“Can I…can I ask you something?”
“Of course.” I smoothed the skirt of the gown as I straightened.
“Will you attempt to go after Kolis while you’re there?” Aios asked.
Her blunt question caught me off guard. I shook my head.
She pressed her lips together as she looked away. “I hope you speak the truth. I don’t understand why you would’ve tried something like that before, and I worry that you will do so again.”
“It was different then. I didn’t think there was any other option,” I said, feeling the uncomfortable weight of my words.The guilt. “Now, there is.”
Aios was quiet for a moment. “Why would you think that was an option in the first place?” Her eyes met mine. “You’re brave. Strong. You have embers in you—powerful ones—but why would you even think you could somehow harm a Primal?”
“I have reasons to believe that I can.”
“Whatever reasons you have, you’re wrong.”
The slippered heels I wore barely made a sound as I took a step toward her. “There is something you don’t—” I let out an exasperated breath, not finding it in me to lie. “I’m Kolis’sgraeca.”
Aios’s chest rose with a sharp breath. “That’s impossible.”
“I have Sotoria’s soul,” I said, giving her a brief explanation of how I knew. “Eythos placed her soul in my bloodline, along with the embers,” I said, my voice low even though no one was around us to hear. “Eythos knew what he was doing when he put her soul in with the embers. He was creating a…a weapon. IamKolis’s weakness. If I’d made it to him, I could’ve stopped him. That is why I left.”
“But…” Creases formed above her brows as she shook her head. “You don’thaveSotoria’s soul. YouareSotoria.”
I sucked in a sharp breath. “I’m Sera. I’m not her.”
“I know. I’m sorry. You are you.” Her fingers went to the thin chain again. “I…I just wasn’t expecting you to say that.”
I laughed hoarsely. “Yeah, well, I didn’t expect to hear it when Holland told me either.”
She exhaled heavily. “If Kolis were to discover…”
“That was my whole point in leaving before,” I said. “I don’t know if I look like her or not. I was hoping I did, and it wouldn’t require me to…seduce him.” My stomach soured. “So, that’s why I left. It wasn’t just what you said. It’s my destiny. It’sbeenmy destiny. Becoming Nyktos’s Consort isn’t. It never has been.”
“Couldn’t your destiny be both?”
My gaze flew to hers, and my mind immediately went to how I had wanted to be Nyktos’s Consort.
“Now, I understand,” Aios said, her lips puckering. “That’s why Nyktos wanted to delay this. He wouldn’t have risked Kolis taking out his frustration on the Shadowlands for anything else.” She brushed her braid back over her shoulder. “And you nolonger hope that you look like Sotoria?”
My skin chilled with my reluctance to answer the question. To speak the truth. But I did. “No,” I whispered. “And I shouldn’t feel that way, even with Nyktos’s plan. Because I could still do something. I could still try. That’s what I’ve been preparing for—”
“I never told you what my time with Kolis was like, did I?”
I blinked, shaking my head.
“I, like Gemma, was one of his favorites.” Aios laughed, but this one was like shards of glass. “He kept me in a cage.”
My lips parted as horror seized me.
“Granted, it was a large cage of gilded bones.”
“As if that makes it okay,” I blurted out.
Her smile was tight. “It doesn’t, but…” She swallowed. “As sick as this feels to say, and as hard as it will be to understand, the cage wasn’t as bad as what happened once Kolis grew bored with his favorites. And that always happened. Sometimes, in days or weeks. Other times, months or even years.”
Years? Spent in a cage? I would…