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)
Ash sneered. “Are you done talking, for fuck’s sake?”
A hiss slithered from Kolis, and the mist around him whipped out, spreading across the length of the chamber and billowing against the ceiling. “It is you who will become nothing,” Kolis seethed, his gaze shooting to me. “And so shall…” He trailed off as his head cocked. “I see your soul. I see…” He inhaled sharply with a shout of rage. “I see their souls!”
Oh, fuck.
Ash flew off the floor, sending a blast of eather into Kolis.
The true Primal of Death flew back, stopping in midair. “She’s pregnant!” His laugh was coarse—and crazed. “She will get to have children?”
Panic threatened to explode through me, but I fought it back. The pain finally retracted, giving me control over my body. I sat up. My hands were empty. I had no idea where I’d dropped the sword.
“I will carve them from her womb and feed them to my dakkais,” he swore.
“The fuck you will.” Ash crashed into Kolis with the force of a tempest.
“No. Better yet, she will birth them.” He grabbed Ash’s cheeks, his voice filling with a sinister glee. “And I will raise them as mine. They will be my gift to Sotoria—”
Ash’s head snapped forward, and he tore into Kolis’s throat.
Kolis laughed, grabbed Ash by the hair, and tossed him aside.
I gathered my legs under me just as Varus hopped over the half-standing wall. Eather tinged in red sparked from his fingertips. He smirked.
“Kolis says I cannot kill you.” Varus raised his hands. “But he did say I could hurt—”
The pillars behind Varus exploded under the strength of a black-and-gray-spiked tail.
Nektas.
His tail rushed across the floor, ramming into Varus. The god shrieked—actually shrieked—going airborne. My gaze tracked him as he flew across the Temple and out another opening.
I laughed.
Pushing through any lingering pain, I leapt to my feet, watching Ash and Kolis crash into the floor toward the back of the Temple, causing the entire structure to tremble. I started toward them, beginning to summon Thierran again—
I sucked in a sharp breath and felt a wrenching motion deep in my chest.
I froze. It was the same as I’d felt before, but not quite so intense. The sensation flowed through me, and the sky beyond the Temple lit up with silvery fireworks.
A Primal had fallen.
From the back of the chamber, Kolis roared in anger. It hadn’t been one of ours.
Phanos.
High-pitched, mournful calls split the air in a song of death. It was the ceeren, crying out in anguish.
As wrong as it was, a smile crossed my lips. I lifted my head—
The space around me stirred as Ash’s roar thundered. I spun, catching a brief glimpse of Kolis skidding across the ruined floor before my gaze locked with the pale blue eyes of a Revenant.
Callum smiled. “Miss me?”
I stepped to the side, fast but not fast enough. Air punched from my lungs in a fiery burst of pain.
Shadows peeled away from the sides of the Temple, rippling and racing across the floor. I looked down.
A bone dagger jutted out of me, the hilt reverberating from the impact of the thrust. The ungodly heat of the bone blade started to burn my flesh. I staggered back. “Were you aiming for my heart?”
“I was.”
I lifted my gaze, and a metallic taste filled my mouth again. “Guess what?” I gritted out, grabbing the hilt. “You missed.”
Callum sighed, shoulders slumping. “Shit.”
Behind him, a violent, churning mass of shadows pulsed and throbbed. In the center, two silvery eyes glowed with feral rage.
“And you’ve really pissed off my husband.” I smiled through the burn of pain. “Fucker.”
Callum started to turn, but the shadows snaked out, slamming into him. Twin streams of smoky eather burst through his shoulders, throwing him back several feet behind me and into a hall. Another sliced through his stomach. Screaming, he flailed wildly as he was sucked into the air.
Jaw clenched, I yanked the bone dagger free. It hadn’t been in there long. I would heal. At some point. “Gods,” I hissed, taking a deep breath, then looked… I could no longer see Callum—well, I saw pieces of him falling and splattering off the floor, but I didn’t think that counted.
He’d come back.
I started to turn but stopped. My eyes narrowed on the air distorting around Callum’s remains. “What the—?”
But right now, that wasn’t the biggest problem, nor was the pain in my chest.
Kolis had released Naberius.
The draken formed from crimson-and-black mist in a wave of scales and bared teeth. A meaty foreleg swept out, his talons as sharp as daggers.
“Watch out!” I screamed, but it was too late.
Naberius raked his talons across Ash’s back, cutting through his wings. He stumbled, pain flashing across his features for the briefest moment when his wings evaporated in a shower of sparks. The scent of his blood ignited a fury in my chest, hotter and brighter than the flames of a thousand suns. The ceiling overhead suddenly shook. Something large and heavy had landed on the roof. A crack immediately appeared.