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CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
“I know what I saw. Wars yet to take place. Cities yet to fall and rise once more. I saw them hundreds of years from now. Longer. A near mille
“I remember you speaking of her and a King.” I racked my memory. “You said they…felt right.”
“They felt like hope,” she whispered, squeezing her eyes tight. “This part he speaks of? The giver of blood and the bringer of bone? I think I know what that means. Blood symbolizes life.”
“Bone represents death,” I murmured, my mind flashing to when I stood with Aydun beneath Aios’s trees.
“Yes. Life and death. Blood and bone,” Penellaphe said, her knuckles turning white as she fisted the skirt of her gown. “That part speaks of a Primal of Life and Death.”
“That’s what we figured, too. And the giver of blood and the bringer of bone?” I frowned. “You think that’s referencing something or someone else?”
Her gaze lowered as she shook her head. “Possibly. It makes sense. But what I do know is that what I saw happens in the future. The part that involves the two daughters?” Her lashes swept up. Eather pulsed brightly in her eyes. “It is they who will remake the realms. They will usher in the end. Not Kolis.”
“That whole usher-in-the-end part still sounds as bad as it did the first time I heard it,” I said, even more confused. “How can you be sure that’s the end of the vision?”
“Because all that occurs after our awakening, and we haven’t gone to sleep yet,” she said. “That is when the realms are remade. Not before.”
I shifted closer to Reaver. “You saw yourself sleeping? Going into stasis?”
“I saw most of the gods going into stasis. A long one,” she told me. “I didn’t elaborate on that part when Holland and I first spoke to you and Nyktos. I didn’t think it was an important detail.”
My stomach twisted. “And when does this happen? Why would it happen?”
“It won’t happen for quite some time. When? I can’t say for sure, but I know of things that have yet to occur. Things that will.” Her right hand fluttered to her stomach. “And why? That, I also can’t say. But it didn’t feel bad. It felt natural. Like it was time.”
Now, it was I who stared at her.
She laughed lightly. “I know that going into stasis for hundreds of years can sound frightening.”
“Hundreds of years?” I mumbled.
“But I’ve heard it passes as quickly as a handful of nights.”
“Uh-huh,” was all I could say.
Ward turned his head but not quickly enough that I missed his grin.
“But what’s important is that Kolis is wrong. What he thinks is the end—that it’s him rising? He’s wrong,” she repeated, her voice steadying and becoming more confident. “He is.”
Maybe… “Or you’re both right.”
Her brows pinched. “What do you mean?”
“You believed that the great conspirator was Kolis, right? I always thought it sounded like he would reawaken.” U
As soon as I said that, I thought about Ash’s and my original plan to entomb Kolis, and the unsettled feeling grew. “The Ancient who brokered the meeting between Kolis and me—Aydun? Do you know him?”
“I’ve only seen him a few times in passing,” she said. “I do not enter Mount Lotho, where they live. Not even with Holland.”
“Well, he said something before I spoke with Kolis. That war between the Primals could only be won once there was blood and bone. And I can’t shake the feeling that it ties into the prophecy.”
A slight frown appeared. “Why did he say that?”
“I honestly don’t know, other than it seemed like he was urging me to find a way to prevent war.” I brushed a crumb from Reaver’s foreleg. “He said that, in all the threads he’d seen, war wasn’t prevented. But that me Ascending as the true Primal of Life was changing some threads.” My head tilted. “Which is strange. Why would I be that unexpected considering you,” I said to Ward, “were made a viktor because you helped create my bloodline?”
“But that was just the thread that started yours,” Penellaphe said.
“And yeah, it seemed like I wouldn’t Ascend, but…” I shook my head. “The whole fate and thread stuff makes my head hurt.”
“Same,” Ward murmured, looking at Penellaphe as she fell silent.
Her honey-hued hair swayed as she shook her head. “That part about the bearer of two crowns? He believes that is referencing you. What about the great Primal power rising? He believes that is him? But it can’t be. The phrasing—giver of blood and the bringer of bone doesn’t make sense. It would mean that he brings about—or brings into creation—the Primal of Blood and Bone. Not that he becomes that.”
