A_Shadow_in_the_Ember_Amazon

by Armentrout, Jennifer L.

  They were empty now, but one was draped in white fabric. Black petals had been strewn about the cloth, a ceremonial act representing the King’s passing.

  The massive circular chamber was still in a state of disarray from the prior night’s celebrations. Servants came to a complete standstill as we entered—dozens of them.

  “Everyone out,” Tavius barked. “Now.”

  No one hesitated. They scurried from the Hall in a flurry of starched white tunics and blouses. My gaze collided with one. Her. The young girl who’d been in the room where the guards had been lying in wait. Her blue eyes were wide as she quickly looked away, casting her gaze to the floor.

  Tavius strode down the wide steps onto the main floor, and my gaze traveled to what he walked toward. The statue of the Primal of Life. Breathtaking detail had been given to Primal Kolis. The heavy-soled caligae and armored plating shielding his legs looked real, as did the knee-length tunic and the chainmail covering his chest and torso, all carved from the palest marble. He held a spear in one hand and a shield in the other. The warrior. The protector. The King of the Primals, gods, and mortals. Even the bones in his hands and the curl to his hair had been captured in astonishing detail. But his face was nothing but smooth stone.

  The lack of features always unnerved me, just as it did whenever I saw the rare renderings of the Primal of Death.

  Tavius looked up at the statue. “This would work.” He turned to me, that smirk fixed upon his lips. “A rather fitting place for you, I think.”

  Breathe in. I had no idea what he was up to or what my punishment would be as the Royal Guards forced me down the steps. Spilled liquid dampened the soles of my feet. Hold. White petals crumbled under my steps. I glanced up at Kolis’s stone, feature-less face, fighting the tremble starting in my legs. I forced my muscles to lock as footsteps entered the Hall from behind. Breathe out.

  “Ah, perfect timing.” Tavius clapped his hands together. “Bind her and put her on her knees.”

  Breathe in. I felt the edge of the arrow poking me in the back. I went down stiffly to my knees, at the feet of the Primal King. The Royal Guards brought my wrists together, and the guard who had been waiting outside my chamber at the end of the hall was suddenly beside me, wrapping one end of a rope around my wrists. I showed no reaction to the tight pull against my skin as he jerked the bindings around the statue’s arm, forcing my arms above my head. Hold. My lungs burned as the guards backed away. The breath I’d dragged in hadn’t been deep enough. I exhaled a thin stream of air. What was happening? What was—? Tavius moved out of my line of sight. I cranked my head to the side to see what he was doing—

  Air cracked with a thin whistle, turning my skin to ice. No. No, he wouldn’t. My heart started racing as I pulled at the bonds, my stomach twisting. I knew that sound. I’d heard it when I walked into the barn that night as he’d whipped his horse for throwing him. There was no—

  “You’ve always reminded me of a wild horse. Too stubborn. Too temperamental. Too proud despite your numerous failures,” Tavius drawled, drawing closer. I heard him dragging the leather lash over his palm. “There’s only one way to get a steed to respect its master. You have to break it.” Tavius knelt beside me. Nothing about his eyes was warm. There was nothing humane. “Just like you should’ve been broken the night you failed the entire kingdom. But you’ll learn today.”

  I stared at him, my heart slowing. I wasn’t there. I didn’t feel the cool tile under my knees or the too-tight, rough rope around my wrists. I donned the veil. I retreated into myself, but I didn’t fade to nothing. I wasn’t an empty vessel. The canvas wasn’t blank. Something dark and tremendous sparked inside me, like a violent strike against flint. An icy fire was birthed in the center of my chest. It poured through my body, filling all those hollow places. My blood hummed, and the center of my chest throbbed. I tasted shadow and death in the back of my throat as that icy fire burned through me. I lifted my eyes to Tavius’s, the corners of my lips curling up.

  I heard words pass my lips, sentences full of smoke. “I’m going to kill you.” I barely recognized the voice as mine. “I will slice the hands from your body and then carve your heart from your chest before setting it on fire. I will watch you burn.”

