Текст книги "A fire in the flash"

Автор книги: Jennifer L. Armentrout

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Текущая страница: 24 (всего у книги 37 страниц)

Or could it be the malevolent side of the essence of Death that caused his rashness to result in death, overriding the benevolent part? I didn’t believe he had been born this way. He’d become like this. I would probably never know all the things that’d fed into how and why he was the way he was now, but I had a feeling going into a deep sleep would only make things worse.

I felt he was beyond reverting back to who he’d been.

And even if he could? It wouldn’t undo what he’d done.

“There are times when I look at you when I see parts of how you once appeared.”

My head swung back to him.

“The way you smile. The sound of your voice. Your mannerisms. Your eyes.” His intense stare lowered. “The shape of your body.”

Bile rose to my throat.

“But it’s like all I remember was amplified. Your smiles are smaller, tighter. Your voice thicker. You are more confident in your speech and quite a bit freer with what you say. You move that way, too. There are more freckles.” His gaze drifted across my chest. “More everything.”

The bile increased.

“I find parts of the new you pleasing,” he said, his stare lifting to my hair, and I had a sinking suspicion that I had been right about Veses already whispering in his ear. Why else would he bring that up? “Other parts, not so much. Despite what I said to Callum, I thought you would look just as I remembered.”

I tensed.

He sighed heavily. “I wish you did.”

I was so fucking glad I didn’t, but that didn’t stop my reaction. My brows lifted in surprise. He’d basically just told me, the one he believed was the love of his life and the person he wanted to start anew with, that he wished I looked like someone else.

Gods, and I thought I was bad when it came to interacting with people.

No one was worse than Kolis.

The skin of his forehead creased as a warm breeze carrying the stale scent of decay lifted the strands of his hair. “I believe I may have insulted you.”

“Uh…”

“I’m not sure why,” he said. “I didn’t say I found you unattractive.”

I looked back at the city. I didn’t have it in me to even begin to explain all that was wrong with what he’d said.

“I’ve upset you.” Kolis shifted closer. “How can I make it up to you?”

Gods, not this again.

“What would you like? New gowns? Books? Jewels? A pet?” He caught a curl that had been tossed across my face. His lips thinned as he tucked it back. Was he offended by the color? “Tell me, and I will get it for you.”

I started to tell him that I wasn’t offended and didn’t need gowns, jewels, books, or a pet—wait.

What kind of pet?

It didn’t matter. It was the other thing he’d offered.

Jewels.

The Star diamond.

My pulse picked up as an idea rapidly formed—a really poorly thought-out idea, but one nonetheless.

I turned back to the railing, placing my palm on the smooth marble. “Do you know why I find the city so beautiful?” My stomach and chest fluttered as I spoke. “It’s the way it glitters. All the different shapes, some smooth, others irregular.” Aware of how intently he was listening and watching, I smiled. “My mother had many jewels, mostly sapphires and rubies. Bright, perfectly polished ones. Completely unflawed—unlike me.”

“How so?”

My mother did have many jewels, but most of what was coming out of my mouth now was completely made up. “The freckles.” I lowered my voice, playing off what he’d said. “She found them to be too many. After all, she preferred smooth, unblemished beauty. Still, she had this one diamond that was rough-edged and irregularly shaped. It always fascinated me—all diamonds do. Is it true they were created from tears of joy?”

“Most of them.”

“I wanted to wear it,” I lied, having absolutely no desire to wear any jewelry. “But she would never let me touch it.”

“I could retrieve it for you now,” Kolis said quickly. “Tell me where it is.”

Oh, shit. “I’m not sure where she keeps it now.”

Determination settled into his jaw. “I can make her tell me.”

Double shit. This was going sideways fast. “I’m not even sure she has it anymore.” I angled my body toward his, desperate enough to get him off the idea that I placed my palm on his chest.

Kolis went completely still.

