Total pages in book: 222
Estimated words: 213974 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1070(@200wpm)___ 856(@250wpm)___ 713(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 213974 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1070(@200wpm)___ 856(@250wpm)___ 713(@300wpm)
“Yes,” I gasped. Or I thought I did. I couldn’t be sure. My tongue felt leaden and useless.
“That is irrelevant,” Kolis responded.
“Perhaps to you. But I felt the loss of one of our brethren, and the rise of a new…sistren. All of us did.” Phanos’s gaze slipped past us, and I heard retreating footsteps. His gaze shifted back to me. “Is it because of her?”
“You ask too many questions,” Kolis growled, his smooth voice roughening. “And I have very little patience for answering them.”
“I apologize, my King.” Phanos bowed his head slightly. “But I want no problems with Nyktos.”
“My nephew is currently no threat to anyone,” Kolis said, and my heart felt like it twisted until nothing was left of it. “However, even you should be more worried about inciting my wrath than Nyktos’s,” Kolis warned, cold bitterness filling his tone as gold-laced eather poured out of him. I winced when the essence glided harmlessly against my skin before spilling over to the sand. “Or do I need to remind you?”
Phanos eyed the tendrils of eather as they stopped short of reaching the water, where they lifted and coiled like vipers preparing to strike. I shuddered at the sight of them, having no idea what would happen if the eather reached the water. Whatever it was, I had a feeling it would be something terrible.
Phanos’s nostrils flared, and then the trident collapsed and vanished from his hand. “No, you do not.”
“Good.” Kolis’s voice was warm once more—gentle, even. The way he switched back and forth so quickly was unnerving. “She cannot die. I need you to make sure that doesn’t happen.”
Confusion arose. Between the blood loss and my worry for Ash, my addled brain was having a hard time processing everything, and many things were a blur. But even in this state, I had no idea how Phanos could assist.
“If you do not wish for her to die, can you not do what you’ve done to the others?” Phanos questioned. “Make her one of your Revenants. She is a godling, is she not? That shouldn’t be a problem, should it?”
But I wasn’t a godling—the offspring of a mortal and a god. However, it was how I felt to the gods and Primals because of the embers. Either way, Phanos clearly knew about the Revenants. Maybe all the Primals but Ash did. But Phanos didn’t know about the embers.
I wasn’t sure what to make of that. Was there anything to gain? But I hadn’t even thought of Kolis turning me into whatever the Revenants were. Could he even do that? What would that—?
“That is only death reborn,” Kolis answered, the warmth straining. “And I cannot risk her soul being stolen away in the process of the rebirth.”
Two things happened at once. One, I realized that a Revenant had to die to become one. And the second thing? Phanos realized exactly why Kolis was here.
“Is that her?” he whispered. “Your graeca?”
A burst of anger lit my insides, temporarily replacing the coldness that seemed to have penetrated every part of me. Words scorched my tongue, and I wanted nothing more than for them to make it past my lips. I wasn’t his graeca. Neither was Sotoria. We didn’t belong to him. I willed my mouth to move, just as I had earlier when I yelled at Ash and Kolis, but the embers only sputtered weakly, and all I managed was a whimpering sound.
“She… I believe so.” Kolis’s fingers pressed into the flesh of my arm and hip. “I’m holding her soul in her body. I’m not sure…” He faltered, the weight of his words a whispered admission. “I’m not sure how much longer I will be able to do so.”
I thought of the pins-and-needles sensation I’d felt when he placed his hand on my chest. Was that it? When he grabbed hold of my soul—our souls?
Shock rippled through me. The god Saion hadn’t believed that Kolis retained enough power to summon a soul like Ash could. Did this mean there were still some embers of life in him? Or was this a byproduct of the true embers of death? I wasn’t sure, but it explained why I was still alive—well, barely.
“You know what you ask of me,” Phanos voiced quietly, wind whipping across the water and tossing the edges of my hair over the sand.
“I am not asking.”
Small bumps of unease prickled my skin as Phanos tipped his head to the side. A muscle in his jaw throbbed. Then he slipped below the water. A moment or so later, the ceeren went still. The smaller ones, the children, swam deeper and deeper, disappearing from sight.
Phanos resurfaced less than a foot from the sand. Water coursed over the smooth skin of his head and streamed down his chest. Wordlessly, he extended his arms to us.