  Tavius’s pupils expanded. “You…you stupid bitch.”

  I laughed. I didn’t even know where the laugh had come from, but it felt ancient and endless. And it wasn’t mine. I thought Tavius heard it. For a second, I swore I saw fear in his eyes. Doubt. For just a second, and then his lips curled into a sneer.

  “You won’t be doing anything, sister. I doubt you’ll be able to even speak your name by the time I’m through with you. You’ll be broken,” he swore. “You will respect me.”

  “Never,” I whispered and then looked away, focusing on the stone hand holding the hilt of the spear.

  Seconds ticked by as Tavius remained kneeling beside me, his chest rising and falling rapidly. I stayed in that faraway place where nothing but icy fire filled my insides, leaving no room for dread or fear or anything else. When Tavius rose, I felt nothing but the kiss of promised retribution. When he walked behind me, I held my chin high. When he roughly tossed my braid over my shoulder, exposing my back, I didn’t move. When the air cracked again, I didn’t flinch.

  The snapping pain streaked across my back, from my shoulders to my waist, sudden and intense. A harsh breath punched out of me. That was the only sound in the Great Hall. The Royal Guards remained silent. Tavius didn’t even speak. I forced myself to breathe through the pain.

  The whistle of the whip was the only warning. I braced myself, but there was no way to prepare. No breathing exercise to ease what was to come. Fiery pain erupted as my entire body jerked forward and then fell back as far as the ropes would allow. I shuddered, telling myself that I could handle this. Tavius wasn’t strong enough to break skin.

  He was the weak one.

  The night rail slipped down my arms, gaping in the front as I slowly rightened myself. As soon as I could, I would carry out my promise. I would cut off his hands and feed that whip to him until he choked on it. I would carve out his heart and then watch him burn.

  “Look at you.” There was a thickness to Tavius’s voice. He snapped the whip off the tile, and my entire body flinched. He laughed. “Still so defiant, but it’s an act. You’re afraid. Weak. Would you like me to stop? You know what to say.”

  I turned my head to the side, seeing him through the strands of hair that had slipped free. He was standing behind me. “Tavius,” I said between gritted teeth. “Please…kindly go fuck yourself.”

  Someone inhaled sharply—one of the Royal Guards. I heard boots shuffling, but Tavius laughed again, cursing me. I could make out him lifting the whip, and I closed my eyes.

  “What in the gods’ name are you doing, Tavius?” My mother’s voice suddenly rang out through the Great Hall. My eyes flew open to see them both garbed in the white of mourning. She gasped. “Dear gods—”

  “Have you lost your senses?” Ezra. That was her. The flare of stinging pain along my back faded as I saw her standing next to my mother. “My gods, what is wrong with you?”

  “First off, neither of you two addressed me appropriately. But given the shock of the last several hours, I will let it slide,” Tavius stated calmly, unbothered by their reaction. “As for what I’m doing, it is what should’ve been done—” He staggered to the side, eyes widening as he stared at the floor. “What the…?”

  Ezra had come to a stop on the steps. A blur of plum and gold poured in through the open doors of the Great Hall as Royal Guards arrived, and under me, the petals vibrated as the floor trembled. Thin fissures formed in the tile and ran across the carved caligae enclosing Kolis’s feet. I watched as the tiny splinters traveled up the stone legs. Confused, I lifted my head. What in the world…?

  A blast of thunder shook the entire Great Hall. Someone cried out. Delicate flutes left behind on trays and tables exploded. Chairs toppled. Tables shatt
ered. Plaster fell from the columns and walls as cracks raced up pillars and screamed across the ceiling’s glass dome.

  A gust of icy wind whipped through the Great Hall, and the air…the air charged with power. The hairs all along my body rose as a faint mist seeped out from the fissures in the floor.

  Eather.

  Tavius took a step back as the space between us began to vibrate. Air crackled and hissed, emanating silvery-white sparks that swirled and lashed through the space just as the whip had. Then the very realm tore open.