So did I, but for different reasons, as I did everything not to acknowledge how his skin felt beneath my palm. “You don’t have to go to that kind of trouble, Kolis.” The bile crowding my throat was back, the lump bigger than ever as I drew my fingers over the slab of muscle, stopping at the center of his chest. “Another diamond would suffice.”

Kolis’s chin lowered. He stared at my hand as I wondered if I’d lost my mind.

“Obviously, not one from any of the buildings.” I could feel how fast his heart beat. “I would be sad if they were damaged in any way. But something large and unique would work.”

“Exactly how large?” His voice had roughened. “And unique?”

How big was this Star diamond supposed to be? All I remembered was that it was jagged and what I’d heard about the color. “Well, the size doesn’t matter so much as its uniqueness,” I decided, feigning a sigh. “And that it has a silver sheen. Hers was so very silver and jagged.” I tapped my finger against his skin and then withdrew my hand. “It doesn’t matter. I don’t need anything.” I started to turn away.

“I know of one. It’s large and irregular,” he said. I might’ve stopped. breathing. “I believe it also has a silver sheen. It’s a…rare diamond.”

Slowly, I faced him. “You do?”

“Yes.” He was still staring at my hands.

I returned my palm to his chest. “Can I…can I see it?”

Whirling gold and silver eyes lifted to mine.

I bit my lower lip. “I would like to see it. Hold it.” I made my tone turn breathy, likely sounding ridiculous compared to how Veses naturally spoke. “Touch it.”

The swirling of his eyes went crazy. “Will it make you happy?”

“Yes.” I nodded, withdrawing my hand again. I clasped them at my waist. “It would.”

“Then come. I’ll take you to it.”

My chest and stomach were still wiggling as I followed Kolis back into the sanctuary. Part of me was lost in disbelief. Could he truly be this easy to manipulate? Really?

But Ash hadn’t known about the diamond. Attes had never mentioned it.

Delfai had said it was not to be known to any other than the Fates. Obviously, an Arae had shared the knowledge with Kolis. I’d asked Delfai how a Fate could’ve done that since they weren’t supposed to interfere, and he’d claimed that when Primals started to feel emotion, so did the Arae. Therefore, they could be exploited, too. Who knew? Other Primals could know of its existence and what it was capable of, but there was a good chance it wouldn’t even cross Kolis’s mind that I was asking to see The Star.

That was if he was actually taking me to it.

I began to seriously doubt that when we ended up back outside, Elias trailing behind us on the pathway. When Dyses came into view, my hands fisted.

The door to the chamber opened, and Kolis led me inside. When he passed his throne and unlocked the cage door, my steps slowed.

“I don’t understand,” I said. “I thought you were showing me a diamond.”

“I am.” He stepped inside the cage, waiting for me at the threshold.

Forcing myself forward, I joined him. He didn’t leave much room for me. My body brushed his as I passed him.

The door swung shut as he came to stand behind me. Like right behind me. “Look up.”

Anger simmered as I did what he said. I looked up. “Yes?”

“You see it, don’t you?” Kolis said.

“I don’t see…” My gaze landed on the cluster of diamonds at the center of the cage. “That’s a cluster of diamonds. And the sheen isn’t silver.” It was a strange, streaky, milky color.

Kolis chuckled. “It appears that way now, only because I’ve willed it to be so.” Reaching around me, he lifted an arm and opened his hand. “Vena ta mayah.”

Recognizing the words as the language of the Primals, my lips parted as the cluster of diamonds at the ceiling of the cage started to vibrate, making a high-pitched whirring noise.

They shuddered free of the gold, and I realized that it wasn’t a cluster of several but only one. The shape changed as it floated downward, pulsing with a milky streak of light and silver.

When it reached Kolis’s hand, he held a single diamond the size of his palm, its irregular shape vaguely forming the points of a…

I couldn’t believe it.

The damn diamond had been above me the whole time.

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

I stared at The Star in silence, absolutely shocked that the all-powerful diamond had been above my head for weeks.

