Текст книги "A fire in the flash"

Автор книги: Jennifer L. Armentrout

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Текущая страница: 2 (всего у книги 37 страниц)

CHAPTER TWO

Eather-laced shadows swelled from Ash, smothering the bolts of power until they fizzled out. He glanced back at me before refocusing on Kolis. “The moment you breached custom and faith,” Ash seethed, rising to his full height, “you started the war.”

“Have you forgotten yourself, nephew? Clearly, you have.” Tendrils of eather flickered from Kolis’s fingertips as the golden Revenant moved into sight behind him, once more alive and standing. “Because I am your King.”

“You’re no King of mine.” Lightning streaked from Ash, slamming into the tile floor and Callum, throwing the Revenant back. The scent of charred flesh rose. “I could humor you by saying your sovereignty ended the moment you took her. But truthfully, you have never been my King.”

Catching sight of several fallen shadowstone swords by the guards’ twisted and mangled bodies, I ignored the dampness at the nape of my neck and rolled onto my side. It took even more effort than before.

“Bold words.” Kolis stepped forward, a streak of eather whipping out toward Ash. “And surprising ones. I killed your father, and you swore fealty to me. I take your Consort, and you kill one of your brethren and attack me. Why is that, Nyktos? Is it the embers of life inside her?”

I rolled my eyes as I shifted my weight to my flattened palms. That had been Ash’s plan, but once he’d learned what it would cost, it became the last thing he wanted.

Because taking the embers meant killing me, and he had chosen me, even though I was already dying, and it was foolish.

Still, it was beautiful.

“That’s it, isn’t it? You sought to take the embers from her and rise as the Primal of Life,” Kolis accused, golden-tinged eather sparking from his fingertips. “You sought to hide them from me. To hide her. That’s treason.”

“Treason?” A deep, dark laugh rumbled from Ash, a sound I’d never heard him make before. “You killed my mother and the true Primal of Life.” Shadows spilled onto the floor below Ash, billowing like smoke. “You’re a fucking joke.”

Kolis stiffened. “You want to know what’s a joke? You thinking I had no idea what you’ve been up to. That I haven’t seen through your false assurances and pledges and didn’t know you’ve been plotting to overthrow me and take all that is mine.”

Ash’s fury lashed out, causing the temperature in the room to plummet as I began the slow crawl toward the bodies. “None of this has been yours. You stole it—”

“From your father,” Kolis interjected, moonlight reflecting off the golden band around his biceps. “And I imagine you believe history has repeated itself, but you’d be wrong. The embers of life do not belong to you.”

“She does not belong to you!” Ash roared.

The air thinned once more. I halted, arms trembling. Raw, violent energy drenched the ruined chamber, pimpling my skin.

“You think she belongs to you simply because you crowned her as your Consort?” Kolis’s laugh caused my heart to clench. Golden swirls of eather began churning across his bare chest, where the wound Ash inflicted had already healed. “If she is who she claims to be, she was never yours to crown.”

I needed to get to my feet and get my hands on a sword. And I needed to do it quickly. But my head still swam, and my legs felt strange, like I was disconnected from them. It wasn’t because of the hit to the head, though that hadn’t helped. It was blood loss. I’d lost too much. I could feel that in how hard my heart worked to pump what blood remained inside me, how fast it raced. And I had a feeling, some instinctual knowledge, that told me if I didn’t have the embers, I’d already be unconscious or dead.

As I pushed onto my knees, I thought it was strange that what would inevitably kill me was also keeping me alive.

Kolis stepped forward, his too-perfect lips curved into a smile. “She was never yours, nephew. She has always been mine.”

Ash’s fury lashed out. The breath I exhaled formed a puffy cloud as energy charged the space once more. Ash rushed Kolis, taking to the air.

All I saw was a sneer from Kolis before wispy eather poured from the false King. He rose, slipping into his Primal form, creating a glow that was too bright and painful to look upon for any length of time.

