The gentling of his demeanor vanished as his jaw hardened. “That’s the actual entirety of the point.”
“You’re not listening. I touched it, and it started to come back to life.”
“What?” His hand lowered then as Nektas turned his head toward us.
“I didn’t mean to do it. I didn’t try. But I saw its…its veins and its muscles form. Its heart. The heart startedbeating,” I said. “Right before you killed it, its heart was beating, and it spoke to me.”
Nyktos drew back, his eyes widening. “That’s not possible.” He twisted toward Nektas. “Is it? I didn’t feel it.”
The draken…
Nektasshiftedforms, right there beside us. A dazzling explosion of a thousand tiny silver stars appeared all over his body and above us where his wing had been. My mouth dropped open as the shimmery spectacle faded, and fingers took the placeof talons, wings sank in, and flesh replaced scales. Red and black hair slid overlotsof hard, faintly ridged, coppery flesh.
“You’re naked,” I whispered.
“Does that bother you?” Nektas asked.
“Maybe?”
Nyktos turned his head to me. “Perhaps you shouldn’t continue staring then.”
“How can I not?” I mumbled.
Nektas smirked as he waved a hand. There was a brief, faint burst of light, and then only his upper body was exposed. Loose, linen pants covered the rest. “Better?”
“I guess…” I blinked. Was I hallucinating?
“I wasn’t asking you.” Nektas turned a pointed stare on Nyktos.
The Primal’s eyes narrowed as the corners of his lips pointed downward.
“How did you do that?” I asked.
“Magic,” Nektas answered. I frowned as he knelt beside Nyktos. “You sure the Shade spoke?”
I nodded, letting the whole magic-pants thing go for the time being. “It saidmeyaah Liessa.”
“My Queen,” Nyktos repeated.
“Fuck.” A slow grin spread across Nektas’s face. “It’s the embers.”
I was getting really sick of hearing about the embers, but thatdidconfirm that Nektas knew there were two embers in me and not one. Nyktos had obviously confided in him, but had he told the draken the whole Sotoria part?
“Eythos could do it,” Nektas continued. “He could raise the bones of the dead. It was rare. I can only remember him doing it once. It’s not the same as restoring life to the recently dead. That’s why nobody felt it.” He tilted his head as he eyed me. “Those embers are really strong in you.”
“So I’ve been told,” I muttered.
Nyktos frowned. “I didn’t know my father could do that.”
“I don’t think even Kolis knew.” He brushed a stripe of red hair back over his shoulder. “You should probably avoid touching anything dead until you get a handle on those embers.”
My hands fell into my lap. “I’ll definitely try to avoid doing that. It’ll be hard because I do like to touch dead things.”
Nektas’s smile spread, and then he looked over his shoulder. “You level?”
Nyktos nodded, his attention fixed on me.
“You two should head back to the palace. The Shades won’t be scared off much longer.” Nektas rose, clasping Nyktos’s shoulder before walking off into the maze of dead trees. A few moments later, branches rattled violently, and Nektas rose into the sky in his draken form once more.