“What do you think, so’lis?” Kolis asked. “Is this more or less than the one you once coveted?”

“More,” I whispered as he turned the diamond in his hand. The sharp angles glimmered silver. “It looks like a star.”

“That is what it is called,” he said. “The Star.”

“Oh.” I feigned surprise. “It’s a fitting name.”

“That it is.”

The heat of his chest bore down on my back as I turned slightly. “How was such a diamond created?” I asked, already knowing the answer, but I was interested to see how Kolis would respond.

“From what I understand, it was created by dragon fire.” As he spoke, he drew his thumb over the diamond, and I could’ve sworn the sheen of silver retracted from his touch. “Long before Primals could shed tears of joy. I came upon it by pure chance.”

That was exactly how Delfai had said it was created, but I knew Kolis hadn’t stumbled upon it. “It truly is beautiful.” I watched the milky light ripple through the diamond as he turned it once more. “Why would you change its appearance and keep it here, where it’s hidden?”

“Because where else would I place such a beautiful stone than where I keep what I cherish the most?”

My stomach churned at his response, but I managed a smile. “May I hold it?”

“Of course,” Kolis purred.

I swallowed the sourness gathering in my mouth as he moved the diamond closer. My fingers folded around it—

A jolt danced across my fingertips the moment my skin came into contact with The Star. The rush of energy flowed over my hand and up my arm as the embers in my chest immediately thrummed to life, humming and buzzing so fast I couldn’t stifle the gasp or hide how my entire body jerked.

The intense current bordered on painful as it pumped through me, forcing my hand to tighten around the surprisingly warm stone. A tremor started in my arm as the diamond heated. I tried to force my grip to loosen, but I couldn’t let go of the stone, couldn’t look away as its sheen intensified. The light I’d seen hadn’t been a reflection. The streaks of milky, silvery-white light were inside the diamond. They now expanded, filling the entire stone—

Images appeared in my mind without warning, rapidly forming and flipping as if a tome of paintings. I saw a lush forest—a heavily wooded area atop a mountain—and a man caught in a windstorm with long, whipping strands of dark hair around features partially covered in russet-hued ink. And his eyes…

His eyes.

They were the color of the realms—blue, green, and brown, with stars filling his pupils. He yelled at the sky, his words lost to the wind.

Hot, violent air came from the open jaws of a massive, winged beast. A dragon the color of the ground and the pines its breath toppled.

Red sparked from inside the dragon’s mouth, along the sides. Bright flames erupted from the majestic being, a funnel of fire that swamped the man on the mountain. And the flames kept coming, obliterating the entire crest of the peak until nothing remained where the man had stood.

Nothing but scorched earth and a diamond that sank deep into the ground, burying itself—

The images rapidly changed again. The mountain and the dragon were gone, replaced by another man, a black-haired one this time, who held the diamond just as I did, tightly, his knuckles bleached white. His arm shook as mine did. His entire body trembled as he lifted his head, shock filling his silver eyes and flickering across his broad cheekbones, slackening his wide mouth and strong jaw, paling his golden-bronze skin. He stared at the man across from him, one with golden hair who shared his features.

I knew who I saw now.

“Nothing can erase the past,” Eythos rasped.

A hand the same shade as Eythos’s closed over his. “I have no interest in erasing the past. I will change the future,” Kolis swore.

Their stares locked as lightning erupted above them. “Not the way you think you will,” Eythos pleaded, his large body trembling as he struggled to lift his other arm and clasp the back of Kolis’s neck. “Listen to me, brother. It won’t bring anything but pain to the realms—to you.”

“As if I don’t already live with nothing but pain!” Kolis shouted. “That is all there has ever been for me.”

Tears filled Eythos’s eyes. “I wish nothing more than for your life to have been different. If I could change it for you, I would. I would do anything—”

“But you had your chance to make me happy. You had a choice to do anything for me, yet you refused,” Kolis snarled. “And now look at us. Look at where we are!”

