Born of Blood and Ash

I broke into a run, my hair streaming out behind me. I didn’t slow down as the stench of death increased. I willed the doors open. They swung apart, slamming into the stone walls on either side, causing those in the long, rectangular chamber situated in the center of the sunken space to gasp.

A chair fell over as my gaze swept past the familiar faces—

All I saw was gold.

Gold hair.

Gold tunic.

Gold-painted wings.

Eyes a shade of blue so pale they would’ve bordered on lifeless if not for the spark of eather behind the pupils as they locked with mine.

Callum sat at the di

“Seraphena,” he drawled, plucking the napkin from his lap and dropping the mauve cloth onto the table. “What a lovely surprise to see you here.”

Eather swelled with my rage, rushing to the surface of my skin. As silvery-gold light filled the corners of my vision, I saw Ezra skirt the table’s edge and stand behind my stu

A low growl rumbled from Nektas.

“Wait. You two know each other?” Ezra asked, her voice calm like usual. It was as if she wasn’t even surprised to see me barge into the dining hall. “I thought you only saw one another in passing.”

“Oh, we are well acquainted,” Callum drawled, winking.

The bastard actually winked.

Heat poured into my veins. The part of my brain that still operated as a mortal shut off. I shadowstepped from the top of the rounded steps to the side of the table. Lady Faber let out a little shriek of surprise and bounced against the table. Wine glasses toppled, splashing red liquid over the white cloth.

Callum started to rise, but I was faster.

Gripping the back of his chair, I ripped it out from under him and threw it across the chamber. It smashed into the wall, shattering into pieces as he hit the floor on his ass.

“Seraphena!” My mother found her voice then, clutching the ruby at her throat. “What are—?” She jerked back in her chair as my head cut toward her. The blood drained from her face. “My gods.”

Callum chuckled from the floor. “Well, not quite.”

“Shut up,” I hissed, grabbing him by the back collar of his tunic.

Hauling him to his feet, I flung the fucker in the same direction as the chair. He hit the wall with a satisfying thud and fell forward.

“My word,” Ezra murmured.

Callum caught himself before he face-planted on the floor. “Ouch.” He started to push up.

I was on him before he could take a step.

Slamming my hand into his chest, I shoved him into the wall, cracking the stone. Plumes of dust rose and shuddered to the floor as his head bounced off the stone.

“Sera,” Ezra spoke again. “Can you please tell me what is going on? Preferably starting with why you just tossed a god across the chamber.”

“He is not a god,” I snarled, smashing Callum’s head against the wall again just because I felt like it.

“Okay. Then can you tell me what is happening and, at some point, explain why your skin is…” She paused. When she spoke again, her voice sounded closer. “Actually, I don’t even know what your skin is doing, but you…you look like a god. Were you Ascended?”

“I’ll explain everything in a second, but I need you to get back.” I spared a brief glance at Nektas. “Protect them.”

“You are my priority.”

“Nektas.”

The draken sighed. “As you wish, meyaah Liessa.”

“Meyaah…Liessa?” mumbled Marisol, and then Lady Faber’s squeak told me that Nektas had moved closer to them.

I focused on Callum. “What are you doing here?” Streaks of essence swirled down my arm, and sparks crackled from my fingertips. “Do not make me ask you twice.”

Blood trickled from behind his ear. “You asked me to be quiet—well, you demanded that I do so.” He smiled, red smearing his teeth. “And kind of rudely, too.”

I pulled him away from the wall and then thrust him back, cracking more stone. “Don’t try to be clever, Callum, because you’re not.”

“Maybe not.” His head rolled on his shoulders in a way that made me think I’d done some damage to a few important muscles back there. “But I’m smarter than you.”

“The fact that you’re here tells me you’re not.” I pushed him back as he tried to gain his footing.

“I was just chatting with some old friends,” he said, his gaze darting down for half a heartbeat. “Catching up.”

“They are not your friends.”

“That’s not true,” Callum coughed out. “The former Queen and I go way back.”

“Yeah, you do.” I breathed in, attempting to quell my temper. “What were you chatting about?”

“You,” he whispered, the dull glow of eather flickering behind his pupils. “And what a lying whore her daughter is.”

“I’m really curious to see what kind of effect fire has on you,” Nektas growled. “So you’d better watch your mouth, you little fuck.”

Callum’s nostrils flared.

I smiled.

His arm snapped out, going for the dagger at my thigh.

I caught his arm. “Once again.” I twisted, breaking the bone. My smile grew as his eyes squeezed shut. “You’re clearly not clever.”

