Total pages in book: 362
Estimated words: 347293 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1736(@200wpm)___ 1389(@250wpm)___ 1158(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 347293 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1736(@200wpm)___ 1389(@250wpm)___ 1158(@300wpm)
“You believed you would’ve destroyed his soul,” Ash finished.
“I couldn’t do it.” My laugh was short and humorless. “It felt wrong. I dropped the sword, and he disappeared. That’s when I realized I was supposed to slay the monstrous part of me. The cold bit.”
His jaw flexed. “There is nothing cold about you.”
“But there is,” I insisted, my voice barely above a whisper. “I don’t know if I was born this way, if the embers did it, or if it was how I was raised and the choices I made because of that. But I told you before, Ash. I don’t feel things the same way you do.”
“Sera—”
“I know you must sense it, that part of my soul. There’s no way you haven’t. And you don’t have to lie. I don’t want you to because, gods, the fact that you must have always sensed it yet still accepted me makes me love you even more.” My gaze searched his. “I’m not like you. You carry those marks. Bear them. I don’t. Not really.”
“That’s not true. It’s not,” he insisted, lowering his chin so we were at eye level when I opened my mouth to protest. “Kolis is someone who doesn’t feel empathy or regret. Kyn doesn’t. Veses is another. Are you like them?”
I was nothing like Kyn or Kolis, but Veses… What had she said after she told me she’d leveled half her Court when Kolis brought Sotoria back?
Our violent reactions regarding the ones we love is something we have in common.
We did have that in common.
But that was the only thing.
“No,” I said. “I’m not like them.”
“Thank fuck you said that,” he replied. “You just carry those marks differently, Sera. The fact that we’re even having this conversation proves that.” His gaze found mine. “All of us, the good and the bad, are a little monstrous. I am no better than you.”
A damn knot lodged in my throat, just as it had when he said this before we left to meet with Kolis to gain his approval for the coronation.
“But those parts?” Eather streaked across his irises. “They don’t define you. They are not the sum of who you are. They never were.”
“Do you believe that about yourself?” I asked, knowing he had far more good in him than I did in me. But he didn’t see it that way. “And the monstrous things you’ve done?”
“I’m starting to,” he admitted.
Surprise flickered through me. “What changed that?”
“You.”
I rocked back. “Me?”
“Yes, you.” His smile returned. “Because someone like you couldn’t love me if I were the sum of the worst things I’ve done.”
My breath caught as my emotions swelled. His features blurred. “I think I’m going to cry.”
“That is not the response I was going for.” Concern filled his tone as he rose slightly.
“It’s because you’re being sweet!” I exclaimed, blinking tears from my eyes. “And I don’t know why I’m so damn emotional. I was never this way until I met you. It’s annoying.”
Ash chuckled, relief easing into his features. “It’s cute.”
“I completely disagree with that statement,” I muttered, pulling myself together. “But back to the riders. They said I didn’t slay the monster, but I did wound it.”
A moment passed. “Did they find you worthy?”
“They did. So, I can now call on them if I want to end the realms.” I rolled my eyes. “Or something.”
“Well, that’s a relief,” he remarked, earning a sidelong glance from me. “But I’m not surprised. Because what I’ve sensed in you is not cruelty, Sera. That is not what feeds this monster you speak of.”
I almost asked him what did but stopped myself. What Ash sensed in me now was totally influenced by how he felt about me, and I didn’t need my intuition to tell me that.
The truth was, Ash was right about some of the stuff he said. I wasn’t evil. Kolis, Kyn, and even Veses were. None of them had started out that way, but they’d become evil. Me? I felt like I was somewhere in the middle of good and evil, teetering on a fine line. And I couldn’t help but think that the true Primal of Life should be all good. Or, at the very least, mostly good.
Like Ash.
“What are you thinking?” he asked.
“I…I was just thinking about you,” I said after a moment. “Like how your father wanted you to be the true Primal of Life. Everyone here wanted that.”
But something went wrong when Eythos struck that deal with the desperate Roderick Mierel and placed the embers and Sotoria’s soul in my bloodline. I wasn’t reborn as Sotoria, and the embers became mine. Those two things were only the start of what had gone sideways with Eythos’s plan.
“They were expecting me to Ascend to be the true Primal of Life, but I didn’t,” he said, propping his cheek up with a fist. “You did. There is no changing that, Sera.”