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)
Two pinpricks of silver light appeared. I halted in a crouch, my heart racing. The twin spheres seemed to double in size. Another set flickered into existence, and then a third, each growing as the one before them had. My lips parted, and I stared at the lights. I…I didn’t think they were orbs.
They looked like eyes glowing with eather.
I slowly straightened, my already pounding heart speeding up. My fingers tingled with how fast the blood pumped through me. I may not be able to feel the essence inside me or that uncanny intuition, but all my other senses were firing. Sudden, icy dread seized me, turning my voice hoarse. I croaked, “Hello?”
The lights vanished.
A heartbeat passed. Other than the moaning, there was only silence. I took a step forward. A rush of charged air stopped me. Golden embers sparked in multiple places, igniting all around me. Flames erupted, casting a shining light onto the iron sconces. My gaze instinctively tracked the glow as it spread across dull, gray stone walls in some sort of cavern, bearing markings I’d seen in the Shadow Temples and on the Pillars of Asphodel—circles with vertical lines through them. The skin behind my left ear tickled. My Primal intuition kicked in then, and I continued following the light. Those marks were the symbol of Death. Of true Death—
I wasn’t alone.
Every muscle tensed as my body flashed hot and then cold. Three figures sat before me on horseback, their heads bowed and cloaked, bodies hidden in robes of white that rippled. Three horses that were nothing but bones and tendons were also covered by pale shrouds.
I’d seen them before. At the Pillars. I remembered their names. I could even hear Nektas speaking them now.
Polemus. Peinea. Loimus.
War. Pestilence. Hunger.
They were the riders of the end of everything, only summonable by the true Primal of Life.
Every instinct I possessed, both the old and the new, screamed at me to run because these beings had never been mortal or god. They were primordial. Not Ancients, but created by them. That was why they felt like them.
But an innate knowledge warned me that if I ran, I would fail. I had no idea at what, so I held myself rigid.
The rider in the middle moved an arm, reaching inside the folds of its cloak. It withdrew a sword with a dull ivory hilt and a blade the color of blood.
“Prove yourself,” a voice rasped through the air, rattling like old, dry bones.
My eyes widened when the rider turned the sword, holding it toward me, hilt first. I had a feeling this was Polemus. War.
Having no idea what the rider meant, I didn’t dare move to take the sword. “W-where is Ash?”
Silence.
Maybe they didn’t know him by that name? Seemed unlikely, but I cleared my throat anyway. “Where is Nyktos?”
“The Primal of Death is safe,” the rider replied, its voice causing my skin to prickle. “Prove yourself.”
“I want to see him.”
“Prove yourself.”
Chest thudding, I hopscotched between fear and anger. “I want to see him,” I repeated. “Now.”
“You must prove yourself, Primal.”
The one to the left of the middle spoke, its voice brittle and aged. Peinea, I thought. Pestilence. “Prove yourself worthy.”
“Prove myself worthy?” I stiffened even further, belly-flopping right into anger. “Of what and why?”
Words scratched their way from the third rider, who had to be Loimus. Hunger. “Prove yourself worthy of the crown and bearing the weight of Life.”
“Yeah…” I scanned the space. There appeared to be no openings beyond some thin cracks and fissures, but there had to be. How else could I have gotten in here? “No offense, but I have no interest in proving that, nor do I have plans to summon the three of you anytime soon, so—” The stench of burning meat increased, threatening to choke me. “What is that godsforsaken smell?”
“Souls sentenced to the pits,” Polemus answered.
My jaw went slack as the rider’s words repeated in my head. The pits? That had to mean… “I’m in the Abyss?”
“Prove yourself,” Polemus stated for what seemed like the hundredth time.
My hands curled into fists. “Look, I almost died, and that was after being held captive by an insane Primal. And now I’ve been taken into the Abyss against my will. So, thank you for that new trauma. I have no idea if my husband is safe or in the process of burning down the realm to find me—a realm I am supposed to lead, despite barely being able to finish a completed thought. And all I want is one nice night with my—” A horse whinnied, stopping my tirade. I forced myself to take a deep breath and calm down. These beings were as old as the Ancients. “Instead, I’m standing here in just a shirt, and I’m freaking hungry.”
“Prove yourself,” Loimus replied.
My head snapped in the rider’s direction. “I swear to the gods if one of you says prove yourself one more time, I will—”