Holland laughed dryly. “It wasn’t until Eythos came to ask what, if anything, could be done about his brother, that I recalled the prophecy and Kolis’s interest in it. We shared it with him, and Eythos seemed to have some sort of understanding.”
“What was it? This prophecy?” Nyktos asked. “Can you tell us?”
“What I saw was just disjointed images. People ruling in the mortal realm that didn’t appear mortal—places I don’t think yet exist.”
“Like what?”
“Like cities forever laid to waste. Kingdoms shattered and rebuilt. Great and…terrible wars—wars between Kings…and between Queens.” Her brows pinched. “A forest made of trees the color of blood.”
Nyktos frowned. “The Red Woods?”
She nodded. “But in the mortal realm, and full of death. Steeped in the sins and secrets of hundreds and hundreds of years.”
“Well,” I said, exhaling slowly. “None of that sounds good.”
“But I also saw her. I saw them. A Chosen and a descendant of the First.” The eather burned brightly in Penellaphe’s eyes as they met mine.
“A Queen of Flesh and Fire. And him, a King risen from Blood and Ash, who ruled side by side with man. And they…they felt right. They felt like hope.”
I really had no idea who they were or what that meant, but I would have to take her word for it. “Did you see anything else?”
“Nothing that I can understand enough to tell, but I remember the words. I’ll never forget them.” She looked down as Holland squeezed her hand once more and then let go. She cleared her throat. “‘From the desperation of golden crowns and born of mortal flesh, a great primal power rises as the heir to the lands and seas, to the skies and all the realms. A shadow in the ember, a light in the flame, to become a fire in the flesh. When the stars fall from the night, the great mountains crumble into the seas, and old bones raise their swords beside the gods, the false one will be stripped from glory until two born of the same misdeeds, born of the same great and Primal power in the mortal realm. A first daughter, with blood full of fire, fated for the once-promised King. And the second daughter, with blood full of ash and ice, the other half of the future King. Together, they will remake the realms as they usher in the end.’”
She paused, looking up with eyes as bright as polished sapphires. “‘And so it will begin with the last Chosen blood spilled, the great conspirator birthed from the flesh and fire of the Primals will awaken as the Harbinger and the Bringer of Death and Destruction to the lands gifted by the gods. Beware, for the end will come from the west to destroy the east and lay waste to all which lies between.’” She exhaled unsteadily. “That’s…that’s it.”
I started to speak and then stopped, glancing up at Nyktos. There was a thoughtful pinch to the set of his lips and a whole lot of what the hell to the arch of his brow.
“That sounds…” Nyktos blinked slowly. “That sounded intense.” Penellaphe laughed lightly. “Isn’t it, though?”
Nyktos nodded slowly. “I think it’s safe to assume that the latter part is referencing my uncle. He is the great conspirator—the rightful Bringer of Death. He, along with my father, were born in the west.” Nyktos looked down at me. “They were born in the mortal realm. Roughly where present- day Carsodonia stands.”
“And the last part of the prophecy means that he will destroy all the lands, from west to east, including the mortal realm?” I wiped my hands
down my thighs.
“Depends on how one defines Chosen,” Holland said. “It could be speaking of those chosen to serve the gods or…or those like you, chosen for a different purpose.”
“And the ‘birthed from the flesh and fire of the Primals’ could mean a rebirth of sorts,” Nyktos said. “Not an actual birth.”
“Okay. I get that, but how can that be referencing Kolis?” I asked. “How can he be awakened when he’s already…” I trailed off,
“Unless he goes to sleep,” Nyktos murmured, looking over at Holland and the goddess. “That will never happen.”
Holland head inclined. “Prophecies…they are only a possibility. So many things can change them, and from what I understand, not every word is to be taken literally. The problem is, we do not often know which words should be.”
I snorted at that. “The first part? The desperation of golden crowns? Could that be referencing Roderick Mierel? He was desperate if not yet a King at the time the deal was made.”
“I believe so,” Holland confirmed. “Eythos made the deal with Roderick shortly after he learned of the prophecy. But again, so many things can change a prophecy. That can change the meaning and the intention behind every single word.”
“Well, that’s great,” Nyktos muttered, and I almost laughed.
Holland’s smile was sympathetic. “There is never just one string that charts the course of a life or how that life will impact the realms.” Holland opened his hand, spreading his fingers wide. I gasped as numerous strands appeared, no thicker than a thread and shimmering a bright blue. “There are dozens for most lives. Some even have hundreds of possible outcomes. You.” His gaze lifted to me, and I swallowed. “You have had many strings. Many different paths. But they all ended the same.”
A chill skated down my spine. “How?” “Sometimes, it’s better not to know,” he answered.
Penellaphe drifted closer. “But, sometimes, knowledge is power.” I nodded. “I want to know.”
A brief, fond smile appeared, and then Holland said, “Your paths have always ended in your death before you even saw twenty-one years of life.”
