The War of Two Queens (Blood and Ash 4)

“He told me you already knew her name,” Tawny had said.

She stared back at me, and I saw us when I’d been floating in that nothingness, drifting until she had appeared to me. Until she’d said, “It wasn’t supposed to be this way.” When she told me that I’d always had the power in me.

But those weren’t the only words she’d spoken to me. I now remembered. She had told me her name. She had begged me to wake her.

How could the Consort be so powerful?

Because she was no Consort.

She held my stare and smiled, and I…I understood. She, too, had been waiting.

I opened my eyes, and through the smoke and mist, I saw Casteel and Kieran surrounded by dakkais. By Revenants. They closed in on them as I planted my palms against the stone, and my hands sank into the rock as I threw my head back and screamed the name. Not that of the King of Gods, but the Queen of Gods.

The true Primal of Life.

Chapter 49

Isbeth’s dark eyes went wide as they locked onto mine. Her lips moved, but I couldn’t hear what she said. Casteel whipped around, blood spraying into the air as a bolt of lightning struck the Temple—struck me.

Casteel’s pain and Kieran’s fear slammed into me as my armor and boots exploded from me. My clothing ripped as every cell in my body lit up, and the pain—it was all-consuming. It would kill me. It would kill them.

My lungs seized.

My heart stuttered.

Blood pooled in my mouth. Teeth loosened, and two fell from my open mouth. The Temple didn’t tremble. It was the realm that shook violently. Weight settled in my shoulder blades, entrenching itself deeply, burrowing all the way to where the eather throbbed and swirled. My blood cooled and then heated. A hum hit my bones and spread to my muscles. My skin vibrated. A crack of deafening thunder rolled overhead. The air charged, and my body…changed. It started with a rumble inside me and then became a roar, like the sound of thousands of horses racing toward me, but no horse or soldier stood. It grew and grew as I pushed myself onto my now-bare feet. All over my hands and arms, splotches of shadow and light churned inside my skin. I lifted my eyes, seeing a strange shadow before me—the outline of my head and my shoulders and two…wings. Just like the statues guarding the city of Dalos that had once protected the Primals within. Except these were made of eather, a swirling mass of light and darkness. My entire form was suddenly nothing more than crackling, flaming silver light and endless shadows.

Vaguely, I became aware of Casteel and Kieran, their eyes wide and their awe bubbling in my throat and against my skin.

Thick, shadow-filled clouds appeared. Wind whipped, blowing my hair back and tugging at my torn clothing. And the wind, it smelled of fresh lilacs.

And then the very air itself split open, spitting crackling light as a thick, white mist seeped out of the tear, spilling over me, over the ruined ground to blanket the bodies.

A great, black-and-gray shape several times larger than Setti flew out of the chasm in the air, its wings so massive that they momentarily blocked the rising moon. Another deafening roar tore through the air as the draken glided over the Temple, opening its powerful jaws. A stream of intense, silvery fire erupted, spinning into a funnel that slammed into the creatures climbing the Rise.

“Nektas,” Casteel rasped.

My entire being focused on Isbeth. She stood behind the altar, almost transfixed. And the endless fury I felt from her joined mine.

Her.

Seraphena.

The true Primal of Life.

The one I’d gotten the gift of life and healing from. Not Nyktos. His gift was the shadows in my skin, the death in my touch, and the coldness in my chest.

My will swept out from me, rushing over the Bone Temple and the grounds below and beyond. I took a step, and I did so as something infinite. Something Primal.

Power drenched the air as the aura receded just enough for me to see that the luminous sheen had settled and turned to a pearlescent, silvery, and shadowy glow. With each footstep, the stone trembled and cracked, and the mist followed me, settling over the bodies and cradling them.

I walked forward, feet bare to the blood, the shattered shields, and the broken swords. And then I glided, lifting from the ground. The battered bodies of soldiers, wolven, and draken—of my friends and those I cared for—rose along with me. Delano. Naill. Emil. Hisa—

“It’s too soon,” Isbeth shrieked, and her fear—her terror—was just as strong as her grief had been, raining bitter ice upon me. She stumbled over the body of a dakkai and pressed against the altar Malec lay upon. “What did you do?”