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“There is no reason to deny what’s coming.” I met Nyktos’s stare as he returned to leaning against his desk. “No matter how strong the embers of life are.”
A muscle ticked in Nyktos’s jaw. “We will have to agree to disagree on that.”
“You like to say that, don’t you?”
“And you like to argue, don’t you?”
I rolled my eyes. “Yeah, well, arguing over this is pointless.” My foot beat a fast tempo now. “So, whatever makes you happy.”
“Nothing about any of this makes me happy,” Nyktos retorted, and I couldn’t fault him for that. “Either way, what Holland said may not have been entirely correct. There could be another option.”
Remembering what he’d said in the Dying Woods about needing five seconds of peace to come up with another way of saving my life, I smirked. “Like what?”
“Like what Kolis did to my father. Remove the embers.”
My jaw practically hit the table. “Is that possible?”
“I don’t see why not.” Nyktos watched me. “Embers are eather, Sera. It’s the essence of a Primal. Kolis found a way to take it from my father without harming him.”
Hope sparked, but I squelched it before it could catch fire and spread. There were far too many what-ifs—too many questions. “But he wasn’t able to take all of it.”
“That’s because Eythos was a Primal,” Nektas interjected. “And you are a Primal born of mortal flesh. Those embers are not fully yours unless you Ascend into a Primal.”
“That really explains nothing to me,” I admitted. “Explain it to me as if I’m Jadis learning how to use a fork.”
Nektas gri
“What he means is that those embers have fundamentally changed you.” Nyktos clasped the edge of the desk as he stretched out his legs, crossing them loosely at the ankles. “You’re in the Culling. There’s no stopping that. But if we can remove the embers, you should be like any godling entering the Culling.”
Should? “Correct me if I’m wrong, but not all godlings survive the Culling, right?”
“They don’t, but my blood would make sure you survive,” he said. “Ensure that you don’t fail the Ascension.”
Shock blasted through me. Giving me blood to heal wounds seemed vastly different than aiding in my Ascension. “How…how much blood will I need for the Ascension?”
“All but the last drop of your blood would need to be removed,” Nyktos explained. “Then you’d have to replenish your blood with mine.”
“All but the last drop?” I whispered. “That’s a lot.”
“It is.” Nyktos’s gaze held mine. “That is why the Ascension can be so dangerous. You either take too much or not enough, but the alternative is unacceptable.”
Sitting back, I exhaled roughly as thoughts raced past the confusion of why he was still determined to do such a thing, even after the embers were removed. I would be of no real use to him at that point. The breath I took was thin. “What would I become if that worked?”
“You’d be like any godling who survives the Culling,” he answered. “But possibly more. Those embers are powerful. You could Ascend into an actual god.”
Godlings who Ascended weren’t exactly mortal beyond that point. They aged slower—every three decades of mortal life equated to one year of a godling’s. They were susceptible to very few illnesses, and while not as impervious to injury as a god or Primal, they could live for thousands of years—at least, according to Aios.
But a god?
I couldn’t even process the possibility of either of those options, but the hope was now a small flame. “Is that even possible?”
“It’s never happened before,” Nektas said. “When Eythos was the true Primal of Life and Ascended the Chosen, they became the same as godlings because of the eather being stronger in thirdborns. None had ever Ascended into an actual god, not even in the hundreds of years of the Chosen being Ascended. But none had Primal embers in them either. Anything is possible with you.”
That was a scary thought. “You said only Kolis and Eythos knew how it was done.”
“Someone had to tell Kolis,” Nektas pointed out. “He must have learned it from somewhere.”
“Before Penellaphe left, she said something to me that struck me as odd,” Nyktos said, and I remembered seeing them standing together in the throne room, speaking too quietly for me to hear. “And it kept nagging at me. She said that Delfai would welcome your presence.”
“Who or what is a Delfai?” I asked.
A shadow of a smile appeared on Nyktos’s lips. “A very old and powerful God of Divination.”
I frowned. “I don’t remember hearing about a specific God of Divination.”
“He was able to see what was hidden to others—their truths, both past and future,” Nyktos explained, and that sounded like a god I didn’t want to be even remotely close to. “As Penellaphe said, the Gods of Divination called Mount Lotho home and served in Embris’s Court. Most were destroyed when Kolis took my father’s embers. I assumed Delfai had been, too, but I checked the old records. He never entered Arcadia. He’s still alive.”
I leaned forward. “Can we find him? With your special Primal powers?”
Nyktos’s lips twitched. “Exactly what kind of powers do you think I have?”
“Hopefully, the kind that can find missing gods,” I suggested.
“Unfortunately, I do not.” His fingers moved along the edge of his desk, seeming to follow the rhythm of my tapping foot. “But I do know of something that can.”
“The Pools of Divanash,” Nektas shared, and I blinked. “They are divining pools, once overseen by the Gods of Divination. The pools can show any object or person the seeker searches for. They’ve been relocated to the Vale.”
“Where I ca
And I knew at once why they’d been relocated. If these pools could show someone’s location, they could’ve revealed where Sotoria’s soul was. “Your father moved them there?”
“My father had them guarded, but I moved them as soon as I was powerful enough to do so.”
“Thank you” rose on the breath I took, but it seemed…silly somehow to thank him. Because I wasn’t her. I focused on the draken. “But you can enter the Vale.”
“Yes. However, the pools are…temperamental.” Nektas gave a slight smile. “They will only provide answers after being given what no one else knows, by the one who seeks the answer. There can be no middle person—”
“Then I would have to go.”
Nyktos nodded.
“I can go now.” I started to rise.
“You ca
“But—”
“It will not be safe for you to travel anywhere before then,” he cut in.
“Will it be safe for me to do so even after?” I demanded.
His fingers stilled. “What protection it offers is better than none, Sera. Nothing may happen on the road to and from the Vale, but even I have trouble controlling some things in the Shadowlands. Creatures that would happily devour anything that crosses their paths that is not a Primal or claimed by one.”
Figuring he spoke of the Shades, I held his stare as the mere idea that being claimed offered protection blew me away. It also ticked me off. That was some bullshit. “I’m not afraid of what I may come across.”
“Of course, you wouldn’t be. But I will not risk you or Nektas without taking every possible safety measure first. He will protect you, but he ca
“And if I want to argue anyway?”
He pi
“It will,” the draken confirmed.
I blew out an exaggerated breath. “I guess I’ll just sit around and—” Something occurred to me. “If we find Delfai, and he’s able to tell us what to do to remove the embers, will the process cause what happened when Kolis stole the embers in the first place? The death of gods and Primals?”