  And darkness tinged in silver spilled out from the tear, splashing on the floor and rising in a thick, dark, swirling mist. In the throbbing mass, a tall form could be seen as thick tendrils curled through the air, spreading across the floor, forming a pillar of night and then another, completely obscuring all others in the Hall. In each column of churning shadows, a form took shape. As the shadows—all of them that filled the Hall—retracted as if drawn back to him.

  I knew who stood in the center without even seeing his face or any features inside the pulsing mass of midnight that stretched up and outward in the shape of massive wings that blocked the sun’s light.

  Death had finally returned.

  Chapter 20

  There were only ten beings in either realm that were powerful enough to tear open the realms.

  A Primal.

  But as the shadows stopped the maddening spinning, and the shape of wings became nothing more than a hazy outline, I saw who stood in the center, and it made no sense.

  Because it was him. The Shadowlands god.

  Ash.

  He looked over his shoulder at me, the striking planes of his features a brutal set of harsh lines. I stared at him, my heart thumping. His skin…it had thinned, taking on a silvery-white glow. The breath I took lodged in my throat.

  Oh, gods…

  The silver of his irises seeped throughout his entire eyes until they were iridescent. They crackled with power—the kind that could unravel entire realms with just a lift of a finger. A web of veins appeared on his cheeks, spreading across his throat and down his arms under the silver band on his right biceps then traveling along the swirling shadows that had gathered under his skin. He was…he was like the brightest star and the deepest night sky given mortal form. And he was utterly beautiful in this form, wholly terrifying.

  The buzz of incredulity filled me, throwing me straight into denial because it couldn’t be.

  It couldn’t have been him this entire time.

  “Who…who are you?” Tavius rasped.

  Slowly, his head turned to where my stepbrother stood. “I am known as the Asher,” he said, and I shuddered. Is it short for something, I’d asked when he told me his name. It is short for many things. “The One who is Blessed. I am the Guardian of Souls and the Primal God of Common Men and Endings.” His voice traveled through the Great Hall, and absolute silence answered. I could barely force air through my lungs. “I am Nyktos, ruler of the Shadowlands, the Primal of Death.”

  The whip slipped from Tavius’s hand, falling to the cracked marble tile.

  Ezra and my mother were the first to react, dropping to their knees as they placed their hands over their hearts. The Royal Guards who’d entered behind them followed suit. Tavius and the other guards were as frozen as I was.

  Nyktos looked to his right, to who I slowly realized was the god who’d given me the shadowstone dagger. Ector nodded curtly before turning to me.

  As the Primal returned his attention to those before him, Ector knelt beside me. Distaste filled his deep amber eyes. “Animals,” he muttered.

  “That’s an insult to animals,” came another voice, and I looked up to see the god who had stood to the Primal’s left. The deep black skin of his jaw was hard as he glanced at my back. “There is no blood.”

  “He didn’t break the skin,” I heard myself whisper. “He’s not skilled enough with a whip for that.”

  His eyes, the color of polished onyx, flicked to mine. Eather glowed behind the barely visible pupils as a slow grin started to appear. “Apparently, not.”

  “Saion?” Ector carefully touched my shoulders. “Can you get rid of the ropes?”

  “Gladly.” The god curled his fingers around the bindings. Immediately, the edges of the rope frayed under Saion’s hand. A faint charge of electricity danced around my wrists, and then the rope broke apart, falling to the floor as ash. I started to topple forward, but Ector kept me upright.

  A sharp sensation of pinpricks rushed down my arms as they fell to my sides, the blood returning to them. “Is this…is this real?”

  “Unfortunately,” Ector muttered.

  Saion snorted as his hands replaced the other god’s. “Unfortunately?” He eased me down, so I was sitting, but his hands remained, causing another jolt of energy to rush over my skin. “I’m about to get my daily dose of entertainment.”

  Ector sighed as he rose. “There’s something wrong with you.”

  “There’s something wrong with all of us.”

  “This won’t end well.”

  “When does it ever?” Saion asked.

