The Crown of Gilded Bones (Blood And Ash Series Book 3)

by Jennifer L. Armentrout

  Well, killing people by turning their emotions back on them would probably count as an amazing ability—a scary one—but why couldn’t I morph into something like a dragon?

  That would be incredible.

  “Am I really descended from Nyktos? Alastir said I was, but since Nyktos is the father of the gods—”

  “That is the figure of speech,” Casteel corrected. “Nyktos isn’t the actual father of the gods. He is the King of them. Alastir spoke the truth, or at least he spoke what he believed to be true,” he said, his jaw hardening.

  I exhaled heavily. “Why could I even do what I did in the Chambers? What changed? The Culling?” I asked, referencing the process the Atlantians went through when they no longer aged like mortals and began to develop heightened senses, along with undergoing numerous physical changes. It was why Casteel believed that the Ascended had waited until now to have me go through my Ascension. My blood would be of more use to them now, capable of making more Ascended.

  Had the Ascended known about the blood I carried? Had Queen Ileana known the entire time? Alastir had been in contact with the Ascended. I believed that. Would my blood even work now that I had…?

  I had nearly died.

  And maybe I had a little. I remembered floating toward a silvery light, without body or thought. And I knew if I made my way to it, not even Casteel would be able to reach me.

  “I think so,” Casteel said as the warmth of his body pressed against my side, drawing me from my thoughts. “I think being on Atlantian land combined with the blood I’ve given you played a role in strengthening the blood in you.”

  “And I guess what happened at the Chambers of Nyktos just tipped it all over the edge?” I leaned into Casteel. “Waking this…thing up inside me?”

  “What is in you is not a thing, Poppy.” Casteel looked down at me. “It is a power. Magic. It is the eather waking up inside you, becoming a part of you.”

  “I’m not sure that makes me feel any better.”

  A lopsided grin appeared. “It would if you stopped thinking of your ancestry as a thing. But considering everything that has happened, you really haven’t had any time to come to terms with any of this.”

  I wasn’t sure how I could come to terms with it even when I had time. “I don’t…”

  “You don’t want this,” Kieran finished for me, his wintry gaze meeting mine.

  “I don’t want”—I briefly closed my eyes—“I don’t want to come between you two. I don’t want to come between any wolven and the Atlantian they were bonded to.” I don’t want to be the monster that Alastir warned me I’d become.

  “Poppy,” Casteel started.

  “You can’t tell me that having your bond with Kieran broken hasn’t affected you,” I cut in. “You guys were ready to tear each other apart at the Temple. That didn’t feel right.” A knot of emotion choked me. “I didn’t like it.”

  “If you knew us when we were younger, you probably would’ve thought we hated each other.” Casteel gently squeezed my shoulder. “We’ve come to blows over far less important things than you.”

  “Is that supposed to make me feel better?” I asked. “Because you’re doing a really terrible job at that right now.”

  “I guess not.” Casteel touched my cheek, tipping my head back so our eyes met. “Look, knowing the bond isn’t there is weird. I’m not going to lie. But knowing that the bond has shifted to you—that not just Kieran, but all the wolven will protect you, is a relief. That is part of how we tracked you to the crypts in the Skotos Mountains and to the Wastelands. They felt you. If they hadn’t been able to, we wouldn’t have gotten to you in time,” he said, and all of it made my stomach twist. “I can’t be mad about that or upset. Not when I know the limits Kieran will go to to ensure that you remain safe.”

  My lower lip trembled. “But he’s your best friend. He’s like a brother to you.”

  “And I still am. Bonds are strange things, Poppy.” Kieran placed his hand over the top of where Casteel’s remained on my shoulder. I shuddered. “But my loyalty to Cas has never been about a bond created when neither of us was old enough to walk. It never will be. You have nothing to worry about when it comes to us. And I doubt that you have much to worry about when it comes to any of the other bonded wolven. Most of us have fostered friendships that can’t break. So, we just…we just made room for you.”

  Made room for me.

  “I…I like the sound of that,” I whispered hoarsely.

