A light in the flame

“Oh,” I whispered. “They sound lovely.”

“They used to be one of the loveliest creatures you’d ever see in Iliseeum,” he returned.

I didn’t let myself feel the twinge of sadness that accompanied the knowledge that Kolis had tainted them. It would do me no favors if I did and they decided that they wouldn’t let us pass. “Were they here when we traveled to the Pillars?”

“They are always here.”

I thought about how both Nyktos and he had been eyeing the land. “Are they what drew Ehthawn away?”

“Probably.” Nektas’s hand rested on the sword strapped to his horse. “They don’t usually attack a Primal or their Consort. Anything and everything else is fair game. Neither draken fire nor eather does anything to them. The only way to stop them is to remove their heads.”

“Great,” I murmured as we passed the tree the one lurked behind. I caught sight of another behind a boulder. “How many do you think are here?”

“There could be hundreds,” he said, and my heart seized. “But I have seen only about a dozen near the road.”

“Must be that good draken eyesight because I’ve only seen two.”

“It is. I also know what to look for.”

We traveled several minutes in tense silence. I saw one more. This time, a little bit more of the nymph. A spindly leg. A foot latched into the bark.

The Rise came more into view, and I was just starting to be a little hopeful that they’d let us pass when Nektas muttered, “Shit.”

Then I saw it.

A nymph crouched in the center of the road, shoulders hunched and so small it had blended into the road itself.

It rose slowly, and I, honest to gods, really wanted to see one of these things before they changed because this creature truly was a thing of nightmares. Skin like bark, twisted and knobbed. Talons for fingers and toes. Facial features cracked and distorted. Skull hairless with a crown of jagged, exposed bone.

“I want to hear you scream,” the nymph hissed in a guttural, wet voice. “I want to see you bleed like a stream.” It lurched into motion, racing toward us.

Nektas withdrew a blade from the sleeve of his cloak. He threw the dagger, striking the creature between the eyes. Thrown back, the nymph howled, thrashing as it grabbed for the blade embedded in its head.

The air filled with hisses from both sides of the road. I cursed, swinging myself down as Nektas did the same. They were a blur, seeming to bleed out from the uneven basin, the trees, and the rocks.

“I’ll get this side,” Nektas advised, striding forward, swinging the shadowstone blade across the throat of the nymph on the road, removing its head. The creature shattered into glittering silver dust. “You got the other?”

I braced myself. “I was considering letting them do whatever, but I suppose so.”

He smirked from within the shadows of his hood as he turned to the right side of the road.

The nymphs converged on us. One was ahead of the others. “Need. Greed. Bleed,” it seethed, leaping.

Stepping forward, I swung the sword straight across as it landed, sweeping the blade through the nymph’s neck. As the creature broke apart, I spun, catching a second nymph. It too exploded.

Two crossed the road at once. “Hate,” one rasped.

“Fate,” another gurgled.

I twisted, kicking the first nymph in the knee. The creature’s leg cracked, splitting up the center. “Ew,” I whispered, driving the sword through the other’s neck and then the first’s as it hobbled toward me.

Glancing at the other side of the road, I saw Nektas methodically cutting through the nymphs. My head whipped as I darted to the side, narrowly avoiding a nymph’s claws.

“Dead. Bled. Red.” The nymph whirled.

“Do they always talk like this?” I yelled as I drew the blade across its neck. There appeared only to be a few left.

Nektas tossed a nymph as he slammed his sword through another. “If you consider rhyming nonsense to be talking, yes.”

The hum of embers in my chest was a whisper in my blood as I swung. A dry hand clawed at the air, inches from my face as I spun. Cursing, I jerked back and turned, thrusting the sword back. The blade struck the nymph’s chest. Dust puffed out, shimmery and thick. I drew the sword up, across its neck—

A horse neighed nervously, causing my heart to plummet. A nymph rushed the horses. “Fear is my spear,” it hissed. “Pain is your gain.”

“That doesn’t even make sense.” I shot after the nymph. “Oh, no, you don’t. You are not going to touch them.”

I clasped the nymph’s shoulder, the skin rough and dry beneath mine, just as it swiped out at Gala. I knew I wouldn’t be fast enough with the sword. The nymph would get its claws in the horse. Fury entrenched itself deep, stirring up the embers. Several things happened at once.

The embers vibrated wildly in my chest, heat flooded my veins, and silvery-white light crowded the corners of my vision as power built, ramping up inside me and charging the air. I gasped as eather sparked across my hand. I jerked back, but it was too late. The essence flowed over the nymph and seeped through the husk of its flesh. Light filled all the hundreds of tiny cracks all over its body, lighting it up from the inside and then from the outside. Eather poured from its open mouth and eyes.

The nymph exploded.

A wave of power blew back, so intense the burst of eather knocked me on my ass when it rolled into me.

“Holy shit,” I whispered, lifting the sword as a shadow fell over me. Nektas stared down at me. “I thought you said eather didn’t do anything to them?”

“It shouldn’t,” he said. “Only the Primal of Life can wield the kind of eather that can kill a nymph.” Nektas jerked his hood back. “It’s the same kind of power that can kill another Primal.”

Nektas said very little the remainder of the journey back to the palace, and that left me a bit uneasy.

I wasn’t a Primal, so I couldn’t understand how I could have the kind of eather in me that could kill another Primal. Or how the embers could be that strong.

And I had hit Nyktos with that eather. I could’ve…

Gods, I couldn’t even let myself finish that line of thought—a sure indicator of how much I’d changed. What I needed to do was work on controlling the embers until Nyktos removed them.

After giving Gala a quick brush down and some alfalfa, I parted ways with Nektas as I entered the palace, promising to go straight to Nyktos. Nektas left to return to Jadis, who was in the mountains I’d yet to see.

Figuring Nyktos must be in his office, I headed there and entered the hall. Within a few seconds, I gri

I stopped, his name shriveling and dying on my lips before it could even become a whisper. I couldn’t understand what I saw. It was as if my mind couldn’t process what my eyes were telling me.

That it was Nyktos seated on the settee, one hand lax on the cushion beside him, the other clenching the arm in a white-knuckled grip. His body taut, head thrust back, and eyes closed, the striking lines of his face tense, and his skin paler than it should be.

Or that he wasn’t alone.

Nowhere close to that.

Someone was in his lap. A female—a thin, willowy female wearing a shimmery, violet gown was in his lap. Straddling him. Golden-blond ringlets fell against his chest and shielded her face as she clutched his shoulders, pale fingers digging into the dark shirt—as she moved against him. I couldn’t see her face, but I knew who it was.

Veses.

The Primal of Rites and Prosperity was in Nyktos’s lap. Touching him. Riding him. Feeding from his throat.

Chapter 29