“And if anyone but Seraphena pays the price, I will demand that she paytheprice with her blood,” Kolis warned. “Not that either of you would be silly enough to dare such disrespect.”
Attes passed Nyktos, the scar on his face standing out starkly as he stopped in front of me, handing me the blade. Opening my mouth, I glanced at Kyn. I wanted to apologize. He had a hand folded limply over his eyes. I couldn’t find the words as I made myself look at the draken.
His eyes met mine. Resigned. “Do it,” he said quietly. “I am prepared to enter Arcadia where my family awaits me.”
The horror clamped my throat shut. He truly expected this,and that…that made it worse. “What is your name?”
“It does not matter,” the young draken said.
“It does,” I whispered, my eyes blurring.
“No,” he said quietly. “It is not a name you need to remember.”
Another shudder took me.
Nyktos turned to me, his features stark and etched with deep lines of sorrow, the wisps of eather in his eyes frenzied and full of barely leashed anger.
“Do it,” the draken said. “Please.”
The seconds that passed felt like an eternity. I had no choice. I didn’t care about gaining Kolis’s permission for the coronation. I didn’t even care if refusing meant forfeiting my life. It was the knowledge that if Ididn’tdo this, the young male would still die. It was the other lives that would be lost if I refused. I had no choice.
At least, not now.
“I’m sorry,” I said.
The draken gave a curt nod and then closed his eyes.
I shut it down. All of it. Just as I had when my mother had ordered me to send a message to the Lords of the Vodina Isles. I felt nothing as I lifted my gaze to Kolis. That slippery smile was on his beautiful face as the eather spun, coiling at his sides, and the crown burned brightly.
Therewassomething in his essence.
In that power of his.
I hadn’t seen it before at the Sun Temple when he’d come for the Rite. But it was there now.
Something tainted.
Twisted.
Defiled.
It dulled the arcing, golden light. Smudged bits and pieces sparked a flat, lifeless gray that reminded me of theRot. What was in the essence surrounding the false King, what was inside him, caused the embers in my chest to hum violently—caused the crack inside me that had opened the night in the Dying Woods to widen. And just like then, an ancient sense of knowing awakened and stretched, rearing its head. Suddenly, I was there but not.
Thisentityfused itself with my bones, wore my flesh, andsaw through my eyes.
Rage, pure andprimal, set fire to my blood as my chin dipped, and a voice among my thoughts whispered:mine, becoming a chorus of many screaming, “Mine!”His stolen power. It wasmine. His pain. It would bemine. Vengeance. Retribution. Blood.Mine. All of it would bemine.
And I knewwhatthat voice was as my grip on the blade steadied.Whoit was. It was not the source of the embers. It was a spirit. Ghosts of many lives. A soul.
I met Kolis’s stare, and while it was my lips that curved, it was Sotoria who smiled as I paid the price.
Chapter 36
Everything that came next happened in a daze as if I were watching from high above. Kolis laughed as the embers of life hummed violently in my chest.
He laughed as I dropped the blade, and it clattered off the marble floor.
He gave his permission as I watched Attes lift the fallen draken, the Primal’s jaw tensing as the male’s blood singed his flesh—as Kyn locked eyes with mine—eyes now clear of the liquor haze but full of burning hatred.