Total pages in book: 247
Estimated words: 231436 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1157(@200wpm)___ 926(@250wpm)___ 771(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 231436 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1157(@200wpm)___ 926(@250wpm)___ 771(@300wpm)
She reminds Ash that they now have permission to go forward with the coronation, and he tells her that’s not all they have. They also discovered that Kolis didn’t recognize her. He asks her what happened back in Dalos, saying she felt different to him. She tells him that the rage wasn’t only hers, it was also Sotoria’s. Ash says he thinks Holland was wrong. It’s clear Sera has two souls: hers and Sotoria’s.
The plan is to have the coronation the following day and then leave for Irelone to talk with Delfai. Sera walks around the halls and courtyards with Reaver and cries, noticing that she’s crying blood. Later, she has supper with Aios, Bele, and Reaver in her receiving room before returning to her bedchambers.
Not much later, she feels something similar to what she feels with Ash just before Ector comes flying into the room, followed by Veses. Sera realizes that the Primal likely unleashed the Shades as a distraction like Taric did. When Veses tells Rhain she hasn’t come for Nyktos, Sera sees fear in the god’s eyes.
The Primal insults Sera and wants to know how she became the Consort, stating she knows it’s in title only. Sera tells Veses that Ash called her the worst sort and continues to taunt the Primal, telling Veses that her future with Nyktos has nothing to do with her. To top it off, she calls her pathetic.
Reaver moves to protect Sera, and she tries to hold him back. Unfortunately, she isn’t able to stop Veses from hurting Reaver. In her rage, Sera plunges her dagger into Veses’ eye and gets hit by eather. She learns that Veses sent the draken into the Shadowlands, thinking she was helping Nyktos.
Veses insinuates that either Sera has a lot of Nyktos’s blood in her, or he found a Primal in their Culling. Sera tells her she’s had all of Nyktos, not just his blood, and punches Veses in the throat. She then scrambles toward Reaver but is thrown across the room and into the couch.
When Bele arrives, the goddess tells Sera the draken is hurt badly. Sera senses that death is imminent. Luckily, she is able to save him, and it somehow feels like a homecoming this time. She throws a dagger at Veses, but the Primal stops it in mid-air.
Sera freaks out about Veses knowing her secret, but Ash tells her she won’t get a chance to tell Kolis about it because she’ll never get out of the cell they’re about to put her in. Sera tells him that Veses didn’t want to tell Kolis about her, she wanted to kill her. But the Primal was afraid to go through with it once she saw what Sera could do.
Sera apologizes to Ash for him having to kill the Shades—she knows he doesn’t like doing it, thus giving them their ultimate end—and tells him that Veses sent the enemy draken that attacked them and released the entombed gods.
She thanks Bele for her aid with Veses and learns from Saion that Ector will be okay despite what the Primal did to him. She knows she’ll need Ash’s blood to recover from the skirmish—she can’t risk another stasis—then takes what she needs from Ash and feels peace, seeing a memory of her fighting him in the courtyard during her training request.
Sera asks him about it and learns why she saw that. She then tells Ash that she doesn’t hate him at all. He orders her to fuck him, and she gladly accepts. Once again, it feels like more to her. After, she tells him that he can feed from her if he needs to. He declines, saying he doesn’t deserve to.
Later, Sera feels the embers vibrating in her chest but not with the kind of energy that restores life. It’s the kind that ends it. Ash explains why Veses could feel Sera but Kolis couldn’t, and she learns that Veses never let on that she felt her.
Resting with Reaver, Sera doesn’t want to leave the youngling or risk waking him by moving but asks why Ash told Veses she was his Consort in name only. He tells her that Veses is different, and it’s complicated. Sera asks him point-blank if he cares for Veses, and Ash says he pities and loathes the other Primal. She then asks him what he feels for her, and he tells her he feels curiosity, excitement, amusement, yearning, need, want, anger, always awe, and…peace.
Erlina arrives, and Sera discusses the coronation with her and Bele. The seamstress addresses Sera formally, and she goes to tell the woman not to. Bele merely glares at her. Sera’s thoughts then turn to Veses, and she worries that the Primal goddess will be missed. She learns that she won’t—most will be happy she’s gone.
Sera asks to see Rhain to learn what’s going on with Veses and Nyktos and discovers the price Nyktos had to pay for Veses’ silence, which was done solely to protect Sera from Kolis. She then realizes that Ash wasn’t protecting the embers at all, he was protecting her.