The Crown of Gilded Bones (Blood and Ash 3)

Kieran stood there. “Can’t sleep. None of us can.” Beyond him, I saw several shapes sitting around a small fire. He looked over my shoulder. “How is she?”

“Still asleep.”

“I know you haven’t slept.”

I shook my head as I stepped out into the cool night air, closing the door behind me. I glanced over at the bent and bowed trees as I walked with Kieran over to where the others sat.

Vonetta glanced up as I sat beside her. She offered me a flask, but I shook my head. I’d apologized to her and to Kieran, but I felt like I needed to do it again. I opened my mouth.

“Don’t,” she cut me off. “I know what you’re going to say. It’s not necessary. I understand. We all understand.”

There were several murmurs of agreement from around the fire. My gaze briefly met Hisa’s and then Delano’s and finally Naill’s. “He’s still alive,” I said roughly. “She won’t kill him. Not when she thinks she can use him to control me—control Atlantia.”

They nodded, but I sensed relief. They had needed to hear that. I’d needed to say that. “Does anyone know anything about shadowstone? That was what the Handmaiden had.”

“I heard what she said,” Kieran said.

“Do you think that could be what’s causing Tawny’s injuries?” I asked.

“I don’t know.” Hisa dragged a hand over her head. “She’s mortal. I’ve never seen a mortal wounded by shadowstone before. A lot of Healers in Evaemon and some of the older Elders may have seen something like this.”

I thought of Willa and then her diary, and the next breath I took hurt.

“What is the plan?” Emil asked as Vonetta handed him the flask. He took a drink.

We hadn’t really spoken on the ride away from Oak Ambler. Not about anything, but I had done a lot of thinking—about what Isbeth had said, what even the Duchess had claimed in Spessa’s End, and what the Handmaiden had told me.

Even though I’d refused Isbeth, she believed that everything was falling into place. She had the Prince and now the King of Atlantia. She had found a way to control me, and in her mind, she therefore controlled Atlantia. Just like Duchess Teerman had claimed, I would succeed where the Queen had failed.

But they were wrong.

I looked down at my hands—at the marriage imprint. You always had the power in you. That was something I had also thought about. I now knew where I’d first heard it. The silvery-blonde I’d seen when I had been so close to dying. That is what she had said to me.

You always had the power in you.

And it was what Nyktos had said. A part of me wondered if the woman I’d seen was his Consort. That, in her sleep, she’d reached out to me, to either warn or help me. It would make sense that she would.

After all, I was her granddaughter, if she was who I believed.

My fingers curled into my palms. The center of my chest hummed with power—the eather of the King of Gods. The kind that should’ve been powerful enough to destroy whatever the hell Isbeth believed she was. But I hadn’t been prepared. I hadn’t fought like a god because I did not believe I was one.

But Casteel had, hadn’t he? Did he ever really believe I was a deity?

I exhaled roughly. “She was right.”

Vonetta looked over at me. “Who?”

“The Queen. I am a god,” I stated.

Her brows rose as she glanced over at Emil and Naill. “Um—”

“No. Wait.” Kieran rose, understanding flickering through him. “If what she claimed is true and Malec is one of Nyktos and his Consort’s sons—and you’re their grandchild—you are a god,” he reiterated what I’d just been thinking.

Delano nodded slowly. “It doesn’t matter what in the hell Ileana— Isbeth—is. You are the grandchild of Nyktos—of a Primal God. That is why your bloodline is so potent. You are a god, not a deity.”

“Shit,” Emil muttered, taking another drink before Vonetta snatched the flask from him.

“That’s what Nyktos meant,” I said, swallowing. “I never needed his permission.”

“For what?” Naill asked.

“To use his guards,” I said, knowing that’s what the Handmaiden had meant by the fire of the gods. “To summon the draken.”

Chapter 48

I stalked through the palace halls in Evaemon, the dust from the road and blood still staining my breeches and tunic. I headed for the sun-drenched atrium in the center, followed by Kieran and his sister still in their wolven forms. Naill and Hisa followed, their hands on their swords. Delano was with Tawny, having taken her to one of the rooms above mine. Healers and Elders were being summoned.

Crown Guards bowed stiffly as we passed, the heels of my boots clicking off the tile floor as sharply as the wolven’s claws.

Vonetta was one giant ball of stress. I didn’t know if she was more worried that I would obliterate Casteel’s mother or if it was the plans we’d discussed on the way back to Evaemon. I, on the other hand, was strangely calm. I wasn’t worried about what I was about to say to Eloana or what I would carry out next. I felt only determination and anger, so much anger, it seeped out of my bones and coated my skin, but I was calm. I didn’t know one could feel such wrath and yet feel such silence.