“I’m sorry.” Eather crackled from Eythos’s skin. “I am. But it’s not too late to stop this. I swear to you. I can forgive you. We can start anew—”

“Forgive me?” Kolis laughed roughly as thunder roared. “Come now. You speak as if you’re still capable of looking upon me as your brother. As if you could after Mycella. You’ve never forgiven me for her loving me.”

Eythos drew back. “Never forgiven…? Brother, she once held a tender spot for you—”

“She was only with you because I wouldn’t have her.”

Anger flashed in the Primal’s face. “Why must you say things like that?”

“It’s only the truth.”

“No, it’s the truth you’ve decided to believe,” Eythos shot back. “Mycella may have loved you when we were younger, and she continued caring about you until the moment you slaughtered her.”

Kolis looked away, his jaw tensing.

“But she loved me, Kolis. She did not choose me because she could not have you. That is not love. What we had? What grew between us? That was love. She loved me, and I never held what she may have once felt for you against you.”

“Fucking liar.”

“Never!” shouted Eythos. He took a deep breath, visibly attempting to rein in his temper. “Yeah, I wasn’t happy about it at first. Who would be? But I never blamed you.”

Kolis scoffed. “You just cannot stop yourself from playing the role of the better one—”

“It is no role!”

“Bullshit,” Kolis shouted. “You’re not as good of a liar as I am. You never were. There’s no coming back from this—any of this.”

“But there is. There has to be. We are of the same flesh and blood. Brothers. I love you—”

“Shut up!” Kolis screamed, his other hand thrusting out.

Eythos jerked, his eyes flaring in disbelief. He looked down at a rod of dull white penetrating his chest, entering his heart.

Time seemed to stop.

The swirling wind. The building storm. Everything ceased as pure, unadulterated energy ramped up.

Kolis snapped his hand back—his bloodied hand. His mouth parted.

“I knew… I knew you were capable of this.” A shudder rolled through Eythos as he lifted his gaze to his brother’s. Shimmery blood leaked from his lips. “But I…I hoped I was wrong. I always…had hope.”

“Eythos,” whispered Kolis. He shook his head, denial etching into his features. “No. No!”

Kolis caught his brother as Eythos’s legs went out from under him and then held him as energy exploded from his twin, filling the air and the realm.

The…vision or whatever it was faded away. I was still holding The Star, still staring at it, but all I saw was the red flowing down Eythos’s chest. The red streaming from Kolis’s eyes.

A wave of incredulity swept over me because I knew—I knew two things at once. “You cried.”

“What?” Kolis demanded, and before I could answer, he gripped my arm and whipped me around so I faced him. Silver wisps of eather erased the flecks of gold. “What did you say?”

Oh, damn, I shouldn’t have said that. Shock had gotten the better of me. “I…I don’t know what you mean—”

“Don’t lie to me.”

“I’m not.” A hiss of pain went through me as his grip tightened on my arm, stoking the already thrumming embers.

His wild stare dropped to the diamond I still held. He sucked in a sharp breath and lifted the arm of the hand that held the diamond so it was in my face. “What did you see?” Kolis shook me, causing my head to snap back and then forward again.

A burst of sharp pain radiated down my spine. My already too-tight skin prickled as I gripped his arm.

He reached across the arm holding me and pried the diamond free from my grasp, throwing it into the air. My eyes shot to it, my gaze following The Star as it returned to the cage’s ceiling, once more becoming the cluster of diamonds.

The milky streaks of silvery light throbbed down upon us.

I shuddered.

Because I now knew what was in that diamond.

What had witnessed everything that had happened in this cage.

The center of my chest throbbed as Kolis shook me like I was nothing more than a rag doll.

Fangs protruded below his fleshless lips. “Me? The King of Gods. And you? A once frightened maiden turned whore?”