Ash and Kolis met high above me, and it was like seeing the night and the sun crash into each other. The eather-laced shadows and the intense, gold-and silver-streaked light whirled at dizzying speeds, but the wind had stopped. The clouds had ceased their journey across the sky. Everything…everything else had gone silent and still as my chest constricted.

I squinted, catching glimpses of the two Primals between the shadows and daylight. Golden hair, then reddish-brown strands. Black tunic, then white linen pants. Silver cuff and golden band—one that appeared to flash white when the arm moved. Fists. Heads kicked back.

They were punching each other.

Then the swirling around them stilled, and the air began to vibrate and pulse. The embers in my chest hummed—

A bolt of eather burst from Ash, hitting Kolis and throwing the Primals apart. The false King caught himself and returned to Ash, his speed shocking. A harsh, low scream tore from my throat when Kolis slammed into Ash. Eather spat and crackled around them as they rose.

They came back down in a blur. I stared wide-eyed and couldn’t make sense of it until one of them crashed into the tile, cracking several feet of the marble around them. Only when I saw the swirling black mist overtaking the brilliant glow did I know that Ash had driven Kolis into the floor.

Relief shuddered through me when the essence around Kolis dimmed enough for me to see Ash straighten. He stepped over his uncle, spitting a mouthful of shimmery blood onto the Primal before reaching down and grasping Kolis by the head—

The false King shot up like a spear, sending Ash flying back. Wind surged, blowing my hair in front of me. Lightning arced overhead. My head tilted toward the horizon, to the west. I saw no signs of the draken.

My heart lurched as Ash and Kolis battled with fists and bursts of Primal energy, their bodies rising and falling so quickly. I turned back to where the guards lay, the distance between them and me seeming insurmountable. But I needed to get to a sword. I wasn’t sure what I would do once I had it, but I had to do something.

Hands suddenly landed on my upper arms. I let out a startled scream, and instinct took over. I immediately tried to break free. My mind knew how to, I’d been trained by the best, but my body wasn’t responding quickly enough. I felt sluggish and disjointed, and all I seemed to do was wiggle like a dying worm.

“Stop,” a voice hissed in my ear—one I recognized.

Attes.

Anger boiled as I jerked my body to the right. “Let go…of me, you…fucking traitorous bastard.”

Attes’s grip tightened, and he turned me sideways, bringing us face-to-face.

I got a really good look at him. And he didn’t look well. Bluish-red blood trickled from his nose, eyes, ears, and the corners of his mouth. The shallow scar running from his hairline, across the bridge of his nose, and down his left cheek stood out starkly.

Godsdamn. That one blast from Ash had really done a number on him.

“Listen to me,” he said, shouting over the wind.

“Fuck you.” I pitched back—or fell back—kicking out. My foot glanced off his chest.

Attes halted, raising his brows. “You really need to conserve your energy, Sera. And listen to me.”

Yeah, that wasn’t happening. “You betrayed…us,” I forced out, feeling dizzy. “After I helped Thad, you…betrayed—”

The ground shook as Ash and Kolis hit somewhere to our right, their bodies digging up tile and sending marble flying in every direction.

Cursing, Attes twisted and pulled me toward him, shifting us away from the rain of debris. I reached up, digging my fingers into his hair and yanking hard. It was a bitch move. I knew it, but it was the best I could manage at the moment.

Attes snarled through bared teeth—fangs. He jerked his head, and I felt a savage burst of satisfaction when I saw strands of golden-brown hair between my fingers.

“Damn it,” he growled. “Stop—”

Fingers clawed, I aimed for that fucking dimple.

“I know what I’ve done.” He caught my wrist, eather snapping in his eyes as Ash and Kolis returned to the sky. “There isn’t time to discuss that or for you to seek revenge.”

My mouth opened.

“Kolis will kill Ash,” Attes said, our faces inches apart. “He won’t mean to, and that’s not because he doesn’t want to. It’s because of what will happen if he does.” Something wet hit my cheek and then my arm. “Ash is not powerful enough to defeat Kolis and his draken, which will come this way the moment they sense that Kolis is truly in danger. Ash will die.”

