A light in the flame

Something akin to confusion rippled over Kolis’s features, almost as if no one had asked this of him before. Then his face cleared. “Everything,” he said. “It will tell me everything I need to know.”

That made no sense to me.

Nyktos stepped forward, his hands raised. “Allow me to do this. It is I who has angered you—”

“I will only warn you one more time.” Gold and silver eather sparked from Kolis’s eyes. “Silence. Or it will be her heart I hold in my hand.”

Nyktos inhaled sharply as his skin thi

“Control yourself, Nephew,” advised Kolis. “You would do well to keep that temper in check.”

Nyktos’s restraint was impressive. He reined it in, his chest and body incredibly still as he did so.

“He is young enough that either the head or the heart will do,” Kolis said, and there was no emotion behind his words. It sounded like he was instructing me on how to stitch a seam in clothing. This was…

This was the Kolis I’d expected.

I shuddered.

Attes wrenched the blade from his brother’s hand and rose, his features hard and remote as he turned to us.

“And if anyone but Seraphena pays the price, I will demand that she pay the price with her blood,” Kolis warned. “Not that either of you would be silly enough to dare such disrespect.”

Attes passed Nyktos, the scar on his face standing out starkly as he stopped in front of me, handing me the blade. Opening my mouth, I glanced at Kyn. I wanted to apologize. He had a hand folded limply over his eyes. I couldn’t find the words as I made myself look at the draken.

His eyes met mine. Resigned. “Do it,” he said quietly. “I am prepared to enter Arcadia where my family awaits me.”

The horror clamped my throat shut. He truly expected this, and that…that made it worse. “What is your name?”

“It does not matter,” the young draken said.

“It does,” I whispered, my eyes blurring.

“No,” he said quietly. “It is not a name you need to remember.”

Another shudder took me.

Nyktos turned to me, his features stark and etched with deep lines of sorrow, the wisps of eather in his eyes frenzied and full of barely leashed anger.

“Do it,” the draken said. “Please.”

The seconds that passed felt like an eternity. I had no choice. I didn’t care about gaining Kolis’s permission for the coronation. I didn’t even care if refusing meant forfeiting my life. It was the knowledge that if I didn’t do this, the young male would still die. It was the other lives that would be lost if I refused. I had no choice.

At least, not now.

“I’m sorry,” I said.

The draken gave a curt nod and then closed his eyes.

I shut it down. All of it. Just as I had when my mother had ordered me to send a message to the Lords of the Vodina Isles. I felt nothing as I lifted my gaze to Kolis. That slippery smile was on his beautiful face as the eather spun, coiling at his sides, and the crown burned brightly.

There was something in his essence.

In that power of his.

I hadn’t seen it before at the Sun Temple when he’d come for the Rite. But it was there now.

Something tainted.

Twisted.

Defiled.

It dulled the arcing, golden light. Smudged bits and pieces sparked a flat, lifeless gray that reminded me of the Rot. What was in the essence surrounding the false King, what was inside him, caused the embers in my chest to hum violently—caused the crack inside me that had opened the night in the Dying Woods to widen. And just like then, an ancient sense of knowing awakened and stretched, rearing its head. Suddenly, I was there but not.

This entity fused itself with my bones, wore my flesh, and saw through my eyes.

Rage, pure and primal, set fire to my blood as my chin dipped, and a voice among my thoughts whispered: mine, becoming a chorus of many screaming, “Mine!” His stolen power. It was mine. His pain. It would be mine. Vengeance. Retribution. Blood. Mine. All of it would be mine.

And I knew what that voice was as my grip on the blade steadied. Who it was. It was not the source of the embers. It was a spirit. Ghosts of many lives. A soul.

I met Kolis’s stare, and while it was my lips that curved, it was Sotoria who smiled as I paid the price.

Chapter 36

Everything that came next happened in a daze as if I were watching from high above. Kolis laughed as the embers of life hummed violently in my chest.

He laughed as I dropped the blade, and it clattered off the marble floor.

He gave his permission as I watched Attes lift the fallen draken, the Primal’s jaw tensing as the male’s blood singed his flesh—as Kyn locked eyes with mine—eyes now clear of the liquor haze but full of burning hatred.

He deemed me worthy as Nyktos took my hand that had frozen in midair.

He dismissed us as the voices calmed, and that entity inside me settled to wait for what she was owed.

He left a mark that remained as I exited the atrium.

I didn’t remember walking the hall or the courtyard. I didn’t see Attes or Kyn, and if Nyktos spoke, I didn’t hear him. We’d accomplished what we’d come for. We entered the trees of Aios with the knowledge that Kolis didn’t recognize me as Sotoria and left knowing that Gemma had been right: Kolis had figured out how to create life.

But I left a piece of myself behind in that atrium—a small sliver of that goodness that Nyktos had spoken of. It had been carved out and now lay beside that blade on the marble scorched by the draken’s blood.

As Nyktos folded his arms around me, preparing for us to shadowstep back to the balcony of his private quarters, I knew I would never get that piece back.

An image of the draken flashed before me. “Take me to Attes and Kyn’s Court,” I rasped, feeling those tight, shallow breaths as he held me to his chest. “Take me to Vathi. I can bring him back.”

“Sera,” he whispered—pleaded, really. “You can’t do that.”

“Bringing him back won’t cause another’s death, right? The draken must be like a god.”

“Yes, but—”

I grasped the front of his tunic, keeping my voice low. “I can try. It hasn’t been that long, and we don’t know if Kolis will feel it, right? How can we be sure? I never brought a draken back. It’s not like I’ll Ascend him. I’ve brought animals back before and no one—”

“A draken is not the same thing as an animal, Sera,” Nyktos cut me off, his eyes flat as a balmy breeze stirred the golden leaves above us. “And when you did, it was felt. It was faint. Different. We didn’t know what we were feeling then, but we do now.”

“Okay. Then maybe he will feel something, but I have to do this. Please.” My hands shook as I tugged on his tunic. “What is the point of any of this if i

Shadows bled beneath Nyktos’s flesh as he stared down at me. “We don’t. We survive instead. That is how we honor the sacrifice the draken never should’ve had to make.”

But that wasn’t enough.

Not for me.

Not for her.

“That’s not enough,” I told him. “It will never be enough.”

Nyktos’s eyes closed as he cursed. Then the shadowy eather rose around us. My heart lurched as I tried to pull away, but Nyktos held me tight to his chest. Only seconds passed, and then cooler air that smelled of the sea replaced the warm air.

My eyes flew open as I jerked back. I didn’t get far. Nyktos had a hold of me, but I twisted in his embrace, realizing that we were on some sort of white stone balcony. Stu