My grip on his arm loosened as I stared at him. The blank canvas was nowhere to be found as the embers inside me swelled. There was nothing but messy rage—hot, powerful fury. The edges of my vision turned white. I thrust my hands out, slamming them into his chest as power flooded my veins.

I saw a flicker of shock on Kolis’s face that echoed through me before he released me. I fell to the floor, almost toppling as he skidded backward from the blast of eather. He caught himself before he slammed into the bars. There was a brief moment when I realized that I shouldn’t have been able to do that to him in here, surrounded by shadowstone and the bones of the Ancients.

I shouldn’t have been able to summon that storm to frighten Callum, either, but the embers…

Chest heaving, Kolis lifted his head. Through the curtain of blond hair, I saw that his eyes had turned into pools of endless nothingness, and his skin had thinned, revealing the bone beneath.

 “Then you’ve seen death,” Callum had said when I’d told him I’d seen Kolis’s true form. “True death. No one sees that and lives very long afterward.”

Panting, I took a step back, bumping into the wooden column at the foot of the bed.

“What did I tell you about using those embers?” he seethed.

Warning bells went off, kicking off instincts that told me I was in danger. My gaze flicked to the closed cage door. I pushed off the column—

Kolis was on me before I took an actual step, his hand at my throat again. Gasping for any breath possible, I clutched his arm as he abruptly pulled me away from the column and lifted me into the air. My eyes went wide as my feet dangled.

“I want you to remember one thing.” There wasn’t a strip of flesh left on his face. “Do not blame me for my actions. You caused this.”

Suddenly, the pressure around my throat was gone. There was a moment of confusion as I found myself suspended in the air, then I went flying backward.

I hit the bed hard, the soft mattress doing very little to lessen the impact. Air punched from my lungs, momentarily stunning me into immobility as Kolis levitated, the bones of his chest and arms becoming visible beneath the crackling eather.

Instinct took over. There would be no pacifying him. No manipulating him with kind words. I knew at the very core of my being that I needed to get away from him.

Flipping onto my stomach, I rose onto my knees, making a mad scramble for the other side of the bed. The distance wouldn’t do much, but—

I shouted as Kolis was suddenly behind me, shoving me flat onto my stomach. There was no time for me to react. He grabbed hold of my hair, yanking my head back so far that I thought my spine would crack. I saw The Star above me, silvery light racing across it. Fury crashed into the building panic as Kolis forced my head to the side. I tried to get my hands under me and push up, to move him off me, but he was too heavy and strong.

“Get off me!” I screamed.

His weight kept me flat, and the feeling of him against me, against my backside, was unbearable, robbing the breath from my lungs. I couldn’t breathe.

Panic exploded in my gut then, so all-consuming and intense that the golden cage around me vanished for an instant, replaced by the bare stone walls of my bedchamber in Wayfair. It wasn’t Kolis bearing down on me, it was Tavius. I was there. I was here. Trapped. Unable to breathe. Unable to do anything to protect myself against my stepbrother or against Kolis as his breath coasted over my exposed throat. I knew his fangs would soon tear into my skin. And I also knew it wouldn’t stop there. Not this time.

There was nothing I could do. I was weaponless. Powerless. Nothing I did would change that. No amount of training or preparation would help. But those embers…

They belonged to the Primal of Life.

And they now belonged to me.

They were powerful enough for Rhain to tell me to bring the building down. They were formidable enough to restore life, to break through the negating effects of shadowstone. My wild gaze landed on the bars.

“Clearly, the bones of the Ancients can be destroyed,” I’d said to Attes.

“Only by two Primals.”

The Primal of Death.

And the Primal of Life.

My heart thudded as Kolis twisted my head back. I saw The Star once more.

The embers of the Primal of Life were capable of so much, but my will…

My will was capable of anything.

Because I was not weak.

I was not powerless.

The embers hummed. The sharp glide of Kolis’s fangs scraped my throat. I wouldn’t let this happen. I refused to.