Panting, I stared at the Primal who’d strolled into Ash’s office, seemingly without a care. The one who had flirted while delivering Kolis’s message and teased as he asked about the movements of the Shadowlands’ forces toward the borders of the Court he shared with his brother, Kyn. Ash hadn’t trusted him completely, but there had been something between them. Not exactly a friendship but maybe a kinship.

And he’d fucked us.

He’d likely been in on Kolis ordering me to slaughter that poor draken, and had probably told Kolis that I brought Thad back.

The act the false King had been waiting for me to complete, as it was proof that the embers had matured enough to be transferred.

Something splashed off the hand Attes held between us. The drop was a shimmery reddish-blue color.

It was Primal blood.

I sucked in a startled breath.

“They need to stop,” Attes insisted. “And the only person either of them will listen to is you.”

I wasn’t sure about that. Kolis didn’t seem like the type to listen to anyone. And Ash was likely beyond listening. He was caught in a cyclone of fury that had been building for centuries. This wasn’t only about me. It was about his mother, whom Kolis had slaughtered while Ash was still in her womb. It was about his father, whom Kolis had killed—whose soul he still held. It was for all the lives inked into Ash’s skin that Kolis had taken from him or forced Ash to take.

But Attes, bastard or not, spoke the truth.

Kolis would kill Ash.

And the death of either Kolis or Ash would destroy not only the mortal realm but also Iliseeum and every Primal. Completely. I wasn’t sure if the draken could even survive. Perhaps only the Arae—the Fates—would remain.

But I didn’t care about any of them. Only Ash mattered to me. So, I had to try. But how? They were still going at it, trading blasts of eather. The glow swallowing Kolis had faded, making it so he was no longer painful to look at. The shadows had grown thinner around Ash. I didn’t even know what I planned to do if I made it to one of the swords.

My gaze flew to the daggers at Attes’s hips, and I thought… I thought maybe I knew how to get Kolis to stop.

I started to push up with legs that felt like the jelly my stepsister Ezra liked to smother her rolls in. “Help…help me stand.” My cheeks warmed with embarrassment, which was so godsdamn stupid considering the situation. “I…I can’t do it.”

Features tense, Attes hesitated. It was clear he didn’t trust me. And he shouldn’t. Because if I lived longer than tonight, I would find a way to do terrible things to the fucker.

But also because I had lied—well, partially. I could stand, but I also knew the effort it would take, and that would wipe me out. I was doing what Attes had suggested: conserving my energy.

After a heartbeat, he tipped closer and shifted his hold from my wrist to my shoulders. He rose, bringing me with him. “You steady?”

I couldn’t really feel the floor beneath my feet. “Yeah.”

“Good.” Attes’s gaze searched mine, his features pinched with what looked like concern. I had to be imagining it. “So, what’s the—?”

I moved as quickly as possible, which wasn’t very fast at all. I was surprised I managed to grab the hilt of one of his shadowstone daggers before he could stop me. I’d just caught him off guard.

“Are you fucking kidding me?” Attes exclaimed, eyeing the dagger I took from him. “Was I not clear enough?”

“Calm down.” I took a shallow breath, and my chest…gods, it felt weird. Like it was loose. “You aren’t worth…the effort.”

Surprise flickered across his face. He hadn’t expected that response.

Feeling top-heavy, I turned to where the two Primals had landed. Their hands were on each other’s throats, eather firing from their fingers.

I stepped forward, shouting, “Stop!”

Neither heard, or if they did, they ignored me. Their veins were lit from within, and if they hadn’t been in the process of killing each other, I would’ve thought they looked oddly beautiful.

And I also knew there might not be enough blood getting to my brain.

Panic trickled through me as I yelled again and again, feeling myself swaying. Attes, the rat bastard, steadied me. My heart was slowing, and I suspected that wasn’t good. Mainly because darkness crowded in at the edges of my vision. I didn’t know how I, a mortal, could get two Primal gods to—

But I wasn’t entirely mortal.