“I could be repeating it wrong.” Frustration rose. “That’s completely possible.”
But if I hadn’t?
“That could be the case.” Ward leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees. “But it sounds like someone may know exactly what that part of the prophecy states. Someone other than Kolis.”
My gaze darted to Penellaphe, and I knew the moment she realized the same thing I did.
She smiled. “Keella.” Excitement glimmered in Penellaphe’s ocean-blue eyes. “She’s old enough that she could’ve learned about the Ancients’ dream and was clever enough to keep Kolis from realizing it.”
I nodded in agreement, more than hopeful. It had been clear to me that Keella had known something when she approached Ash and me at the coronation and spoke about my title. Could it be the vision? And could that possibly mean that she not only knows what it means but also its correct order?
“Nyktos is currently asking Attes to assist with summoning the Primals,” I shared with them. “We already plan to visit the Thyia Plains afterward to speak with Keella about the Ancients.” I forced a heavy exhale. Patience had never been a virtue of mine. I wanted to go to the Thyia Plains right now, but I needed to be smart instead of impatient. Which was also not normally a part of my nature. “I will ask her then.”
“Now, this summoning-the-Primals business?” The goddess picked up her cup. “Are you asking them to come to the Shadowlands?”
“We are.” From the corner of my eye, I saw Reaver take note of the biscuits. “We know it will be risky, but we decided it was important for us to know who will stand with us and who will rise against us.”
“We.” Penellaphe gave a delicate shudder. “You have no idea how long it has been since any of us has heard the Primal of Life use the word we when speaking of decisions being made. It’s positively orgasmic.”
Ward arched a brow and gave her a sideways look.
Gri
“Oh, I’m not sure what I can tell you about that.” Surprise flickered across her lovely features as she looked between Ward and me. “But I can try.”
“I don’t understand what Eythos was thinking when he developed this plan of his,” I began, trying to make sense of my thoughts as I offered a piece of the biscuit to Reaver. He took it quickly and without taking my fingers in the process. “He placed the embers of life and Sotoria’s soul together to create a weapon that could kill Kolis.”
A frown tugged at Penellaphe’s brow. “Yes. That is how I understand it.”
“But he had to know that Kolis ca
Penellaphe’s frown deepened.
“But that doesn’t address the fact that with Kolis’s death, his essence would return to the realms. It would cause untold destruction and upset the balance. And I know what happens when the balance is so greatly uneven.”
“That is true,” Penellaphe began, returning her cup to the saucer, “but only if the last of the true embers of Death aren’t removed from Kolis and transferred to another strong enough to withstand the power of them and Ascend. That is not the same as a natural Ascension, but it should work since the Arae are the ones who obtained the Star diamond for a situation such as this.”
I rocked back. “I hadn’t even considered that,” I admitted. Had Ash? “If no gods can rise to take the embers, transferring them is sort of a loophole,” I murmured. That made sense, but… “But it’s still a huge risk. One that leaves no room for error. Eythos would’ve been working off the assumption that not only could I manage to kill Kolis without getting taken out in the process, but also that it would be done after we learned about something like the Star diamond, located it, and then used it to transfer the embers. All at the same time his son took the ones from me. Eythos couldn’t have been that reckless.”
“But you did learn of The Star. Things happen for a reason,” she stressed, her stare meeting mine. “Some things work out, whether it is the Arae or the essence itself.”
“And that is what Eythos was banking on?”
“I think Eythos may have believed that Nyktos would take the embers from you before they were impossible to remove,” she reminded me, sending a glance at Reaver, who was happily chowing down on his second biscuit. “Removing the embers wouldn’t have removed Sotoria’s soul. You would have still been able to weaken Kolis enough for the embers to be transferred.”
“In other words, Eythos never expected his son to fall in love with the weapon he created. Or my recklessness,” I said, thinking about how the tiny bit of blood I’d taken from Ash the first night we were together had changed everything.
“But your recklessness also saved you, did it not?” Penellaphe asked. “You may not have survived the Culling either way, and you wouldn’t have Ascended to become the true Primal of Life.”
Holland had once suggested something similar.