I didn’t lose control.

I fucking took it.

Summoning the essence to the surface, I welcomed the heady rush of power as it poured into my chest and veins. I embraced the all-consuming rage that I’d pushed down when he held me at night, when I realized he’d manipulated me into killing Evander, when I smiled at him and thanked him for his hollow compliments, when he offered me to Kyn, when he bit me and found pleasure doing so, and so many other times. I let in the fury that had been building in me for the days, weeks, months, and years that had ticked by, and the centuries that didn’t belong to me. As my vision turned silver, I felt Sotoria rise inside me, and it was she who screamed, “Get off us!”

Kolis froze against me.

The burst of power rippled out from me in every direction, throwing the false King off me. I heard him hit the bars this time, his grunt of surprise giving way to a sound of pain.

Energy and essence pumped through my muscles, lighting up every cell in my being, and I knew then that I was truly more than just a few embers.

I was them.

They were me.

What I wanted. What I thought.

It became reality.

In the blink of an eye, I was on my feet, but I didn’t run for the door. Slowly, I turned to where Kolis now stood. He was more bones than flesh.

Death stood before me.

But I was Life.

“Us?” he whispered.

Eather roared to the surface of my skin, spinning down my arms. Screaming, I threw my hands out to either side. Another blast of energy left me, evaporating the divan and the table. The bed rose as an area rug and stacks of untouched books crumbled. The privacy screen collapsed as everything not bolted down in the bathing chamber took to the air. I caught sight of the damn key I’d hidden away but never had a chance to use. It disintegrated. The gilded bars exploded, sending shards flying outward.

“I am done with this,” I whispered—or screamed, I couldn’t be sure. However loud it was, eather filled my voice, and it sounded like air that carried the winds of time, rushing beyond the half-destroyed cage and speeding into the chamber beyond. The throne Kolis had sat upon shattered into dust as the essence—as my will—poured from the narrow windows along the ceiling.

Kolis stumbled, the abyss of his eyes sparking gold and silver, but I didn’t see him. He wasn’t important as I held on to my will, picturing the silvery strands of eather stretching above the sanctuary and whipping outward, racing through the empty streets and between the sparkling buildings, past Cor Palace and the glittering wall of diamond and marble. I saw the winged statues guarding Dalos, and because I was feeling petty, I turned them to dust. Then I saw the mountains I’d looked upon earlier. I focused on the spots of darkness—the shadowstone—as I summoned the tendrils of throbbing power. They blanketed the foot of the Carcers like a silvery web before spreading up the sides of the mountain and winding their way through the maze of trees, finding the targets of shadowstone and blowing straight through them—through all the walls, floors, ceilings, and the chains within them.

At the end of the tendrils of eather I sent out, I saw eather-streaked silver eyes snap open.

And I smiled.

Kolis’s head jerked to the right, his jaw clenching as if he sensed what I’d done.

Who I’d freed.

His stare whipped back to me, and, yeah, he knew who was coming. Kolis had to feel the ice-drenched rage hit the air high above Dalos, fueling an unthinkable power, because I could.

A drop of blood hit the bodice of my gown as I shifted my focus to Kolis. The back of my skull tingled as the essence throbbed through what remained of the cage. Chests toppled. Gauzy gowns of white and gold lifted into the air, whirling around us like dancing spirits.

Kolis’s flesh reappeared as he returned to his mortal form. “Us?” he repeated.

“Shut up.” Eather surged, and I latched on to the power—my power. Crackling and spitting eather erupted from my fingertips, taking shape in my hand, stretching and lengthening into the thunderbolt I’d created before. My fingers closed around the humming mass of energy.

Kolis’s eyes widened. “Don’t.”

“Fuck you.” I threw the bolt as if it were a dagger.

And I rarely missed when I threw a blade.

I didn’t this time, either.

The lightning bolt struck true, knocking him off his feet and throwing him through the hole in the cage behind him. He hit the floor and rolled several feet.