Not anymore.

The embers of life had changed that—the embers of Primal essence.

The back of my skull tingled, and my mind raced. The power the embers could manifest was connected to me feeling extreme emotion, just like a god or Primal as they grew closer to their Ascension. Ash had tried to get them to come out in me intentionally. It hadn’t exactly worked then.

But it was strange. As I stood, my chest oddly loose, sort of feeling detached from myself, I suddenly knew why the embers hadn’t flared.

I had been born with them inside me, but I’d never considered them part of me. I’d only been a vessel. Something to hide and store them. It was what Eythos, Ash’s father, had intended.

But that was no longer the case. The embers were a part of me. And for right now, they were mine.

I hadn’t truly understood that before. Hadn’t believed it until now.

Taking a deeper, slower breath, I concentrated on the throbbing in my chest. The embers fluttered and then pulsed as I summoned the eather, tapping into it.

“Good Fates,” Attes whispered.

What came next simply happened, almost like when Rhain told me about the deal Ash had made with Veses. Except this time, I was well aware of the essence coming to the surface. I controlled it. And when I used it, I didn’t think about how. It was just instinct, ancient and primal.

Primal essence seeped into my veins, hot and smooth, and when I spoke, I felt the power in my words. “Stop.”

I didn’t realize what I’d done until both Ash and Kolis halted, the bolts of eather fizzling out mid-streak.

I’d used compulsion. On the two most powerful Primals alive.

“Good Fates,” Attes whispered again hoarsely, clearly shocked. Ash and Kolis turned their heads toward me.

I was surprised, too. I hadn’t expected that, but I shoved my astonishment aside because while I’d been able to do that, I could already feel the embers weakening. Yes, they were a part of me, but I was dying. So, they were dying. I had to be quick. I stepped forward and did the only thing I could think of.

Ash cared for me greatly. If he could, he would love me. He’d pretty much said that himself after we’d spoken with the God of Divination, Delfai. But he’d removed his kardia, the piece of the soul that all living beings had that allowed them to irrevocably love another not of their blood and enabled them to do anything for that person. The goddess Penellaphe had said it must’ve been incredibly painful for him to do so. To me, it was just so damn tragic. He’d done it in an attempt to protect himself and whoever he might come to love from his uncle.

Kolis was an evil, sick bastard, and I didn’t think that what he felt for Sotoria was love. It was more like an obsession. But he was still in possession of his kardia, and he believed he was in love with her. If that were true, then he’d do anything for her.

Someone he believed was me.

Heart stuttering, I lifted the dagger to my throat.

“Fucking Fates,” Attes snapped from behind me, his voice low. “That wasn’t what I had in mind.”

“Stop fighting,” I repeated, ignoring the Primal of War and Accord. “Do this for me. Please.”

I was focused on Kolis, speaking directly to him, but Ash reacted first.

The thinning shadows whirling around and inside him vanished. Blood leaked from his parted lips and nose. His jaw was already swelling, and his tunic was burned in places, revealing charred flesh beneath. But it was his eyes that caused my heart to lurch. They were wide and stark, the wisps of eather still.

Kolis was slower to respond, the golden glow only fading enough that his features became visible beneath it. He wasn’t much better off than Ash. His chest was also a burned, bloody mess.

“Sera,” Ash rasped thickly, his hands lifting halfway. “What are you doing?”

I swallowed, my stomach full of knots of anxiety, but my hand was steady. “Stop fighting, or I will slit my throat open.”

Kolis’s chin snapped down. “You will do no such thing.”

I pressed the tip of the blade into my skin until I felt the prick of pain. Suddenly, Ash…gods, it seemed like he had no control over his body. He jerked back a step. “Yes,” I said, keeping my gaze trained on their chests. I didn’t trust either of them not to use compulsion. Though avoiding eye contact wouldn’t prevent them from doing it. Not completely. “I will. And if I even think one of you is about to use compulsion, I’ll do it.”

