I gasped.
A vine had sprouted from the dead soil at the base of a blood tree. Deep green and fragile, it wound its way up the bottom of the trunk. Tiny buds were scattered along the length of the vine, but one had blossomed.
It was half the size of my hand, petals the color of moonlight, folded up and closed in, revealing only a thin strip of crimson. It was what I’d seen Nyktos going into the Red Woods to check on before.
“The poppies,” I whispered. “The poisonous, temperamental poppies that remind you of me.”
“The powerful, beautiful poppies that also remind me of hope,” Nyktos replied, his thumb smoothing under my lower lip before returning to my hip. “Those poppies are the hope of life. The power of those embers. Proof that life cannot be defeated, not even in death.”
Nektas was waiting on the road just outside the Rise, cloaked and seated astride a chestnut steed. He greeted us with a nod, and then we continued on. I didn’t know if I should feel relieved that the journey had been eventless or worried because it had been too calm. Eventually, as the three of us rode under Ehthawn’s shadow, the woods on either side of the road gave way to flat, barren land.
“What used to be here?” I asked.
“Lakes,” Nyktos said. “Just like on the road into the Shadowlands. There were lakes on both sides.”
“Far deeper ones, though,” Nektas added. “And they were the color of polished sapphires.”
“Sounds beautiful,” I murmured as Nyktos’s thumb moved on my hip again. Even through the cloak and pants, I could feel him tracing the same slow, straight lines that he’d drawn on my thigh in his office as he spoke to Attes. It was utterly distracting in the most pleasant way, and it also felt…intimate. I liked it.
“Will they return once the Rot is gone?” I asked.
“I really don’t know,” Nyktos said, shifting the reins to his other hand. “The rivers that used to feed the lakes and streams here stopped flowing into the Shadowlands. It’s possible that once the Rot is gone, they will once again feed these areas.”
I started to ask exactly how the rivers had stopped flowing into the Shadowlands, but I noticed that the sky ahead had started to change color—a gradual shift to iron-gray brushed with faint traces of pink.
“We’re nearing the Pillars,” Nyktos explained, noting where my attention had gone. “And the Abyss. What you see is smoke from the fires darkening the sky and changing the color.”
Realizing what the fires could be, I stiffened. “The pits?”
Nektas glanced over at us, a wry twist to his lips. “They never stop burning.”
The Pits of Endless Flames were where souls that had committed the most atrocious crime were sentenced—some for an eternity.
And that’s where Tavius was.
A rather twisted smile tugged at my lips. And maybe I should’ve felt disturbed by that, but I didn’t.
We rode on, seeing no other signs of life. Then the land began a gentle climb, and the stars slowly dimmed until they could no longer be seen, now hidden behind…clouds—something I hadn’t seen in the Shadowlands. But these clouds were entirely too low to the ground, reminding me of when storms festered and grew out over the Stroud Sea. I sat straighter, squinting as Gala neighed softly. The embers in my chest vibrated, causing my skin to tingle.
What I was seeing wasn’t clouds.
It was mist, thick and heavy, obscuring the land and the sky,leaving only the road visible. I looked down, seeing tendrils of it seeping onto the road, but I knew this wasn’t normal. It was the essence of the Primals, and the longer I stared into it, the more I could make out darker clumps within. Forms. There were shapes inside it—bodies—drifting slowly. My head snapped to the side as I looked past Nektas to the other side of the road. There were shapes there, too.
I drew back against Nyktos’s chest. “What’s in the mist?”
“The souls of the recently deceased.” His arm tightened around me. “They’re waiting to enter the Pillars.”
Staring into the mist, I lifted my hand to the center of my chest where the embers continued to hum and spread warmth through my midsection. There had to be hundreds inside the mist.
“You okay?” Nyktos asked quietly, dipping his head to mine.
I nodded as I squeezed my hand into a fist. My palms were beginning to warm. “The embers are kind of vibrating like they do right before I use them.”
“The embers of life are responding to the souls.” Nektas drew his horse closer to ours as the mist steadily crept closer, narrowing the road. “When Eythos was the Primal of Life, he always found it difficult to be near the Pillars—close to death in such high numbers. It…wore on him.”
Realizing that Nyktos was listening as closely as I was, I lowered my fist to my lap.
“He once told me it was hard to ignore the pull—the instinct to intervene.” Nektas turned his gaze to the sky. “He knew death was a way of life. A part of the cycle that must continue uninterrupted. But it saddened him, especially here. He couldn’t see their souls like his brother could—like Nyktos now can—but he knew each of their names. Knew their lives, no matter how short or long. The ones who lived the briefest troubled him the most.”