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)
When Sera wakes, Nyktos is at the Pillars, dealing with some nervous souls. He returns and goes to see her, apologizing again for the compulsion and what she thought she saw. He still won’t tell her what’s happening, though. When Sera lashes out, saying he was with Veses just hours after she told him she wanted to be his Consort, he flinches and apologizes again. He adds that he never wants to hurt her and reiterates that he was a virgin when they met and has never wanted anyone but her. Ever.
Sera asks him what she saw if it wasn’t what she thought, and he tells her it’s complicated. She breaks off their pleasure-for-the-sake-of-pleasure deal and tells him she wants her freedom from him once the embers are out of her.
Later, Sera comes to talk to him about Irelone and going to see Delfai where the God of Divination is with Kayleigh Balfour. Nyktos tells her she can have all the time she wants and says he’s going with her—he needs to know exactly what’s said so he can remove the embers correctly. However, he asks her to wait another day since Kyn’s draken is near.
He reveals that other Primals know he has a sizable army, though nobody knows how big it is. Grudgingly, he tells her that he realizes he needs to learn to deal with her wanting to help and needing to fight, even though he worries every second that she’ll be killed.
Nyktos informs her they’ll shadowstep to Irelone since there are no gateways near that Nyktos trusts. He brings up the nymphs she and Nektas encountered on their way back from the Vale, saying she shouldn’t have been able to kill one, and then remarks that he doesn’t like how things have become between them. She’s acting like she was trained to—empty and without emotion. He doesn’t like it at all.
Kolis summons them, a reddish black circle with a slash through it appearing in the center of Nyktos’s palm, burning and stinging and causing his eyes to fill with eather.
He tells Sera and everyone that Kolis will sense she’s not an ordinary godling like he tried to get Attes to believe. He hopes to use the excuse that she’s taken his blood to explain it away.
He reiterates that they’ll go to Delfai first and then answer the summons, but Sera insists they go to Dalos first.
Nyktos realizes that things are different now, but he tells her they need to act like they did with Attes. She tells him she was never pretending to be infatuated with him. It was never an act. He asks her if it’s too late for her wanting to be his Consort and to serve the Shadowlands and Iliseeum. He’s not sure why he brings it up, but he wants to know why she wanted something he could never give her. He then tells her she deserves someone who will love her unconditionally and irrevocably. Someone who’s brave enough to tell her how they feel.
Nyktos informs Sera there will be war if Kolis recognizes her as Sotoria and tries to keep her. He says he’ll leave Dalos in ruins if the King of Gods makes even a single move for her. Sera pleads with him not to intervene if Kolis recognizes her. He snarls and tells her the embers aren’t the only important thing. She is. He adds that she’s asking him to do what he’s had to do his whole life: leave others behind to suffer. To live and be dead inside.
He tells her that even if he had his kardia, he’d be unable to love after what he’s had to do. If he were to leave her to Kolis, any goodness remaining in him would be gone for sure, and he’d become something worse than the false Primal of Life.
He prepares her for their shadowstep and tells her what to expect, explaining that one hundred and ten of the blood drops tattooed on his flesh are from lives Kolis made him take. He reminds her she’s good and not a monster, and then they step into Dalos.
They arrive to bodies strung up, and Nyktos tries to calm Sera when she sees them, her eather running wild. She tells him to stop her, and he kisses her, calling shadows to block out her light and reaction.
Attes interrupts, and Nyktos doesn’t hide his ire, telling him he seems bound and determined to lose his eyes.
Later, talking to Dyses, he reinforces that Sera is his Consort. Dyses lashes out and tells Sera to bow. Nyktos orders her not to and tells Dyses she’ll bow to those deserving respect. He shadowsteps behind the male and rips out his heart, saying he will bow to Sera. Later, he remarks that, like Dyses, none of Kolis’s servants have felt right for a very long time. He sensed no soul in Dyses when he killed him.