Spitting a mouthful of blood onto the floor, he lifted his head. “You were much easier to deal with when you were caged.”

Fury gathered in the back of my throat, tasting of ash. I gripped his chin as the air around me charged.

“Sera,” Nektas called. “He wouldn’t have been able to shadowstep into this realm. He was brought here.”

I inhaled sharply. Nektas was right. I’d been too angry to consider that. “Who brought you here?”

Callum didn’t answer, his gaze focused on the eather singeing his flesh.

“Did he come with another?” Nektas demanded of those at the table.

“Not that we are aware of,” Ezra answered. “He’s been here for a couple of days, though.”

My brows raised. “You’ve been here that long? What the fuck, Callum?”

“There was a lot to tell them,” he rasped. “You know, like how you looked behind gilded bars.”

That was it.

Callum knew it, too. His eyes flared wide. “Shit.”

Eather erupted from my fingers, burning the skin of his chin. I willed the essence inside the Revenant like I’d seen Ash do. I pushed it in, flooding him.

Callum jerked wildly, his arms flying out from his sides. A scream of pain tore from his throat as the eather pounded through his veins. His body stiffened as the silvery-gold stream of eather pouring from his mouth cut off his scream. His eyes sizzled, then popped. Thick globs of watery red liquid spilled down his cheeks and over my fingers.

“I think…” Marisol gagged. “I think I’m going to be sick.”

Callum went limp.

I released him, watching him fall to the floor in a crumpled heap, smoke drifting from his ears and the charred holes where his eyes had been.

A body hit the floor behind me, and Lord Faber shouted as Marisol yelled, “Mother!”

Nektas’s heavy sigh echoed through the chamber as I knelt, wiping my fingers clean on the front of Callum’s tunic. I rose then and turned.

“Is he dead?” Ezra asked as she clutched Marisol’s back. Lord Faber held his wife’s prone form in his lap as Marisol knelt beside them, dabbing a damp napkin at her mother’s temples.

I focused on Ezra. Her white knuckles were the only indication that she wasn’t as calm as she appeared. “Unfortunately, no.”

“Unfortunately?” my mother repeated, her eyes wide and the skin at her mouth white as she stared at my hand.

“He’ll be back to his obnoxious self sooner rather than later.” I glanced down, thinking I had missed some gore but hadn’t. She was staring because gold swirled along the flesh of my hand and arm. Probably my face, too. I willed the eather to calm. “Well.” I sighed. “This wasn’t how I expected to break the news. I’m sure you are all a bit confused.”

“Confused?” Mother laughed in a way I’d never heard her before. She sounded nervous and…horrified. “What are you?”

I stiffened, bracing myself against the old, familiar sting. I’d known it was coming, but fuck, it still burned.

Nektas stepped forward. “This is your mother?”

I cleared my throat, blinking rapidly. “Yes.”

“I see the resemblance.” A curtain of red-streaked hair fell over one bare shoulder. “And yet you clearly don’t know who your daughter is.” His head straightened. “But you’re about to find out.”

I started to frown, but then I felt it. The throb of awareness I didn’t just feel in the center of my chest but also in my bones and soul.

Uh-oh.

The chamber started to shake, stirring Lady Faber from her faint. “What is…what is happening now?”

Marisol grasped her hand. “I’m not entirely sure.”

The dishes began to rattle, and thin fissures appeared in the marble tile. A blast of thunder shook the chamber, exploding the glasses on the table.

“Oh, no.” Ezra threw up her hands, causing her short, ivory waistcoat to rise above her slender hips. “We just repaired the Great Hall from the last time.”

I shot her an incredulous look as a laugh built in my throat.

“It was horridly loud—the stone and hammers,” she said. “And I swear they only banged those damn hammers when I got a few minutes to read.”

“Really, Ezra?” Marisol said under her breath. “Is now a good time to mention that? When another god is about to appear?”

“God?” Ezra laughed lightly. “That is no god coming. It is a Primal.”

Lord Faber’s mouth dropped open.

Cracks ran up the walls and over the ceiling, sending dust falling. I winced, thinking there would be far more banging hammers in Ezra’s future.

A gust of cold wind whipped through the dining hall as shadowy mist began seeping from the small cracks in the floor.

“What have we done to anger the gods?” Lady Faber whispered, staring up at me as her husband and daughter helped her to her feet.

“It wasn’t you.” Nektas looked pointedly in my mother’s direction.

She didn’t move.

“Does he really need to do all of this?” I asked.

Nektas smiled. “He does like to make an entrance.”

The air warped a few feet to my right and a ball of crackling eather appeared. The orb expanded, thi