I went numb. Before age twenty-one…? That was…gods, that was soon.
Nyktos stepped forward, partly blocking me. “That’s not going to happen.”
“You may be a Primal,”—Holland’s attention shifted to him—“but you are not a Fate.”
“Fate can go fuck itself,” Nyktos growled. His skin had thinned, revealing the swirling shadows underneath.
“If only.” Holland’s smile was faint, clearly unbothered by the storm brewing within Nyktos. “Death always finds you, one way or another.” His focus had returned to me. “By the hands of a god or a misinformed mortal. By Kolis himself, and even by Death.”
I stilled, my heart lurching. “What?” Nyktos snarled.
“There are many different threads,” Penellaphe said softly, looking up at Nyktos. A great sadness had settled into her features. “Many different ways her death could come at your hands. But this one.” She lifted a finger, nearly touching one of the shimmering strands—a thread that appeared to have broken off into another shorter thread. “This was not intentional.”
“What are you talking about?” Nyktos demanded.
“She has your blood in her, doesn’t she?” she asked.
Nyktos went so still, I wasn’t sure he even breathed. My gaze darted between them. “I don’t have his blood. He hasn’t—” I sucked in a breath. The night Nyktos had fed from me. I’d bitten his thumb and drew blood. I’d tasted it. I saw the moment Nyktos remembered. I twisted toward Holland. “It was just a drop. Barely even that.”
“But it was enough,” Holland stated. “The ember of life in you is strong enough to cause you to have the symptoms of the Culling, but it wasn’t strong enough to push you into the change. The symptoms would’ve eased off, but not now. Not with the blood of a powerful Primal in you. You will go into the Culling.”
“No.” Nyktos shook his head, twists of eather swirling in his eyes. “She can’t. She’s not a godling. She’s mortal—”
“Mostly,” Penellaphe whispered. “Her body is mortal. As is her mind.” She looked at me, her eyes glistening. “But what has always been inside of you is Primal. It doesn’t matter that both of your parents were mortal. You were born with an ember of not one but two Primals inside you. That’s what will attempt to come out.”
“That can’t happen.” Nyktos thrust a hand through his hair, dragging the strands back from his face. “There has to be a way to stop it.”
“There isn’t.” I gripped my knees as I looked between Holland and the goddess. “Is there? No special potion or deal to be made?”
Holland shook his head. “No. There are some things that not even the Primals can grant. This is one of them.”
“She won’t—” Nyktos cut himself off as he turned to me. I’d never seen him so pale, so horrified.
“This isn’t your fault.” I stood, surprised that my legs weren’t shaking. “I did it. You didn’t. And it’s not like you had any way of knowing that would happen.”
“So reckless. Impulsive,” Holland murmured.
A laugh choked me. “Yeah, well, you’ve always known that is my greatest flaw.”
“Or greatest strength,” Holland countered. “Your actions could’ve given whatever it was Eythos believed upon hearing the prophecy a chance to come to fruition.”
Both Nyktos and I stared at him. “What?”
“Look closer at this thread.” Penellaphe lifted a finger once more to the string that had broken off. “Look.”
Nyktos’ head lowered as he stared. At first, I saw nothing, but when I squinted… I saw it—the shadow of a thread, barely there and ever-changing in length, stretching farther than any of the other threads and then shrinking to the length of the others.
“What is that?” I asked.
“It’s an unexpected thread. Unpredictable. It is the unknown. The unwritten,” Penellaphe explained. “It is the one thing that not even the Fates can predict or control.” The corners of her lips turned up. “The only thing that can disrupt fate.”
“And what is that?” Nyktos asked, his hands closing into fists at his sides. “And how do I find it?”
“It can’t be found,” she said, and I was one second from screaming my frustration. “It can only be accepted.”
“You’re going to need to give us a little more detail,” Nyktos snapped. “It’s love,” Holland answered. “Love is the one thing that not even fate
can contend with.” I blinked.
That was all I could do.
Nyktos appeared to be as dumbstruck as I was, unable to formulate a single response.
“Love is more powerful than fate.” Holland lowered his hand, and all but one thread vanished. Only the broken one and the shadow of a constantly shifting string remained, glittering between us. “Love surpasses even what courses through our veins, awe-inspiring and terrifying in its selfishness. It can extend a thread by sheer will, becoming a piece of pure magic that biology cannot extinguish, and it can snap a thread unexpectedly and prematurely.”
“What exactly are you saying?” I asked.
“Your body cannot withstand the Culling. Not without the sheer will of something more powerful than fate and even death.” Holland glanced at Nyktos. “Not without the love of the one who would aid her Ascension.”
What Aios had said about the godlings and the Culling came back to me. “You’re talking about the blood of a god. You’re saying I would need the blood of a god who loves me?” I could hardly believe I was voicing it.
