The War of Two Queens (Blood and Ash 4)

“I serve the True Crown of the Realms,” she yelled.

The floor began to shake as the smoke funneled, rising to the ceiling. That smell—the stale lilacs—grew until it nearly choked me. But it was not Vessa that caused the trembling.

It was me.

“I serve by waiting—”

“You served,” I cut her off as the edges of my robe rippled. My will formed in my mind as I lifted my hand. Pure, ancient power spilled out from me, spinning down my arm. Starlight carrying the faintest tinge of shadow arced from my palm, slamming into the smoke. The eather rolled over the storm and cut through it, striking Vessa in the chest. She spun back as the flash of eather pulsed through the chamber, but only her robes fell to the floor. “And death has come for you.”

Chapter 9

I walked toward the receiving chamber, the dressing robe replaced by breeches and my sweater coat. It was the thick of the night, hours after the sixteen draken had been lifted onto hastily made pyres so Nithe, one of the remaining draken, could burn their bodies. I stood by the pyres until nothing remained but ash. Part of me felt as if I were still there.

Entering the room, I went to where Reaver sat, still in his mortal form, nude but for the blanket he’d wrapped around his waist as he sat on the floor, in a corner. Before I could speak, he said, “She smelled of Death.”

“Well, that’s because she was dead,” Kieran replied.

“No. You misunderstand. She smelled of the Death,” Reaver countered. “I thought I smelled it when we arrived here, on and off, but it was never strong. Not until tonight.”

His pupils had returned to normal as he watched me lower myself onto the ground before him, the heavy length of my braid falling over my shoulder. It wasn’t just the four of us. Those I trusted were with us, sitting or standing, drinking or motionless, still held tightly by shock. I swallowed the knot of sorrow gathering inside me—a mix of guilt and realization that I should’ve listened to Kieran. “What does that mean?”

“That was the essence of the Primal of Death. His stench. Oily. Dark. Suffocating,” Reaver said, and I looked to where Kieran stood a few feet from me. That was exactly what we’d both felt. “It doesn’t make sense.”

“You mean Rhain?” Vonetta asked from where she sat on one of the chairs, her knees pressed to her chest.

Reaver blinked. “What?”

“Rhain,” Emil started to explain, his hands on the back of Vonetta’s chair. “The God of Common Men and—”

“I know who Rhain is. I knew him before he was known as the god you recognize today,” he replied.

From the entry of the chamber, surprise flickered through Hisa, mirroring mine. “Who was the God of Death before him?” she asked.

“There was no God of Death before him. There was only the Primal of Death.”

I remembered what Nyktos had shared with me. “Did Rhain replace one of the Primals that Nyktos said had become tainted and corrupt?”

“In a way.” Reaver’s head tilted to the side as he looked at the ceiling, his eyes closing. “There was only one true Primal of Death, and that—the storm and the woman—felt like him.”

“Nyktos is both the Primal of Life and Death,” Kieran said.

“Wrong.”

Kieran knelt. “I’m not wrong.”

“You are.” Reaver lowered his chin, his eyes opening. “Nyktos was never the true Primal of Death. There was another before him. His name was Kolis.”

“Kolis?” Naill repeated, stepping around Emil. “I’ve never heard that name.”

“You wouldn’t have.”

“Erased history,” I murmured, looking over my shoulder at the others. “Remember what I told you about what Nyktos said? About the other Primals and the war that broke out between them and the gods?” I faced Reaver. “That’s why we wouldn’t know his name, right?”

Reaver nodded.

“I cannot be the only person who’s sitting here thinking that the name Kolis is awfully similar to Solis,” Vonetta remarked.

She wasn’t. It hadn’t passed me by either.

“What happened to this Kolis?” Perry spoke up. The Atlantian had been quiet the entire time as he stood with a somber Delano. “Or the other Primals?”

“Some of the Primals passed on to Arcadia, a place very much like the Vale but which can be entered without death,” Reaver said, and the confusion I felt from the others said they were as unfamiliar with Arcadia as I was.

“Some?” Perry prodded.

“Some,” Reaver repeated. “Others were ended. As in they died. Were no more. A figment of a forgotten past. Dead. No longer—”

“I get it,” I stopped him. “We all get it.”

“Glad to hear,” the draken retorted. “Kolis is as good as dead.”

I didn’t let his tone get to me. He’d just lost sixteen draken—some who had to be friends. Maybe even family. I knew so very little about Reaver—about any of the draken. And now, most of them were gone. A shiver slithered down my spine. “As good as dead isn’t dead, Reaver.”