A hoarse scream tore from my throat when the tendons in his neck bulged. Ash held on, rising once more. He didn’t let go. He wouldn’t, just like he promised, despite the agony. No matter the cost.
“Ash,” I whispered.
His eyes went wide, and he stilled for a moment. “Sera,” he rasped.
Then something ripped Ash away from me.
My heart lurched, panic washing over me. There was a moment of weightlessness, and then I hit the floor. My head cracked off the tile, the burst of pain startling before the realm went black.
Silent.
Still.
The feral, brutal roar of Ash’s fury rushed me back into consciousness. The moon. I saw the moon. I turned my head.
Kolis stalked forward, the wide, jagged gash in his chest dripping shimmery blood. Eather shone from his wound and poured from his palms, streaking across the chamber.
Ash was on one knee again but had both hands out now, shielding himself from the golden-tinged ripples of deadly essence.
“You really shouldn’t have done that,” Kolis said, followed by a sigh heavy with displeasure and even a bit of disappointment. “Now, I’m afraid you’ve gone and started a war.”
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.