The Primal of Death stalked forward, the sword at his side slick and glistening in the starlight. Glimmering bluish-red blood ran down his cheeks and from where his black shirt was ripped on his chest, but his steps were long and sure as Nektas let out a deafening roar. Farther down the Rise, Ehthawn landed next to his sister, nudging her with a wing as she glared down at the crimson draken.
And then it happened.
The crimson draken shuddered and sparked—tiny bursts of silvery light erupting all over its trembling body as its head kicked back. The thick, spiked tail was the first to disappear, and then the body shrank rapidly, talons and limbs becoming legs and arms, scales receding to reveal patches of burnt, pinkish-red flesh across its chest and stomach. Spikes sank into shoulders, and frills smoothed out, replaced by a cap of curly brown hair.
A nude man lay there, his body a kaleidoscope of charred flesh and deep, seeping grooves. Bile crowded my throat. How he was still alive, I had no idea. He rolled onto his back, away from Nektas, turning his head toward the Primal.
The draken’s shoulder shook as a rasping, wet sound rattled out of him. He was laughing as he lay there—laughing as Death approached him.
“Oh, Nyktos, my boy,” the draken scraped out between rough laughs. “You have something…you shouldn’t have, and you know better. You’re going to be in so much trouble when he—”
“Shut the fuck up,” Nyktos growled and brought his sword down.
In one clean, steady strike, Nyktos severed the draken’s head.
Under Ector’s and Rhain’s watchful eyes, I waited at the foot of the thrones, sitting on the edge of the dais. Nyktos had ordered that they take me back to the palace, and I thought the decision had a lot to do with all the dying and dead around me. He didn’t want me using the ember in front of so many, and with the pulse of the fight lessening, I didn’t want to risk not being able to control it.
The two gods weren’t quite sure what to do with me, spending the trip back to the palace arguing over whether they should place me in my bedchambers or one of the cells that apparently existed beneath the throne room. I had different plans as I tapped the flat side of the curved shadowstone blade on my knee.
I wanted to be here when Nyktos returned.
That was possibly a ridiculous decision since it would probably be best if I made myself scarce. But I would not hide from what he knew I had been prepared to do, and I would not hide from him.
And he’d been injured. I wanted to make sure he was okay. How he surely felt about me now that he knew the truth didn’t matter. Concern haunted each minute. There hadn’t been nearly enough time on the ground with him to tell how badly he’d been hurt.
So, I sat there with Ector and Rhain, both guards keeping more of an eye on the dagger I held than anything else. They could take me out with eather, but they knew Nyktos didn’t want me dead. They also knew how fast I was with a blade now.
Only Aios had arrived since we returned to let the other gods know that Gemma had awakened briefly when Hamid arrived—the man who’d reported her missing at court—but had fallen back to sleep since. During her moments of consciousness, Aios hadn’t gotten the impression that Gemma was aware of what I’d done, but none of us could be sure.
Aios hadn’t spoken to me, and that hurt a little. I liked her, but Nyktos was her blood relative, and even if he weren’t, I had a feeling she’d still see nothing but a betrayer when she looked at me.
Breathe in.
I held that breath until my lungs burned and then slowly exhaled. Did I regret what I was willing to do to save my people, even if it would’ve done nothing to help them? How could I? How could I not? But my messy state of emotions wasn’t even nearly the most important thing I had to deal with. Besides the fact that I could be entirely wrong about Nyktos not killing me, there was this other Primal who had sent dakkais and a draken in response to feeling me use the ember of life. And if that Primal were Kolis? The King of Gods? He may not be able to bring life into creation, but he was still the oldest and most powerful Primal. If he wanted me dead, I would be dead.
But the question was, how many more people had to die between now and then? I closed my eyes and saw the Kazin siblings. I hadn’t used the ember of life that night, but it had throbbed intensely after I’d killed Lord Claus. I wasn’t sure about the night Andreia Joanis had been murdered, but more than mortals or godlings had been killed. There had been gods. And there would be more.