“Sera,” Ash said again. “Put the dagger down.” He took a step forward, seeming to completely forget about Kolis as his scorched chest rose and fell rapidly. “Please.”

I sucked in a sharp breath, my hand trembling. “I will—” I gasped, a sharp sting of pain slicing across my throat when someone ripped the dagger from my fingers.

Ash shouted, and the fear in his yell…gods, it was palpable. I immediately knew I’d made a grave mistake.

Oh, gods.

I’d underestimated what they would and wouldn’t do. I’d thought I could distract Kolis. That he would be vulnerable to his love, his obsession for Sotoria.

But I’d distracted Ash, too.

The dagger I’d held to my throat was now in Kolis’s hand.

The false King of Gods was so damn fast. He twisted, slamming the dagger into Ash’s chest.

Right into his heart.

CHAPTER THREE

The blow Kolis landed knocked Ash back, and horror seized me.

The blade was just shadowstone. It should have little effect on a being as powerful as a Primal, but the numerous injuries marking Ash’s body had weakened him. That much was clear.

Ash caught himself, reaching for the hilt of the blade as he staggered forward, his wide eyes fixed on me and the wet warmth I could feel dripping down my throat. He dropped…oh, gods. He fell to his knees.

“Run,” he choked out, pitching forward onto one hand.

A high-pitched, terrified sound blasted my ears. It was a scream. My scream. The embers fluttered, briefly swelling before stalling. Pressure built in my chest and head, rapidly becoming an unbearable weight. I started toward Ash but didn’t make it. My legs collapsed, and I hit the cracked floor. Starbursts exploded across my vision.

Snarling, Kolis grabbed a fistful of Ash’s hair, yanking him back. The dagger was still in his chest, in his heart. “I offered you grace.”

“Stop,” I wheezed, my fingers pressing into the tile as I crawled forward on my belly.

Kolis threw Ash onto his back. “And you tossed it back into my face.”

Arms and legs shaking, I pushed up onto my knees. “Please,” I forced out, blood dripping onto the floor beneath me. “Stop—” My throat seized, cutting me off.

“You, of all people, should know better.” Kolis swung his leg up and then brought his foot down on the dagger’s hilt.

Ash’s entire body jerked.

A hand smacked down on my mouth, silencing my newest scream. “Listen to me,” Attes hissed in my ear. “Ash is still alive. A shadowstone blade will not kill him. He’s just weakened from battling Kolis. But if you keep screaming, Kolis will kill him.”

Kolis stomped his foot down on the dagger once more, and I felt it. I swore I felt the blow in my chest. My entire body shook.

 Everything felt like it was rushing and spinning. The chamber. Attes’s words. What I saw. I strained against the Primal of War and Accord’s hold, desperately needing to get to Ash. Kolis was…oh, gods, he pulled the blade free and then thrust it into Ash’s chest again. A spasm went through me, swift and sharp. I went boneless and limp. Lifeless.

Attes cursed under his breath as he shifted me in his arms. “Sera?” Bright tendrils of eather whipped through his eyes. “Sera?”

My mouth was open, but only the thinnest bit of air got in, and there was this godsawful thumping and a wet, fleshy sound. I struggled to breathe, to turn my head toward Ash.

All I saw was the rise and fall of Kolis’s arm. Up. Down. Up. Down. A blood-slicked dagger glinted in the moonlight.

I screamed. I knew I did, even if there was no sound. I screamed and screamed, still shaking.

 “Fuck.” Attes’s head shot up. “Kolis! She needs your help,” he shouted, his skin thinning. “Godsdamn it, listen to me. Sotoria is about to die.”

Thump. Thump. Thump.

“If you let that happen, you will lose her. Do you hear me?” Attes squeezed his eyes shut, and I thought I saw panic flash across his features. But I wasn’t sure what I was seeing. My eyes couldn’t focus. “You will lose your graeca.”

The horrific thumping ceased.

“No,” Kolis croaked. “No.”

