Oh, gods.
My hands started to tremble as I stared at the young draken. He couldn’t mean…
No.No.
Kolis couldn’t have summoned Kyn to bring one of his younger draken with him just to be slaughtered. This couldn’t be happening. This couldn’t be the price Kolis demanded.
But wasn’t that what he’d done so many times that Nyktos’s flesh was riddled with those reminders, those warnings?
Still, I heard myself whisper, “I don’t understand.”
Kolis inclined his head. “A life is owed to me to pay for the dishonor.”
“But he…” I gestured at the draken, swallowing. “What has he done?”
“Nothing,” Kyn bit out.
My wide gaze swung to the young draken. He stared straight ahead, his lips pressed firmly together, ruby eyes clear. He did not speak. He did not blink. He did not cry.
“Pay the price,” Kolis said as Kyn withdrew a slender dagger. The dark blade trembled in the Primal’s hand. “And both you and Nyktos will be forgiven. You will have my permission.”
I shook my head as I stared at the shadowstone, horror clawing and scraping its way through me. “And if I…if I don’t?” I asked. Nyktos turned to me, his face bloodless. “You will refuse the coronation?”
“He will kill me instead,” the draken spoke then as he looked up at the false King. “And then he’ll kill you. But not before he summons a draken from the Shadowlands to also be killed.”
Kolis chuckled softly. “I detect no lies.”
I choked on my gasp. “There has to be another option—”
“He spoke the only other option,” Kolis snapped, appearing on the floor within the blink of an eye. The eather around him spun. “Refuse me, Seraphena, and I will do exactly as he warned.”
I shouldn’t have been surprised. Not a single part of me. Not when I’d been warned there were things that Kolis could make us do. Things that would haunt us. But no matter what hadbeen said or what Aios had told me, nothing could’ve prepared me for this. This was something I couldn’t even comprehend.
“Why? Why this?” I whispered hoarsely, my heart thumping. “What do you gain from this?”
Where was thebalancein this?
Something akin to confusion rippled over Kolis’s features, almost as if no one had asked this of him before. Then his face cleared. “Everything,” he said. “It will tell me everything I need to know.”
That made no sense to me.
Nyktos stepped forward, his hands raised. “Allow me to do this. It is I who has angered you—”
“I will only warn you one more time.” Gold and silver eather sparked from Kolis’s eyes. “Silence. Or it will be her heart I hold in my hand.”
Nyktos inhaled sharply as his skin thinned. Shadows blossomed beneath his flesh.
“Control yourself, Nephew,” advised Kolis. “You would do well to keep that temper in check.”
Nyktos’s restraint was impressive. He reined it in, his chest and body incredibly still as he did so.
“He is young enough that either the head or the heart will do,” Kolis said, and there was no emotion behind his words. It sounded like he was instructing me on how to stitch a seam in clothing. This was…
Thiswas the Kolis I’d expected.
I shuddered.
Attes wrenched the blade from his brother’s hand and rose, his features hard and remote as he turned to us.