I twisted, kicking the first nymph in the knee. The creature’s leg cracked, splitting up the center. “Ew,” I whispered, driving the sword through the other’s neck and then the first’s as it hobbled toward me.
Glancing at the other side of the road, I saw Nektas methodically cutting through the nymphs. My head whipped as I darted to the side, narrowly avoiding a nymph’s claws.
“Dead. Bled. Red.” The nymph whirled.
“Do they always talk like this?” I yelled as I drew the blade across its neck. There appeared only to be a few left.
Nektas tossed a nymph as he slammed his sword through another. “If you consider rhyming nonsense to be talking, yes.”
The hum of embers in my chest was a whisper in my blood as I swung. A dry hand clawed at the air, inches from my face as I spun. Cursing, I jerked back and turned, thrusting the sword back. The blade struck the nymph’s chest. Dust puffed out, shimmery and thick. I drew the sword up, across its neck—
A horse neighed nervously, causing my heart to plummet. A nymph rushed the horses. “Fear is my spear,” it hissed. “Pain is your gain.”
“That doesn’t even make sense.” I shot after the nymph. “Oh, no, you don’t. You are not going to touch them.”
I clasped the nymph’s shoulder, the skin rough and dry beneath mine, just as it swiped out at Gala. I knew I wouldn’t be fast enough with the sword. The nymph would get its claws in the horse. Fury entrenched itself deep, stirring up the embers. Several things happened at once.
The embers vibrated wildly in my chest, heat flooded my veins, and silvery-white light crowded the corners of my vision as power built, ramping up inside me and charging the air. I gasped as eather sparked across my hand. I jerked back, but it was too late. The essence flowed over the nymph and seeped through the husk of its flesh. Light filled all the hundreds of tiny cracks all over its body, lighting it up from the inside and then from the outside. Eather poured from its open mouth and eyes.
The nymph exploded.
A wave of power blew back, so intense the burst of eather knocked me on my ass when it rolled into me.
“Holy shit,” I whispered, lifting the sword as a shadow fell over me. Nektas stared down at me. “I thought you said eather didn’t do anything to them?”
“It shouldn’t,” he said. “Only the Primal of Life can wield the kind of eather that can kill a nymph.” Nektas jerked his hood back. “It’s the same kind of power that can kill another Primal.”
Nektas said very little the remainder of the journey back to the palace, and that left me a bit uneasy.
I wasn’t a Primal, so I couldn’t understand how I could have the kind of eather in me that could kill another Primal. Or how the embers could bethatstrong.
And I had hit Nyktos with that eather. I could’ve…
Gods, I couldn’t even let myself finish that line of thought—a sure indicator of how much I’d changed. What I needed to do was work on controlling the embers until Nyktos removed them.
After giving Gala a quick brush down and some alfalfa, I parted ways with Nektas as I entered the palace, promising to gostraight to Nyktos. Nektas left to return to Jadis, who was in the mountains I’d yet to see.
Figuring Nyktos must be in his office, I headed there and entered the hall. Within a few seconds, I grinned at the sensation of the embers wiggling in my chest. I stepped into the alcove, noting that the door was ajar as I pushed one side open—
I stopped, his name shriveling and dying on my lips before it could even become a whisper. I couldn’t understand what I saw. It was as if my mind couldn’t process what my eyes were telling me.
That it was Nyktos seated on the settee, one hand lax on the cushion beside him, the other clenching the arm in a white-knuckled grip. His body taut, head thrust back, and eyes closed, the striking lines of his face tense, and his skin paler than it should be.
Or that he wasn’t alone.
Nowhere close to that.
Someone was in hislap. A female—a thin, willowy female wearing a shimmery, violet gown was inhislap. Straddling him. Golden-blond ringlets fell againsthischest and shielded her face as she clutchedhisshoulders, pale fingers digging into the dark shirt—as she moved againsthim. I couldn’t see her face, but I knew who it was.
Veses.
The Primal of Rites and Prosperity was in Nyktos’s lap. Touching him. Riding him.Feedingfrom his throat.
Chapter 29
My heart sped up and then slowed as my body flashed hot before turning icy. I felt utterly nothing as I stood there, staring at Nyktos. At Veses. Atthem. I tried to make sense of what I was seeing—why he was with anyone, let aloneher, the one he’d called the worst sort.
It didn’t make sense.