  Kieran patted my shoulder, or rather Casteel’s hand. Maybe both.

  “You think you can tell us what you remember?” Casteel asked after a moment, and I told him I could. “I need to know exactly what happened at the Temple. What you and that son of a bitch Jansen may have talked about when he was masquerading as Beckett. How he acted. I want to know exactly what those people said to you.” He met my gaze. “I know it won’t be easy, but I need to know anything you can remember.”

  I nodded. I told him everything, and it was easier than I thought it would be. What had happened had caused an ache in the center of my chest, but I didn’t let that feeling grow or get in the way. Casteel wouldn’t let it. I felt next to nothing from him as I talked. Now was not the time for emotion. Only facts were needed.

  “That prophecy he spoke of?” I said, looking between them. “Have either of you heard of that?”

  “No.” Casteel shook his head. “It sounded like a load of bullshit, especially the part about the Goddess Penellaphe. Sort of insulting to attach that nonsense to the Goddess of Wisdom.”

  I couldn’t agree more. “But could it be something you haven’t heard?”

  “No. We don’t have prophecies,” Kieran confirmed. “We don’t believe in them. It sounds like a mortal thing.”

  “They’re not widely believed in Solis, but they do exist,” I told them. “I didn’t believe it either. It all sounded too convenient and exact, but there’s a lot of things I don’t know or believe.”

  “Well, that is one thing I don’t think you have to worry about,” Casteel stated.

  I nodded, my thoughts shifting. “When the sky started to rain blood, they said it was the tears of the gods,” I told him. “They took it as a sign that what they were doing was right.”

  “They were wrong.”

  “I know,” I said.

  “Do you know how you were able to stop them?” Kieran asked. “How you used your abilities?”

  “That is a hard question to answer. I…I don’t know how to explain it other than to say it was like I knew what to do.” My brows knitted as I pressed my palm to the center of my chest. “Or like it was some instinct I didn’t realize I had. I just knew what to do.”

  “Eather,” Casteel corrected softly.

  “Eather,” I repeated. “I sort of…saw it in my mind, and it happened. I know that sounds bizarre—”

  “It doesn’t.” He returned to stand in front of me. “When I use compulsion, the eather gives me the ability to do so. I see in my mind what I want the person to do as I speak it.”

  “Oh. So, it’s…it’s kind of like projecting your thoughts?”

  He nodded. “Sounds like what you did is the same. It’s also how we can tell if we’re dealing with an elemental or another bloodline—based on the amount of eather we feel.”

  “It was written that the gods could sense it, too, whenever it was used,” Kieran said. “It felt like a seismic shift to them.”

  I thought over everything they’d said. “It’s weird, though. When I ease someone’s pain, I think happy thoughts—good ones. And then…” I rolled my eyes as I sighed. “Then I projected those feelings into the person.”

  Casteel grinned at me.

  “I guess it’s not that much different.”

  He shook his head. “You think you can do it again?”

  My stomach tumbled a bit. “I don’t know. I don’t know if I want to—”

  “You should,” he said, his jaw hardening as he held my gaze. “If you are
ever in a situation like that again, any situation where you cannot physically defend yourself, do not hesitate. Listen to that instinct. Let it guide you. It will not steer you wrong, Poppy. It will keep you alive, and that is all that matters.”

  “I agree with everything Cas just said,” Kieran chimed in. “But I know you can use those powers. That you know how. You were going to do it back at the ruins before you saw Jansen, but you stopped yourself.” His gaze searched mine. “You stopped yourself and said that you weren’t a monster.”

  An unnatural stillness came from the other side of me. “Why?” Casteel demanded. “Why would you say something like that?”

  Kieran was right. I knew how to use the eather. All I had to do was picture it in my mind. The knowledge existed like some ancient instinct.

  “Poppy,” Casteel said, his tone gentler. “Talk to me. Talk to us.”

  “I…” I wasn’t sure where to begin. My thoughts were still so damn scattered. I looked between the two of them. “Did you go into the crypts?”

  “We did,” Casteel confirmed. “Briefly.”