The faint scent of vanilla and lilacs—stale lilacs—enveloped me, and then Attes was no longer holding me.

Kolis had me in his arms. He lifted me as he rose, my head lolling. “Put him in the cells,” he said. “I will deal with him when I return.”

If more was said, I didn’t know. A rush of wind whirled around us, and I was vaguely aware of warm night air touching my skin.

I struggled to open my eyes, but they no longer responded to my commands. The darkness smothered me, suffocated. My breaths came in shallow gasps, and my heart raced before it stuttered. Time. It sped up and slowed down, leaving me to exist in those too-long gaps between the beats of my heart and the ceaseless roar of the wind.

I didn’t want to die.

Not like this.

Not alone in the darkness with this monster.

I wanted to be with Ash, in his arms at my lake, as he’d promised we would be when my time came.

This wasn’t right.

It’s not fair, I swore I heard Sotoria whisper, her thoughts briefly mingling with mine.

The embers of life vibrated wildly. Panic surged like a wild animal trapped in a cage, desperate to break free, but there was no escape.

Death had always been inevitable.

I sensed that we’d stopped moving, stopped shadowstepping. A palm pressed down on the center of my chest, and my breath, my heart, snagged as a strange pins-and-needles sensation swept over me.

Then, there was nothing.

Ash.

That was the first thing I thought as I came to. The battle between him and Kolis, the blade striking him, moving up and down, up and down, stabbing into Ash’s body.

My eyes peeled open, going wide. The sky above was drenched in starlight, and I gulped salty, damp air that turned into thin breaths that barely did anything to ease the constriction in my chest. The buzzing in my ears retreated, and I heard voices coming from every direction. Whispers followed us as I caught the vague impression of people lowering themselves to their knees, and glimpsed twinkling lights inside sandstone buildings and larger structures in the distance. I couldn’t be sure, though. All I knew was that I was still being carried as I struggled to breathe.

Ash.

I didn’t know where I was or where he’d been taken. I had a vague memory of hearing a cell referenced. And before that, a wet, fleshy, thumping sound and the flash of a blood-slick dagger.

Oh, gods.

The edges of my vision turned white. I felt like I couldn’t breathe—

“Calm yourself,” a voice full of bitter warmth and cold sunshine ordered from above me.

Startled, my gaze swung to silver eyes laced with golden flecks. Kolis’s attention shifted, and shimmering sweeps and swirls churned beneath the flesh of his cheeks. A shudder rolled through me.

“You will live,” Kolis stated, glancing down at me. “As long as you are who you claim to be.”

Nothing about his words made it easier to breathe. With each passing second, it felt like my lungs shrank. My heart no longer pulsed listlessly. It raced, skipping beats. White static crowded the edges of my vision when I fought to remember what Holland had taught me, what Ash had shown me. Breathe in. Hold—

The ground moved under us, the soil turning to sand. Kolis’s steps slowed, his hold shifting. A rhythmic sound reached me, the gentle rise and fall of waves lapping against a shore. My head slid, my cheek catching on the golden band around his biceps. For a moment, I forgot about suffocating as I stared at the rippling moonlight reflecting off the vast, midnight-hued sea.

Kolis had stopped at the edge of pearly white sand, but there was no gradual incline to the water like there was on the beaches of the Stroud Sea. This was a steep drop with no bottom in sight, but something in the water moved.

They swam in circles, over and under one another. Dozens, maybe even hundreds of them. Their powerful arms and sleek, bare bodies were half flesh and half scales, creating fierce currents beneath the surface. The tails of those closest to me were radiant in the moonlight—vivid, glittering blues, intense pinks, deep greens, and streaks of bright yellow.

My gods, they had to be the ceeren.

“Phanos!” Kolis roared.

I flinched as the shockwave of his shout hit the water, sending the ceeren scattering into the deeper parts of the sea. Their frantic flight stirred the tranquil waters. Small, white-tipped waves rippled across the surface and a form appeared amid the ceeren.