The strange whirring sensation in my chest alerted me to Nyktos’ return. I still didn’t understand that feeling or why it even existed, but I opened my eyes and slipped the dagger into my boot seconds before he entered the throne room. He’d wiped the blood from his face, but there were still cuts across his cheek and throat. They no longer bled that strange bluish-red, but the wounds hadn’t sealed like the one had when I stabbed him.
He wasn’t alone. Nektas walked beside him, shirtless as he’d been earlier in the day…or night? I had no idea how much time had passed. Saion was also with him, his steps slowing as Nyktos stalked forward.
As I slid off the dais and stood on surprisingly steady legs, all I saw was how coldly he’d brought that sword down on the draken. Those flat, frozen, silver eyes were now fixed on me.
“We didn’t know what to do with her,” Ector admitted, breaking the tense silence. “I suggested returning her to her bedchamber.”
“I thought the cell would be a more fitting place,” Rhain commented from the other side of the dais as Nektas halted in the center of the aisle. “However, she’s been sitting here this whole time waving the dagger you got her around, and since you appear to want her alive, that’s why we’re here.”
The corners of my lips turned down. I had not been waving the dagger around.
Nyktos stopped several feet from me. “Were you injured at all?” he clipped out.
I shook my head. “But you’ve been—” I sucked in a startled breath as Nyktos suddenly stood in front of me, having moved faster than I could track. Before I could even twitch, he hooked an arm under my right thigh and lifted my leg. Surprise shot through me, and I started to tip sideways. He curved his other arm around my waist, steadying me. I had no idea what he was doing, but I couldn’t move or think as I stared into his flat eyes.
“Uh,” Rhain murmured.
Without saying a word or breaking eye contact, he slid his hand down my thigh. A sharp swirl of tingles followed the glide of his palm and my breath caught. He smirked as his cool fingers drifted over my now-exposed knee. What was he—?
His gaze held mine as he reached down, curling those fingers around the hilt of my dagger. He slid it free. “Don’t really want another dagger in my chest.”
“Oh. Okay,” Rhain said. “That makes sense now.”
Nyktos let go, and I stumbled against the edge of the dais. Air punched out of my lungs as he moved away from me. “I wasn’t planning to.”
“Really?” He tucked the dagger into his waistband at his back. “Isn’t that exactly what you were planning?”
I snapped my mouth shut because what could I really say to that? His smirk deepening, he stared down at me, and it took everything in me not to try and defend the indefensible. “Was it Kolis who sent the dakkais and the draken?”
“Yes,” he answered.
My gaze dropped to the tear in his shirt. Was the wound still bleeding? That warm pulse in my chest nudged at me. “So, he knows I’m here.”
“He knows something is here,” he corrected. “He does not know the source, and that’s how I plan to keep it.”
There was a stupid skip in my chest. “Because you believe your father did something else besides putting the ember of life in my bloodline.”
His lips thinned. “I know he must have had a reason that goes beyond keeping the ember of life alive. If that were the case, he wouldn’t have put it in a mortal’s body. And until I figure out why he did what he did, Kolis will not get his hands on you.”
A deeper, fier
y sting lanced across my chest as I squeezed my hands together. I forced my voice to steady. “And until then?”
“We will see.”
Meaning, if he discovered that the ember of life was simply just that, he could very well decide to end me. Though, I didn’t think he would. He wouldn’t do that to the mortal realm if there were even a slight chance that Aios was right. “That’s not what I meant.”
He raised a brow. “It’s not?”
“Will Kolis send others here to discover the source?” I asked.
“We’ll most likely have a short reprieve,” he told me.
The draken’s taunting words resurfaced. “And you? What will he do to you for hiding the source of this power?”
His features sharpened. “That’s none of your concern.”
“Bullshit.”
Nyktos’ eyes flared wide as eather slid into his irises. “Come again?”
