A shadow in the ember

Primals couldn’t read mortals’ thoughts. In the back of my mind, where some bit of intelligence still existed, I knew this. There was no reason for him to suspect that I was anything other than I appeared to be. Even if he’d watched me grow over the years, or if spies had been sent to Lasania, my identity, my heritage and bloodline, had been kept hidden. No one even knew there was a Princess of Mierel blood. Everything I did had been carried out in highly pla

There was no way he could know that in the two hundred years it had taken for me to be born, the knowledge of how to kill a Primal had been obtained.

Love.

They had one fatal weakness that made them vulnerable enough to be killed, and that was love.

Make him fall in love, become his weakness, and end him.

That was my destiny.

Gaining control of my hammering heart, I pulled from the hours spent with my mother, learning what would be expected of me as his Consort. How to move, speak, and act in his presence. How to become whatever he desired. I was ready for this—whether or not he was covered head to toe in the scales of the winged beasts that guarded the Primals.

My fingers relaxed, my breathing slowed, and I allowed my lips to curl into a smile—a shy, i

The stir of air was the only warning I got that the Primal had moved.

Shock silenced the gasp of surprise before it reached my lips. He was suddenly in front of me. No more than a handful of inches remained between us. Swirling light rippled the air around me. He felt cold, like the winters to the north and east. Like each winter here in Lasania slowly became with each passing year.

I wasn’t sure I even breathed as I looked up into the void where his face should be. The Primal of Death shifted closer, and one of the shadow tendrils brushed across the bare skin of my arm. I gasped at the icy feel. He lowered his head, and every muscle in my body seized. I wasn’t sure if it was his presence or the i

“You,” he said, his voice smoke and shadow and full of everything that awaited after someone took their very last breath. “I have no need of a Consort.”

My entire body jerked, and I whispered, “What?”

The Primal pulled back, the shadows retracting around him. He shook his head. What did he mean?

I stepped forward. “What—?” I said again.

The wind whipped from behind me this time, pitching the chamber into darkness as the candles whooshed out. The rumbling was weaker than before, but I didn’t dare move, having no idea where he was. I wasn’t sure where the edge of the dais even was. The earthy scent disappeared, and the flames slowly returned to the candles, sparking weakly to life…

He no longer stood before me.

Faint wisps of eather wafted up from the now-sealed opening in the floor.

He was gone.

The Primal of Death had left. He hadn’t taken me, and in a deep, hidden part of me, relief blossomed and then crumbled. He hadn’t fulfilled the deal.

“What…what happened?” My mother’s voice reached me, and I looked up to see that she was before me. “What happened?”

“I…I don’t know.” Panic sank its claws into me as I turned to my mother, wrapping my arms around myself. “I don’t understand.”

Her eyes were wide and mirrored the storm brewing inside me as she whispered, “Did he speak to you?”

“He said…” I tried to swallow, but my throat tightened. The corners of my vision turned white. No amount of breathing exercises would help the alarm that took root. “I don’t understand. I did everything—”

The burning sting of my mother’s slap came as a shock. I hadn’t expected it—hadn’t even prepared myself for her to do something like that. Hand trembling, I pressed it against my cheek, standing there stu

Her dark eyes were even wider now, her skin a ghastly pale shade. “What did you do?” She pulled her hand back to her chest. “What did you do, Sera?”

I’d done nothing. Only what I’d been taught. But I couldn’t tell her that. I couldn’t tell her anything. Words failed me as something shattered inside me, shriveling up.

“You,” my mother said. While her voice was not smoke or shadow, it was just as final. Her eyes glistened. “You’ve failed us. And now, everything—everything—is lost.”