His entire body moved in a wave-like motion, propelled by the rapid swishing of the large fin at the end of his tail. Faster than the others, he swam toward the surface.

As he neared, a bolt of silver erupted from his hand, forming a long spear that came to three points at one end. A trident.

One made of eather.

Phanos, the Primal God of the Skies and Seas, erupted from the sea in a spray of water, the trident spitting sparks of amber against the warm, dark brown skin of his shoulders and broad chest. Beneath him, his undulating tail keeping him in place, the ceeren calmed enough for me to see there were smaller ones farther down. Children who still darted back and forth, appearing briefly before scurrying behind the older ceeren’s tails.

Phanos’s stare drifted over Kolis and then me. In the bright moonlight, the handsome lines of his face tensed. He bowed his head. “Your Majesty.”

Kolis knelt. My calves slid over warm, rough sand. He didn’t let go, he just held the top half of my body upright and against his chest. “I am in need of your assistance. She has lost too much blood.”

Phanos glanced at me, his stare lingering on my throat. “Correct me if I’m wrong, but is that not Nyktos’s Consort?”

“Yes,” I gasped. Or I thought I did. I couldn’t be sure. My tongue felt leaden and useless.

“That is irrelevant,” Kolis responded.

“Perhaps to you. But I felt the loss of one of our brethren, and the rise of a new…sistren. All of us did.” Phanos’s gaze slipped past us, and I heard retreating footsteps. His gaze shifted back to me. “Is it because of her?”

“You ask too many questions,” Kolis growled, his smooth voice roughening. “And I have very little patience for answering them.”

“I apologize, my King.” Phanos bowed his head slightly. “But I want no problems with Nyktos.”

“My nephew is currently no threat to anyone,” Kolis said, and my heart felt like it twisted until nothing was left of it. “However, even you should be more worried about inciting my wrath than Nyktos’s,” Kolis warned, cold bitterness filling his tone as gold-laced eather poured out of him. I winced when the essence glided harmlessly against my skin before spilling over to the sand. “Or do I need to remind you?”

Phanos eyed the tendrils of eather as they stopped short of reaching the water, where they lifted and coiled like vipers preparing to strike. I shuddered at the sight of them, having no idea what would happen if the eather reached the water. Whatever it was, I had a feeling it would be something terrible.

Phanos’s nostrils flared, and then the trident collapsed and vanished from his hand. “No, you do not.”

“Good.” Kolis’s voice was warm once more—gentle, even. The way he switched back and forth so quickly was unnerving. “She cannot die. I need you to make sure that doesn’t happen.”

Confusion arose. Between the blood loss and my worry for Ash, my addled brain was having a hard time processing everything, and many things were a blur. But even in this state, I had no idea how Phanos could assist.

“If you do not wish for her to die, can you not do what you’ve done to the others?” Phanos questioned. “Make her one of your Revenants. She is a godling, is she not? That shouldn’t be a problem, should it?”

But I wasn’t a godling—the offspring of a mortal and a god. However, it was how I felt to the gods and Primals because of the embers. Either way, Phanos clearly knew about the Revenants. Maybe all the Primals but Ash did. But Phanos didn’t know about the embers.

I wasn’t sure what to make of that. Was there anything to gain? But I hadn’t even thought of Kolis turning me into whatever the Revenants were. Could he even do that? What would that—?

“That is only death reborn,” Kolis answered, the warmth straining. “And I cannot risk her soul being stolen away in the process of the rebirth.”

Two things happened at once. One, I realized that a Revenant had to die to become one. And the second thing? Phanos realized exactly why Kolis was here.

“Is that her?” he whispered. “Your graeca?”

A burst of anger lit my insides, temporarily replacing the coldness that seemed to have penetrated every part of me. Words scorched my tongue, and I wanted nothing more than for them to make it past my lips. I wasn’t his graeca. Neither was Sotoria. We didn’t belong to him. I willed my mouth to move, just as I had earlier when I yelled at Ash and Kolis, but the embers only sputtered weakly, and all I managed was a whimpering sound.