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)
“Shut up!” Kolis screamed, his other hand thrusting out.
Eythos jerked, his eyes flaring in disbelief. He looked down at a rod of dull white penetrating his chest, entering his heart.
Time seemed to stop.
The swirling wind. The building storm. Everything ceased as pure, unadulterated energy ramped up.
Kolis snapped his hand back—his bloodied hand. His mouth parted.
“I knew… I knew you were capable of this.” A shudder rolled through Eythos as he lifted his gaze to his brother’s. Shimmery blood leaked from his lips. “But I…I hoped I was wrong. I always…had hope.”
“Eythos,” whispered Kolis. He shook his head, denial etching into his features. “No. No!”
Kolis caught his brother as Eythos’s legs went out from under him and then held him as energy exploded from his twin, filling the air and the realm.
The…vision or whatever it was faded away. I was still holding The Star, still staring at it, but all I saw was the red flowing down Eythos’s chest. The red streaming from Kolis’s eyes.
A wave of incredulity swept over me because I knew—I knew two things at once. “You cried.”
“What?” Kolis demanded, and before I could answer, he gripped my arm and whipped me around so I faced him. Silver wisps of eather erased the flecks of gold. “What did you say?”
Oh, damn, I shouldn’t have said that. Shock had gotten the better of me. “I…I don’t know what you mean—”
“Don’t lie to me.”
“I’m not.” A hiss of pain went through me as his grip tightened on my arm, stoking the already thrumming embers.
His wild stare dropped to the diamond I still held. He sucked in a sharp breath and lifted the arm of the hand that held the diamond so it was in my face. “What did you see?” Kolis shook me, causing my head to snap back and then forward again.
A burst of sharp pain radiated down my spine. My already too-tight skin prickled as I gripped his arm.
He reached across the arm holding me and pried the diamond free from my grasp, throwing it into the air. My eyes shot to it, my gaze following The Star as it returned to the cage’s ceiling, once more becoming the cluster of diamonds.
The milky streaks of silvery light throbbed down upon us.
I shuddered.
Because I now knew what was in that diamond.
What had witnessed everything that had happened in this cage.
The center of my chest throbbed as Kolis shook me like I was nothing more than a rag doll.
Fangs protruded below his fleshless lips. “Me? The King of Gods. And you? A once frightened maiden turned whore?”
My grip on his arm loosened as I stared at him. The blank canvas was nowhere to be found as the embers inside me swelled. There was nothing but messy rage—hot, powerful fury. The edges of my vision turned white. I thrust my hands out, slamming them into his chest as power flooded my veins.
I saw a flicker of shock on Kolis’s face that echoed through me before he released me. I fell to the floor, almost toppling as he skidded backward from the blast of eather. He caught himself before he slammed into the bars. There was a brief moment when I realized that I shouldn’t have been able to do that to him in here, surrounded by shadowstone and the bones of the Ancients.
I shouldn’t have been able to summon that storm to frighten Callum, either, but the embers…
Chest heaving, Kolis lifted his head. Through the curtain of blond hair, I saw that his eyes had turned into pools of endless nothingness, and his skin had thinned, revealing the bone beneath.
“Then you’ve seen death,” Callum had said when I’d told him I’d seen Kolis’s true form. “True death. No one sees that and lives very long afterward.”
Panting, I took a step back, bumping into the wooden column at the foot of the bed.
“What did I tell you about using those embers?” he seethed.
Warning bells went off, kicking off instincts that told me I was in danger. My gaze flicked to the closed cage door. I pushed off the column—
Kolis was on me before I took an actual step, his hand at my throat again. Gasping for any breath possible, I clutched his arm as he abruptly pulled me away from the column and lifted me into the air. My eyes went wide as my feet dangled.
“I want you to remember one thing.” There wasn’t a strip of flesh left on his face. “Do not blame me for my actions. You caused this.”
Suddenly, the pressure around my throat was gone. There was a moment of confusion as I found myself suspended in the air, then I went flying backward.
I hit the bed hard, the soft mattress doing very little to lessen the impact. Air punched from my lungs, momentarily stunning me into immobility as Kolis levitated, the bones of his chest and arms becoming visible beneath the crackling eather.