“You said it was none of my concern. I said that’s bullshit,” I repeated, and the Primal’s head tilted to the side. Behind him, Nektas quietly moved forward. “How many people died tonight?”
The Primal didn’t respond.
“How many?” I insisted.
“At least twenty,” Saion answered from near the front of the chamber, his voice echoing. “We’re still waiting to hear if any in Lethe passed.”
I shuddered. Twenty. And that didn’t include those who were injured.
“Don’t pretend as if you care about the people here,” Nyktos snarled, taking a step toward me.
Every muscle in me stiffened as anger unfurled. “I am not pretending. I don’t want to see people die because of me.”
His chin dipped. “Only me. Right?”
A bitter, acidic taste and burn pooled in my mouth and unfurled in my chest as my hands flexed.
Eather pulsed in Nyktos’ eyes. “Is that shame I feel from you?” He laughed, the sound nothing like the ones I’d heard from him before. “Or are you that good of an actress? I think you are.” His gaze swept over me, his lip curling. “And I also think you forgot to list acting alongside making bad choices as one of your many…talents.”
I sucked in air that burned my throat. What he was referencing didn’t pass me by. He was talking about him and me on the balcony. The stab of his words cut deep enough that I forgot I wasn’t alone.
“And now you feign hurt?” Nyktos shook his head as that lip curled again. The disgust there…it bore down on me. “That is beneath even you.”
My jaw unhinged. “Stop reading my fucking emotions!” I shouted, and Saion peeled away from the wall, his eyes growing wide. “Especially if you aren’t even going to believe what you’re reading, you jackass!”
Nyktos stilled. Everything about him ceased.
And that probably should’ve been warning enough that I may have finally pushed too hard. But I was beyond…I was simply beyond everything. “Do you really think I wanted to do this to you? To anyone? It was the only way we believed we could save our people. It was all I’d been taught. For my entire life. It’s all I’ve ever known.” My voice cracked, and I drew in another sharp, too-tight breath. “I would say I’m sorry, but you wouldn’t believe me. I don’t blame you for that, but don’t you dare insinuate that what I’ve done with you was purely an act or that what I’m feeling is fake when I’ve spent my entire godsdamn life not being allowed to want or even feel anything for myself! Not when I spent the last three years hating myself for the relief I felt when you didn’t take me because it meant I didn’t have to do what was expected of me.”
Nyktos stared at me.
Silence drenched the room, and I realized that I was shaking. My entire body. I’d never spoken those words out loud. Never. My heart thundered as a knot expanded and grew in my throat, threatening to choke me. “I know what I am. I’ve always known. I am one of the worse sort. A monster,” I whispered, my voice hoarse. “But don’t you ever tell me how I feel.”
Nyktos didn’t even blink.
The draken drifted closer to Nyktos, his red-eyed stare shifting from me to the Primal. Nektas leaned in, speaking too low for me to hear. Attention remaining fixed on me, Nyktos’ chest rose with a swift, deep breath.
A long moment passed, and then he finally looked away from me to focus on Nektas. “You should be on the wall just in case I was wrong about the reprieve.”
Nektas shook his head. “Others are there. They are standing guard.”
“I’d rather have you there.”
“I’d rather not leave your side,” the draken countered. “Not now.”
“I’m fine,” the Primal stated, his voice low. “I told you that three times now.”
“Five times, actually.” Nektas held his ground. “And I don’t have to tell you that I know better.”
All thoughts of what I’d just screamed at the Primal fell to the wayside. My attention shifted to the tears in his tunic. The splotches of darker material along his chest had spread.
Ector hopped off the dais. “How much of that blood is yours?”
“Most of it,” Nyktos answered, and the draken gave a low growl of disapproval.
“Shit,” Rhain muttered, joining Ector on the floor. “Are your wounds not healing?”
“Do you want to die tonight?” Nyktos fired back.
Saion widened his eyes as he stared at the floor, saying nothing more.
