The War of Two Queens (Blood and Ash 4)

“You’ll know.”

I resisted the urge to pick up one of the small rocks and throw it at him. “What good is having that kind of power if it inevitably weakens me?”

“It is a balance, meyaah Liessa,” he said, and I blinked. I hadn’t expected to hear him call me my Queen like the wolven did. “Even we have weaknesses. The fire we breathe is the essence of the Primals. Using it tires us. Slows us down. Even the Primals had their limitations. Weaknesses. Only one is infinite.”

Nyktos.

He would be infinite.

“From what I can remember, it varies how much using the essence weakens from god to god,” he continued. “But as I said, you carry the Primal essence within you. I imagine it will take longer for you to weaken that way, but you will know when it happens.” His head turned in the direction of the camp. “Your wolven comes.”

A sugary ripple of amusement came from Delano as I looked over my shoulder, seeing a distant figure among the broken stone and tall grass. “If you’re talking about Kieran, he’s not my wolven.”

The wind lifted the strands of Reaver’s hair away from his face, revealing the bland set to his features. “Is he not?”

“No.” I ignored the quiet huffing sound that Delano made as I rose. “None of the wolven are mine.” I glanced up at him. “The wolven belong to no one but themselves. The same goes for you and the other draken.”

There was a pause. “You sound a lot like…her.”

Noting the softening of his tone, I looked up at him, opening my senses. As before, I felt nothing. In my chest, the essence of the gods hummed, and the urge to push, to see if I could shatter his walls was almost as hard to resist as not throwing a rock at him had been. “The Consort?”

A brief smile appeared, and my gods, it was a breathtaking transformation. The chilly hollowness to his features vanished, turning him from someone uniquely appealing to a stunning, otherworldly beauty. “Yes. You remind me very much of the…Consort.”

The way he said that was more than a little odd, but I thought of what Nektas had said. A reminder that this wasn’t just about him. “Will the Consort really wake upon Ires’s return?”

“Yes.”

“And what does that mean for the other gods?” For us, I wanted to add, but I wasn’t sure if I truly wanted to know the answer to that at the moment.

“I imagine they will eventually wake.”

I wondered why the Consort being awake had anything to do with the other gods. Or if it really had to do with Nyktos—that if his Consort had to sleep, he chose to be with her, which caused the other gods to sleep. I was also tired of calling her the Consort. “What’s her name?”

His smile vanished, and his features sharpened as he stared down at me from his perch. “Her name is a shadow in the ember, a light in the flame, and the fire in the flesh. The Primal of Life has forbidden us to speak or write her name.”

Disbelief flooded me. “That sounds incredibly controlling.”

“You don’t understand. To speak her name is to bring the stars from the skies and topple the mountains into the sea.”

My brows inched up my forehead. “That’s a bit dramatic.”

Reaver said nothing. Instead, he rose so quickly I didn’t have a chance to even look away. Thankfully, I saw nothing I shouldn’t see because tiny silvery sparks erupted all along his body as he leapt from the pillar and changed. My mouth dropped open as a long, spiked tail formed, and then purplish-black scales appeared. Thick, leathery wings unfurled from the shimmer of light, briefly blocking out the muted glare of the sun. Within seconds, a draken swept through the air, high above.

A springy, featherlight sensation brushed against my thoughts as I stared up. As I said before and will likely say again, Delano’s voice whispered, he’s an odd one.

“Yeah,” I said, drawing the word out. “What do you think about what he said, though? About what would happen if we spoke the Consort’s name?”

I really don’t know, he answered as we started across the foundation. Could she be that powerful? As powerful as Nyktos? Because that’s what it sounded like.

It really did, but none were more powerful than Nyktos. Or his equal. Not even the Consort. I didn’t like thinking that, but it was what it was.

Delano stayed at my side as we crossed the ruins, carefully making our way through the wispy reeds and broken stone toward the small group headed our way. Emil and the dark-haired Perry, whose skin was a warm brown in the sun that broke through the pines, flanked Kieran. The wolven was the only one who didn’t wear the gold and steel armor—because of…reasons.