  “Who?” the Primal snarled, jerking my attention to where he stood. Fury radiated from him, and I had…I had never heard him sound like that. “Who took part in this?”

  “Them,” a soft, shaking voice answered—the same frightened voice that had lured me into that room to be attacked.

  I found her by the doors on one knee, her head barely lifted. “I saw them in the hall with her, Your Highness. Three of them were with the Prince, and the fourth joined with…” She shook. “I went to get Her Grace.”

  The Primal’s chin lifted to where the three Royal Guards stood with Pike, who still held the bow. A guard spoke in a trembling voice. “I thought he was just going to scare her. I didn’t know—”

  The Primal turned his head to the male, and that was all. He looked at him. Whatever the Royal Guard had been about to say in his defense ended in a choked gasp. The man stumbled forward, the blood draining rapidly from his face. His head kicked back as his lips peeled over his teeth in a scream that was never given life. I jerked as tiny cracks appeared in the man’s pale, waxy flesh—deep, bloodless splits opening across his cheeks, down his throat, and over his hands.

  The Royal Guard shattered, broke apart like fragile glassware, into a fine dusting of ash and then…nothing. Nothing remained of him, not even the clothing he wore or the weapons he bore.

  My wide eyes shot to the Primal. That kind of power…it was inconceivable. Terrifying and impressive.

  “Here we go,” Ector murmured.

  My gods, that was what he was capable of. And I had stabbed him? I’d actually threatened him. Multiple times. The strangest thought occurred to me as one of the other Royal Guards turned to run and only made it a step before he froze mid-flight, his arms whipping out, stiff at his sides. Why in the hell did the Primal ever use a sword if he could do that? A grossly inappropriate laugh crawled up my throat as the guard’s mouth dropped open in a silent scream. Cracks appeared across his cheeks as he rose off the floor. He…he crumbled slowly, from the top of his head to his boots, collapsing in a stream of dust.

  Ector glanced down at me, raising a brow.

  “Sorry,” I mumbled. It had to be the pain in my back that ebbed and then surged. The shock. Everything.

  The third guard fell to his knees, begging. He too shattered into nothing.

  “He seems angry,” Ector spoke over my head.

  “You…well, he’s been moody lately,” Saion replied, and I felt another laugh taking form. “Let him have his fun.”

  “I’m not going out like that.” Pike—the utterly idiotic man—lifted the bow and fired.

  The Primal twisted, moving so fast it was nothing more than a blur. He caught the arrow just before it made contact with his chest. “

  “Now that was a bold move,” Saion commented. “A really bad one, but bold.”

  “You fired an arrow at me? Are you for r
eal?” The Primal tossed the arrow aside. “No, you don’t have to go out like that.”

  “Oh, man,” Ector added with another sigh.

  The Primal was suddenly in front of Pike. I hadn’t even seen him move.

  Taking hold of Pike’s arm, he twisted sharply. Bone cracked. The bow fell, clattering off the tile as the Primal gripped the man around the throat. “There are many ways you can be taken out. Thousands. And I’m well acquainted with all of them,” he said. “Your options are endless. Some painless. Some quick. This way won’t be either.”

  The Primal’s head snapped forward. There was a brief flash of fangs, and my stomach hollowed. He tore into Pike’s throat, ending the man’s short, abrupt scream of terror. Wrenching his head back, the Primal forced the man’s jaw open as he spat a mouthful of Pike’s own blood into his mouth. My stomach churned with nausea as I planted a hand on the tile. The Primal shoved Pike aside. The mortal fell to the floor, twitching and grasping at the jagged tear in his throat. I couldn’t look away. Not even when he stopped moving and his blood-coated hands slipped away from his neck.

  Ector’s head cocked to the side. “You call that moody?”

  “Well…” Saion trailed off.

  The Primal then turned to Tavius. “You.” Ice fell from the word.” He looked down, his blood-smeared lips curling into a smirk. The breeches along the inside of Tavius’s leg had darkened. “So afraid you pissed yourself. Do you regret your actions?”