Total pages in book: 248
Estimated words: 236909 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1185(@200wpm)___ 948(@250wpm)___ 790(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 236909 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1185(@200wpm)___ 948(@250wpm)___ 790(@300wpm)
“Later,” Reaver answered as he nibbled on a piece of strawberry. “I think he went to Vathi to visit Aurelia.”
“Aurelia?” I murmured, holding back a yawn.
“She’s a draken in Attes’s Court,” Aios answered, glancing at me. “I’ve met her a couple of times. She’s pretty nice.” She poured Reaver a glass of water, something he hadn’t been able to drink with Jadis chasing him around. Her eyes briefly met mine again. “I wonder if he’s checking to see if she’s heard anything about that draken who came here.”
That would make sense.
“Don’t know.” Reaver took the napkin Aios handed him, dropping it onto a bent knee. “But I think Nek is sweet on her.”
My brows shot up, at the nickname and the idea of Nektas being sweet on anyone when it was clear that he was still in love with his wife.
Aios grinned at the young boy. “And why would you think that?”
Reaver shrugged as he finished off a slice of melon. “He always smiles whenever her name is mentioned.”
“That doesn’t mean he’s sweet on her,” Aios said.
He pinned her with a very serious look. “Then why does Bele smile when someone says your name?”
I grinned as Aios’s face flushed about a dozen shades of pink, thinking of how I’d seen the two of them interact with each other. I had thought there might be something between them.
“That’s because Bele is silly.” Aios cleared her throat. “Did Nyktos go with him?”
My heart immediately skipped, and my face felt like it was probably a dozen or so shades of red. I focused on rubbing the center of Jadis’s back. While Reaver told Aios that he’d seen the Primal outside, working with the guards, and then proceeded to ask her why some melons were sweet and others sour, I stared at the glossy, black ceiling.
Nyktos.
I repeated his name over and over in my mind, and no matter how many times I said it, the name didn’t sit right. I knew why, and it was all Nek’s fault.
Because at some point, I’d started seeing Nyktos as I wanted to.
And that seemed like a problem because thinking of him as Nyktos felt wise. Less. Not more. Nyktos was right now, pleasure for the sake of pleasure, and that was the safest way to navigate this union with him. There was no guarantee that whatever this Delfai knew about removing the embers would work. Even so, there was still no promise of a future, not until we dealt with Kolis and restored some kind of order to Iliseeum.
And thinking of him as Ash felt too much like endless possibilities. Ash felt like more, and there could never be more with him.
Jadis wiggled a little as my chest tightened. I asked myself for the hundredth time what exactly I was doing here, going through a questionable plan when I had a duty, a destiny. When people were dying because I was here. And if Kolis ever discovered the whole soul thing? He would do just as Penellaphe had warned.
Pressure built because I…I knew why I hadn’t made another attempt to escape. It wasn’t because I feared being caught again. It wasn’t because of the plan. It was the why behind wanting his plan to work. There were all the obvious reasons—stopping Kolis, ending the Rot, and restoring Nyktos to his rightful destiny as the King of Gods. But I had other reasons, purely selfish ones.
I didn’t want to do what I’d have to do to weaken Kolis.
Instead, I wanted a future of my own, one where I could try to keep that part of me good—just like Nyktos did. A future that had more moments like the ones I’d spent with him earlier. Moments of peace. I wanted years like his friend Lathan had, where he didn’t struggle to find his breath when things became overwhelming. Maybe even moments like this, where I held a sleeping child in my arms, one that was mine. I wanted a future where I was—
I tried to stop the thought from finishing, but it was too late. The why behind what I wanted was already fully formed, and the strangest, most terrifying thing occurred to me as I held Jadis closer.
Nyktos…he was all that I already knew—a Primal of Death who wanted to give the Shades the chance to face justice or redemption instead of the nothingness of the final death. He cared and thought of others, even at great risk to himself. What he’d done for Saion and Rhahar and countless others was evidence of not only that but also that he was succeeding at trying to be good. Breathe in.
Nyktos was a protector with far more than one decent bone, but some of that did belong to me and only me.
I didn’t need him to prove that because he already had, three years ago when he refused to take me as his Consort. I just hadn’t realized it then, and gods knew it hadn’t turned out how he’d expected, but he’d wanted to give me freedom. Hold. And he’d proven it over and over again since then, when he prevented me from getting myself killed in the Luxe and didn’t touch a single hair on my head when I stabbed him in the heart. He’d stopped Tavius when no one else would or could. He’d saved my life again by giving me a rare antidote to a deadly toxin, and he did so before he even knew about the embers. He’d taken my mother down by several notches and then some. Then there was what Rhain had claimed after the Cimmerian came to the gates of the Rise. The unknown sacrifice Nyktos denied. Breathe out.