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Ash caught himself, reaching for the hilt of the blade as he staggered forward, his wide eyes fixed on me and the wet warmth I could feel dripping down my throat. He dropped…oh, gods. He fell to his knees.
“Run,” he choked out, pitching forward onto one hand.
A high-pitched, terrified sound blasted my ears. It was a scream. My scream. The embers fluttered, briefly swelling before stalling. Pressure built in my chest and head, rapidly becoming an unbearable weight. I started toward Ash but didn’t make it. My legs collapsed, and I hit the cracked floor. Starbursts exploded across my vision.
Snarling, Kolis grabbed a fistful of Ash’s hair, yanking him back. The dagger was still in his chest, in his heart. “I offered you grace.”
“Stop,” I wheezed, my fingers pressing into the tile as I crawled forward on my belly.
Kolis threw Ash onto his back. “And you tossed it back into my face.”
Arms and legs shaking, I pushed up onto my knees. “Please,” I forced out, blood dripping onto the floor beneath me. “Stop—” My throat seized, cutting me off.
“You, of all people, should know better.” Kolis swung his leg up and then brought his foot down on the dagger’s hilt.
Ash’s entire body jerked.
A hand smacked down on my mouth, silencing my newest scream. “Listen to me,” Attes hissed in my ear. “Ash is still alive. A shadowstone blade will not kill him. He’s just weakened from battling Kolis. But if you keep screaming, Kolis will kill him.”
Kolis stomped his foot down on the dagger once more, and I felt it. I swore I felt the blow in my chest. My entire body shook.
Everything felt like it was rushing and spi
Attes cursed under his breath as he shifted me in his arms. “Sera?” Bright tendrils of eather whipped through his eyes. “Sera?”
My mouth was open, but only the thi
All I saw was the rise and fall of Kolis’s arm. Up. Down. Up. Down. A blood-slicked dagger glinted in the moonlight.
I screamed. I knew I did, even if there was no sound. I screamed and screamed, still shaking.
“Fuck.” Attes’s head shot up. “Kolis! She needs your help,” he shouted, his skin thi
Thump. Thump. Thump.
“If you let that happen, you will lose her. Do you hear me?” Attes squeezed his eyes shut, and I thought I saw panic flash across his features. But I wasn’t sure what I was seeing. My eyes couldn’t focus. “You will lose your graeca.”
The horrific thumping ceased.
“No,” Kolis croaked. “No.”
The faint scent of vanilla and lilacs—stale lilacs—enveloped me, and then Attes was no longer holding me.
Kolis had me in his arms. He lifted me as he rose, my head lolling. “Put him in the cells,” he said. “I will deal with him when I return.”
If more was said, I didn’t know. A rush of wind whirled around us, and I was vaguely aware of warm night air touching my skin.
I struggled to open my eyes, but they no longer responded to my commands. The darkness smothered me, suffocated. My breaths came in shallow gasps, and my heart raced before it stuttered. Time. It sped up and slowed down, leaving me to exist in those too-long gaps between the beats of my heart and the ceaseless roar of the wind.
I didn’t want to die.
Not like this.
Not alone in the darkness with this monster.
I wanted to be with Ash, in his arms at my lake, as he’d promised we would be when my time came.
This wasn’t right.
It’s not fair, I swore I heard Sotoria whisper, her thoughts briefly mingling with mine.
The embers of life vibrated wildly. Panic surged like a wild animal trapped in a cage, desperate to break free, but there was no escape.
Death had always been inevitable.
I sensed that we’d stopped moving, stopped shadowstepping. A palm pressed down on the center of my chest, and my breath, my heart, snagged as a strange pins-and-needles sensation swept over me.
Then, there was nothing.
Ash.
That was the first thing I thought as I came to. The battle between him and Kolis, the blade striking him, moving up and down, up and down, stabbing into Ash’s body.
My eyes peeled open, going wide. The sky above was drenched in starlight, and I gulped salty, damp air that turned into thin breaths that barely did anything to ease the constriction in my chest. The buzzing in my ears retreated, and I heard voices coming from every direction. Whispers followed us as I caught the vague impression of people lowering themselves to their knees, and glimpsed twinkling lights inside sandstone buildings and larger structures in the distance. I couldn’t be sure, though. All I knew was that I was still being carried as I struggled to breathe.
Ash.
I didn’t know where I was or where he’d been taken. I had a vague memory of hearing a cell referenced. And before that, a wet, fleshy, thumping sound and the flash of a blood-slick dagger.
Oh, gods.
The edges of my vision turned white. I felt like I couldn’t breathe—
“Calm yourself,” a voice full of bitter warmth and cold sunshine ordered from above me.
Startled, my gaze swung to silver eyes laced with golden flecks. Kolis’s attention shifted, and shimmering sweeps and swirls churned beneath the flesh of his cheeks. A shudder rolled through me.
“You will live,” Kolis stated, glancing down at me. “As long as you are who you claim to be.”
Nothing about his words made it easier to breathe. With each passing second, it felt like my lungs shrank. My heart no longer pulsed listlessly. It raced, skipping beats. White static crowded the edges of my vision when I fought to remember what Holland had taught me, what Ash had shown me. Breathe in. Hold—
The ground moved under us, the soil turning to sand. Kolis’s steps slowed, his hold shifting. A rhythmic sound reached me, the gentle rise and fall of waves lapping against a shore. My head slid, my cheek catching on the golden band around his biceps. For a moment, I forgot about suffocating as I stared at the rippling moonlight reflecting off the vast, midnight-hued sea.
Kolis had stopped at the edge of pearly white sand, but there was no gradual incline to the water like there was on the beaches of the Stroud Sea. This was a steep drop with no bottom in sight, but something in the water moved.
They swam in circles, over and under one another. Dozens, maybe even hundreds of them. Their powerful arms and sleek, bare bodies were half flesh and half scales, creating fierce currents beneath the surface. The tails of those closest to me were radiant in the moonlight—vivid, glittering blues, intense pinks, deep greens, and streaks of bright yellow.
My gods, they had to be the ceeren.
“Phanos!” Kolis roared.
I flinched as the shockwave of his shout hit the water, sending the ceeren scattering into the deeper parts of the sea. Their frantic flight stirred the tranquil waters. Small, white-tipped waves rippled across the surface and a form appeared amid the ceeren.
His entire body moved in a wave-like motion, propelled by the rapid swishing of the large fin at the end of his tail. Faster than the others, he swam toward the surface.
As he neared, a bolt of silver erupted from his hand, forming a long spear that came to three points at one end. A trident.