“I could try,” I started, and Nyktos’ head swung in my direction. “My gift—the ember. It worked on the wounded hawk.”
“Besides the fact that the ember of life isn’t powerful enough to work on me or a god,” he said, “I’m not sure I’d trust you enough to let you try even that.”
I flinched. I flinched again.
Nyktos’ nostrils flared as he inhaled sharply, looking away. “I just need to clean up, which I plan to do now if that would make all of you feel better,” Nyktos said.
“That is not what would make me feel better,” Nektas replied.
“Too bad.” Nyktos glared at the draken. He started to turn and then looked back at me, his jaw hard. He refocused on Nektas. “Put her somewhere safe, where she can’t do whatever idiotic thing is surely filling her head. She assigns no value to her life.”
I opened my mouth, but Nektas cut me off. “That I can do.”
“Perfect,” the Primal snarled and turned, his boots a heavy thud against the shadowstone floor as he stormed out of the throne room.
As soon as I could no longer see him, I turned to Nektas. “How badly is he injured?”
“You don’t have to pretend in front of us,” Ector retorted.
Spinning toward him, I lifted a finger and pointed it at him. “What in the fuck did I just say about not telling me what to feel? That goes for you, too,” I said, and Ector’s brows flew up. I turned back around. “That goes for all of you.”
Everyone, including the draken, stared at me.
Saion cleared his throat. “He was swarmed on the docks and the beach. The dakkais got in a lot of hits.”
Rhain exchanged a concerned look with Ector. “How bad?”
“Bad enough that he needs to feed,” Nektas answered. “And stubborn enough to ride it out.”
“Hell.” Ector ran a hand over his face.
My stomach pitched as I remembered what Nyktos had told me over our first breakfast. “What happens if he doesn’t feed and rides it out? Will he turn into…something dangerous? He mentioned something along those lines before.”
Nektas tilted his chin. “He’s weak enough that he could tip over into that.”
Rhain cursed again.
“But even if he doesn’t, he’s still weakened,” Nektas continued. “And that’s the last thing we need right now.”
I shoved a tangle of hair back from my face. “Why won’t he feed?”
Nektas’s gaze met mine. “Because he’s been forced to feed until he’s killed. That’s why.”
My lips parted. I took a step back as if I could somehow put distance between what Nektas had sai
d and me. But I thought about the breakfast that morning, how I’d thought that he had been held against his will. I closed my eyes. “Did Kolis hold him prisoner?”
A long stretch of silence passed before Nektas said, “Kolis has done all manner of things to him.”
The heaviness in my chest felt like it would drag me down to the floor. “How…how do we get him to feed?”
“We don’t,” Rhain said. “We just hope he rides it out.”
“Actually, I think we can get him to feed now,” Nektas shared, and I opened my eyes to find him watching me. “He’s mad enough at you that he’d probably feed from you.”
I blinked once and then twice. “I’m…I’m not sure how I feel about the ease in which you suggested that.”
The draken raised his brows. “But?”
But Nyktos was weak, and it was the last thing they needed. He needed to feed, and if I had been ready to possibly be burned alive by a draken after killing Nyktos, I could prepare myself for this.
“Okay.” I sighed.
Those unnerving red eyes latched onto mine. “Is it truly your choice? You can say no. No one here will make you do it, nor would we hold it against you.”
I had no idea if anyone would hold it against me—they had far bigger things to use in that way. I could say no, but if Nyktos had never discovered the truth, I would’ve offered myself. And, deep down, I knew it had nothing to do with the deal. It would’ve been because I didn’t want him to hurt.
“It’s my choice,” I said, looking up at Nektas. “I’ll try. I’m sure I’ll say something that will anger him.”
Nektas smiled.
“Are you sure about this?” Rhain asked. “She came here to kill him.”
“He brought her here,” Nektas corrected swiftly, surprising me. Though, I wasn’t sure what that changed. “Do you have a better idea?”
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