  “Then you saw the deities chained there, left to die?” Their fate still made me sick to my stomach. “I was kept with them. I don’t know for how long. A couple of days? Alastir and Jansen said that the deities had become dangerous.” I told them the story, repeating what Jansen and Alastir had told me about the children of the gods. “They said that I too would be dangerous. That I was a threat to Atlantia, and that was why they were…doing what they were. Were the deities really that violent?”

  Kieran’s gaze touched Casteel’s over my head as he said, “The deities were gone by the time we were born.”

  “But?” I persisted.

  “But I’ve heard they could be prone to acts of anger and violence. They could be unpredictable,” Casteel stated carefully, and I tensed. “They weren’t always like that, though. And not all of them were. But it had nothing to do with their blood. It was their age.”

  I frowned. “What do you mean?”

  Casteel exhaled heavily. “You think an Atlantian’s lifespan is unthinkable, but a deity is like a god. They are immortal. Instead of living two and three thousand years, they lived double and triple that,” he said, and my heart stuttered. “Living that long would make anyone apathetic or bored, impatient and intolerant. They…simply grew too old and became cold.”

  “Cold? Like the Ascended?”

  “In a way, yes,” he said. “It’s why the gods went to sleep. It was the only way they could keep some sense of empathy and compassion. The deities never chose to do that.”

  “So even if that were to happen to you,” Kieran began, drawing my gaze to his, “you would have thousands of years before it came time to take a very nice, long nap.”

  I started to frown, but what Kieran said slammed into me with the speed and weight of an out-of-control carriage. My heart started racing as I stared at him first and then turned to Casteel. A tingling sensation swept over my skin as my mouth tried. “Am I…am I immortal now?”

  Chapter 11

  Casteel’s chest rose with a deep breath. “What I know is that I took what was left of the blood in your body. And when I felt your heart stop,” he said, clearing his throat, “I gave you mine. It was my blood that restarted your heart and kept it beating, and it was my blood that fed your body. There isn’t a drop of mortal blood in you.”

  My lips parted as I tried to wrap my head around what he was saying—and what it meant.

  “And that is not all I know,” he continued, and a fine tremor danced through my body. “You…you don’t feel mortal to me.”

  “You don’t feel that way to me either,” Kieran added. “You don’t smell mortal any longer.”

  “What…what do I feel like? What do I smell like?” I asked, and Kieran looked like he didn’t want to answer that question. “Do I smell more like death?”

  He blinked slowly. “I wish I’d never said that.”

  “Do I?” I demanded.

  Kieran sighed. “You smell of more power. Absolute. Final. I’ve never smelled anything like it.”

  “You don’t feel like an Atlantian or an Ascended,” Casteel said, curling his fingers around my chin and guiding my eyes to his. “I’ve never felt anything like you before. I don’t know if that means you feel like a deity. My parents would know. Maybe even Jasper, but he was very young when he was around any of the deities so I’m not sure about him.”

  Before I could demand that he find Jasper immediately, he continued, “And I don’t even know if you will continue to need blood.”

  Oh, gods.

  “I hadn’t even thought of that.” My newly restarted heart was going to give out on me. Vamprys needed blood—mortal or Atlantian—nearly every day, while an Atlantian could go weeks without feeding. I didn’t know about deities and the gods. Wasn’t sure if they needed blood or not. No one had really specified that, nor had I even thought of it. “Do deities and gods need blood?”

  “I don’t think so,” Casteel answered. “But the deities were guarded when it came to their weaknesses and needs. The gods even more so. It’s possible.”

  I bet his mother would know. But even if they needed blood, it truly didn’t matter. I was neither of those things.

  “I don’t even know if I can think of that right now. Not because I find it repulsive or anything...”

  “I know. It’s just different, and it’s a lot to add on top of a lot. But we will figure it out together.” He tucked a strand of hair back from my face. “So, I don’t know if you’re immortal or not, Poppy. We’ll have to take that question day by day.”

  Immortal.