“Not just any god. A Primal. And not just any Primal.” Penellaphe’s blue eyes locked onto Nyktos. “The blood of the Primal to whom the ember belonged—that, combined with the pure will of love, can unravel fate.”
Nyktos stepped back, shadows swirling around his legs, and I… I sat down again. Or perhaps I fell. Fortunately, I landed at the edge of the dais. My heart twisted and squeezed as I watched Nyktos’ head slowly turn toward me. His eyes, as bright as the moon, stared down at me, and I didn’t need his power to sense emotions to know he was horrified.
And I didn’t need to be a Fate to know that I truly would die. Nyktos could never love me.
Even if I hadn’t planned to kill him. Nyktos was incapable of love. It was simply not in him. He knew that. I knew that.
“This isn’t fair,” I said hoarsely, angry at everything. “To do this to him.”
“To do this to me?” he rasped as silvery streaks of eather appeared in the shadows swirling around him. “This isn’t fair to you.”
“It’s not fair to either of you,” Penellaphe stated softly. “But life, fate, or love rarely is, is it?”
I wanted to punch the goddess for telling me what I already knew.
But I drew in a deep breath, briefly closing my eyes. There was a lot of information to digest—a lot of knowledge that was ultimately irrelevant and overshadowed by the fact that I would die, sooner rather than later—and painfully, too. Anger sparked in me again, and I latched onto it, holding it close. The burn of that was familiar and felt better than the sorrow and hopelessness.
“There is more,” Holland stated.
I laughed. It sounded strange. “Of course, there is.”
“You have had as many outcomes as you’ve had lives,” he told me. “Many lives?” I repeated.
Holland nodded, and then the shimmery cords appeared once more.
Dozens of them.
“What does that mean?” Nyktos’ gaze flicked from the strings to Holland. “Her soul has been reborn?”
Holland also stared at the strings. “Fate doesn’t know all because the actions of one can alter the course of fate. Just like she altered the course with a single drop of blood.” He looked up at Nyktos. “Just like your father altered fate, as did the Primal Keella, when they stopped a soul from entering the Shadowlands, leaving it to be born over and over.”
“You’re speaking of Sotoria,” I said, and he nodded. “What does that have to do with this?”
Holland’s gaze shifted to me. “You are a warrior, Seraphena. You always have been. Just like she learned to become.”
Tiny bumps rose all over my skin. “No.”
He shook his head. “You have had many names.” “No,” I repeated.
“You have lived many lives,” he continued. “But it is that one, the first one, that Eythos remembered when he answered Roderick Mierel’s summons. He always remembered her.”
Nyktos had once again gone deathly still. “You’re not saying what I think you are.”
“I am.”
“Eythos could be considered impulsive by many, but he was wise,” Holland said, sadness creeping into his eyes. “He knew what would come of Kolis’s actions. Kolis was never meant to be the Primal of Life. Those powers and gifts could not remain in him. What he did was unnatural. Life cannot exist in that state. Eythos knew they would fade, and they have. That
is why no Primals have been born. Why the lands in the mortal realm are beginning to die. Why no gods have risen in power. He knew that Kolis’s actions would be the end of both realms as we know them.”
“Your father wanted to keep you safe,” Penellaphe restated. “But he wanted to save the realms. He wanted to give the mortals and the gods a chance. He wanted to give you revenge,” she said, looking at me. I shuddered. “So, this is what he did. He hid the ember of life, where it could be safe and where it could grow in power until a new Primal was ready to be born—in the one being that could weaken his brother.”
“I can’t be her. There’s no way. I’m not Sotoria. I’m…” My words faded as the rest of what she’d said broke through.
A new Primal was ready to be born…
“‘Born of mortal flesh, a shadow in the ember,’” Nyktos repeated slowly, and then his chest rose in a sharp breath. “What Holland said about no gods rising in power is true. That hasn’t happened since my father placed the ember in your bloodline. But you did it.”
“I…I didn’t mean to,” I started. “But I think that’s the least of my concerns right now.”
“You’re right. That is the least of our concerns right now, but it is what
that means.” Nyktos turned to the Fate. “Isn’t it? It’s her.”
Holland nodded. “All life—in both realms—has only continued to come into creation because the Mierel bloodline carried that ember. Now, she carries the only ember of life in both realms. She is why life continues.” Holland’s eyes met mine and held. “If you were to die, there would be nothing but death in all the kingdoms and all the realms.”
The floor felt as if it were shifting beneath me. “That…that doesn’t make sense.”
“It does.” Slowly, Nyktos turned back. His gaze met mine, and he didn’t look away. He didn’t blink. “It’s you.” A sort of wonder filled his features, widening his eyes and parting his lips. “You are the heir to the lands and seas, skies and realms. A Queen instead of a King. You are the Primal of Life.”
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Coming March 15, 2022
THE WAR OF TWO QUEENS
From #1 New York Times bestselling author Jennifer L. Armentrout comes book four in her Blood and Ash series.