I walked forward, lifting my hands. What remained of the gilded bones rose into the air all around me, mostly just tiny shards with a few the length of my hand or slightly longer.

Kolis shot to his feet, the skin of his chest charred and smoking. His lip curled as his chin dipped. “You don’t want to do this.”

I glanced to my left. “But I do.”

His gaze followed mine to the shards. “Fuck.”

He darted to the side, escaping the full brunt of what I sent at him, but several embedded themselves in his stomach and thighs. His head lifted as he grabbed one in his stomach, his face grimacing from the pain. “Stop this now.”

“Stop?” I laughed as a draken’s roar ended in a yelp in the distance.

“Yes. It’s not too late—”

“Do you swear that to me? That you can forgive me?” As I stepped out of the cage, silky material swirled around me, snagging on the shredded bones. “That we can start anew?”

Confusion flickered across Kolis’s features as he blinked. “Yes.”

I laughed as a thunderous roar of rage neared. “Come now, you speak as if you’re capable of still looking upon me as…her,” I said, changing only that in what he’d said to Eythos. “You’re not as good of a liar as I am.”

Kolis went still.

“You never were.” I walked through the spinning gowns. “There’s no coming back from this—any of this.”

Disbelief gave way to a mess of emotions I’d never seen on his handsome face before. Horror. Sorrow. Regret. “You saw…”

A longer piece of bone flew forward. Kolis lurched to the left, but his shock cost him. It got him in the shoulder, dragging him down to the floor.

My hand snapped out, catching one of the bones. The contact burned my hand as I prowled toward him, but I held on. The pain was worth it. “You didn’t believe Eythos when he said he loved you.”

Kolis struggled with the bone jutting from his skin, his wild gaze darting to the one in my hand.

“That is why you stabbed him. You didn’t think it would kill him. A wound to the heart wouldn’t have done that—not even with one of these.” I kicked his hand away, then slammed my foot onto his arm, pinning it down. “But he was weakened, wasn’t he?”

Kolis stared up at me as if I was a spirit he’d known had been haunting him but hadn’t been able to see until now. “I…I didn’t know he had removed the last embers from himself. If I had—”

“If you had, you wouldn’t have…what? Killed him by accident?”

A heavy breath shuddered from Kolis. “I…I didn’t mean to.” His eyes were so wide, so full of gold, that for a moment he didn’t look like the false King of Gods, but a man who had made many mistakes. “Because how could he love me?”

“Good question. I suppose your brother was a much more forgiving being than the rest of us. Definitely better than me,” I said, kneeling so I hovered over him but kept his arm pinned. “I want you to remember one thing, Kolis.”

Understanding dawned in his features, his gaze going to the bone I held.

“I want nothing more than to kill you.”

Kolis went completely still beneath me. He didn’t attempt to throw me off or defend himself. There was a flash of something akin to acceptance, and in the back of my mind, I thought maybe he wanted this. That he finally knew his actions had caused him to lose who he believed to be Sotoria, and death would now come as a relief.

It would’ve been sad if he weren’t such a bastard.

I drove the bone down onto his chest, into his heart and against the floor, jerking his entire body. I tore it free and thrust it down again and again, turning his breaths into nothing but gurgles. I counted as I had after he’d bitten me and kept stabbing Kolis. I counted as I had when I’d sat in that bath as I drove the bone into his throat, head, and stomach.

One.

Two.

Three.

Four.

Five.

Blood covered my hands and spotted my arms and cheeks as I slammed the bone into his heart again. My arms shook. My body trembled.

Then I felt him.

Sucking in a few too-shallow breaths, I yanked my aching hands free from the bone, leaving it buried deeply in what turned out to be a highly sensitive part of him. I crawled off Kolis, scooting back against the floor until I hit the legs of a chair, the still-spinning gowns falling all around me. I stared at the closed chamber doors.

Why hadn’t Kolis’s guards entered?