  Living thousands and thousands of years? I couldn’t process it. I couldn’t even fully comprehend it when I had been the Maiden and believed I would go through an Ascension. The idea of living for hundreds of years had frightened me then. A lot of that had to do with how cold and untouchable the Ascended were. I knew that the Atlantians and the wolven weren’t like that, but it was still a lot to wrap one’s head around.

  And if I ended up immortal, Casteel wasn’t, even though he could live like a hundred or more mortal lifetimes before he truly began to age. He still would. He would eventually die. And if I was something…else, I wouldn’t.

  I shut down the unnecessary panic so I could freak out about it another day—like maybe after I learned if I truly was immortal.

  I nodded, feeling rather logical at the moment.

  “Okay,” I said, taking a nice deep and slow breath. “We’ll take that day by day.” Something occurred to me then, and I looked at Kieran. “You’re going to be happy to hear this. I have a question.”

  “I am so thrilled.” Only the light in Kieran’s eyes told me that he was glad I was alive and able to ask questions.

  “If the wolven were bonded to the deities, how did they not protect the deities during the war?” I asked.

  “Many did, and many died in the process,” Kieran said, and my shoulders tightened. “Not all deities were killed, though. There were several left after the war, ones who had no interest in ruling. The wolven became very protective of them, but there was a rough period after the war where relations between the wolven and Atlantians were tense. According to our history, an ancestor on your husband’s side handled it.”

  “What?” I looked at Casteel.

  “Yep. It was Elian Da’Neer. He summoned a god to help smooth things over.”

  “And the god answered?”

  “It was Nyktos himself, along with Theon and Lailah, the God of Accord and War and the Goddess of Peace and Vengeance,” he told me, and I knew my eyes were wide. “They spoke with the wolven. I have no idea what was said, I’m not even sure if the wolven alive today know, but the first bonding between the wolven and an Atlantian came out of that meeting, and things calmed down.”

  “Was your ancestor the first to be bonded?”

  Casteel grinned as he nodded. “He was.”

  “Wow.” I blinked. �
��I really wish we knew what was said.”

  “Same.” His gaze met mine and he smiled again, but it didn’t reach his eyes as he studied me. “Poppy.”

  “What?” Wondering if I was starting to glow, I glanced down at my skin and saw that it appeared normal.

  “You’re not a monster,” he said, and that nice, deep breath got lodged in my throat. “Not today. Not tomorrow. Not an eternity from now, if that is the case.”

  I smiled at his words, my heart swelling. I knew he believed that. I could taste his sincerity, but I also knew that when Alastir had spoken of the deities, he hadn’t been lying. He’d told the truth, whether or not it was the one he believed or the real story. Still, others alive today had been around the deities. They would know if it truly was because they had grown too old and too embittered—or if it was something else.

  Casteel’s parents would know.

  “I know it’s a little hard to move on from that topic,” Kieran began, and for some reason, I wanted to laugh at the dryness of his tone.

  “No, I want to move on from that,” I said, pushing some hair back that had fallen once more. “I kind of need to so my head doesn’t explode.”

  A wry grin appeared on Kieran’s face. “We wouldn’t want that to happen. It would be far too messy, and there are no more clean towels,” he said, and I laughed lightly. His pale eyes warmed. “Did Jansen speak of anyone else who could be involved? Cas compelled Alastir to tell us all he knew, but either he truly had no idea of who else was involved, or they were smart enough to make sure most of their identities weren’t known.”

  “As if they had planned for someone to use compulsion?” I said, and they nodded. That was smart.

  Pressing my lips together, I thought through the conversations with them. “No. No one by name, but both spoke as if they were a part of an…organization or something. I don’t know. I think Alastir mentioned a brotherhood, and all of the ones I saw, except for when I first arrived in the Chambers, were male—at least from what I could tell. I don’t know if they were truly a part of what Alastir spoke of or if they were somehow manipulated into their actions. But I do know that Alastir must have been working with the Ascended. He insinuated that they knew what I was capable of and that they planned to use me against Atlantia.” I told them what Alastir believed the Ascended would do, my mind always drudging up the memory of the Duchess.