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)
Saion tells her to have safe travels, and Rhain moves forward. He kneels and holds his sword out. The others follow suit. The draken bow their heads. Rhain says the oath, ending with “forevermore,” and they all destroy their swords.
Seems with the right intention, not all eather is blocked by shadowstone, and it can be affected by more than itself.
Sera tells Ash there’s something she wants to talk about, and he won’t look at her. He tells her that even if he’s not looking at her, she is all he sees. She tells him she loves him and says it’s not his fault, making him understand. He lists all the things he’d rather be doing, and she almost gets sidetracked because several of them are super sexy. She continues, telling him she wants him to live. Be King. He argues that it’s her place, and she tells him she doesn’t want him to be alone. She wants him to love.
He gets angry, and she makes him promise. He does. Then, they have beautiful, heartbreaking sex.
He tells her all the things he adores about her and says he never wanted until her. Thunder booms, and Ash says Kolis has been found. She laments being out of time but tells him everything she wanted and says that he gave her all of it. She tells him that she loves him again and then says it’s time.
He takes her into the water and feeds as she reminisces, swearing she’ll remember. She begins to fade, and Ash says fuck the embers and tells her to take his blood. He says he won’t let her go. He’ll Ascend her.
She asks what she’ll become, and he says he isn’t sure. She begs him to take the embers but he tells her to shut the fuck up and says if he loses her, the realms and everything in them are gone—he’ll destroy it all. He tells her not to die. Tells her to say fuck the greater good. She says he’s good, but he insists he isn’t.
Finally, she drinks. She sees memories of her and her mother. Holland. Ezra. Jadis. The gods. More. Ash begs her not to leave and says he loves her, even if he can’t. He says he’s in love with her.
Sera sees Odetta. The woman tells her to open her eyes. She does, and Sera sees creation. All of it. She sees the explosion, the Primal of Life, the creation of the draken, the mortals. She sees it all and understands. The Ancients must never rise. They are the end that will shake all realms. They’d be blood and bone and ruin and wrath of the once-great beginning. Sera realizes she’s the beginning, middle, and the last breath before the end. She’s life. Death’s steadfast companion.
Pure power fills her, and she wakes in Ash’s arms. A shockwave bursts free and knocks him back. She becomes the essence.
While in stasis, Sera can hear talking. She hears the stories Ash relays. Listens to him tell her how unprepared he was for how alive he felt with her. He admits he could still feel after his kardia was removed, but not strongly. Not until her. He says he should have known from their first kiss what they were to each other.
He reminisces about their first few meetings, her bravery in going to Kolis alone, her misplaced loyalties. Ash talks about his father. Sera sees it all and feels Jadis on her feet.
When Ash says he wanted to be strong like Eythos, Nektas says it had nothing to do with strength. He talks about how Eythos was after Mycella’s death, and Ash says he would have destroyed the realms and everything in them if he’d lost Sera.
Nektas reminds Ash that he saved her, and Ash tells Sera he’ll be waiting for her.
Sera finds herself on the bank of her lake, but this time she sees a silvery-white cave cat with two gray younglings. When they lock eyes, she sees herself.
She starts to wake, and Ash tells her not to rush it. She’s hungry and thirsty and restless. Suddenly, she gets all sorts of information downloaded. She becomes power, and Ash reminds her of how they are together. How they like to be. He tells her she needs him. His blood. Says he’s hers.
She says the Primal of Life has never fed from the Primal of Death before. They’re meant to be two halves of a cycle but separate. He says that all of him is hers, and she feeds.
After, he asks if she knows him, and she says she always will.
Ash tells her he was terrified he’d lose her. She says he didn’t; he saved her. He then says he was afraid she wouldn’t remember and that he’d still lose her. She insists he won’t. Ever. He tenses and tells her that when he releases her, she needs to run. She’s confused. He then tells her that he needs her too much and won’t be able to control himself. He’ll shift. She says she trusts him. Tells him she’s his. Tells him to take her. However.