Dark silver eyes locked onto mine, and I felt that same sweeping motion in my chest and stomach as he said, “She’s very important to me, Nektas.”

“I know,” the draken responded.

I thought that was a strange thing for Nyktos to say, but he’d said that I was very important. To him. Not the embers. Me. And maybe that was why I blurted out what I did.

“I want to be your Consort, Nyktos.”

The moment those words left my mouth, I was this close to diving headfirst beneath the riders’ shrouds. My lips parted, but no air was getting into my lungs. My heart had stopped. The entire realm had stopped as I stared down at Nyktos.

What in the hell was wrong with me? Had I not decided to keep my big mouth shut?

Nyktos was completely still as he looked up at me. Seconds passed, and in that time, I felt the blood draining rapidly from my face before flooding back. My chest started to squeeze and ache.

He moved, lifting his other hand to my cheek. “Breathe,” he whispered.

I sucked in air, shaking.

His thumb drew that line over my chin, just below my lip, and my heart was beating too fast for someone who was sitting. Because the way he stared at me, the wisps of eather beginning to spread out from behind his pupils, it felt like…more. Which I knew was impossible, yet…

He lifted the hand he held to his mouth and pressed a kiss against my knuckles. Then, slowly, he turned it over and pressed another kiss to my palm. He never took those now-heated, quicksilver eyes off me. “I’ll be waiting for you, liessa.”

Chapter 27

Sunlight.

That was the first thing I noticed when the thick, swirling mist slowly scattered as we traveled down what sounded like a stone road. It had been so long since I’d seen the sun. Felt its warmth on my skin. I looked up, eyes stinging from the brightness as I lowered my hood. The sky was painted in shades of vivid blue and soft white, but there was no sun, and as the Primal mist continued to drift and fade, lush, rolling, green hills full of trees with purple and pink blossoms trailing down to the ground became visible. The landscape looked like a painting. There were no people. No homes or any other signs of life. My grip firm on Gala’s reins, I glanced down. My brows shot up at the sight of the sparkling road.

“Are those…diamonds?” I asked.

“Crushed diamonds. The Vale was formed by the joyous tears of the most ancient Primals and gods,” he said. “You’ll find them just about everywhere here.”

I looked over at him. He was grinning at me, and I didn’t think he’d stopped since we’d left Nyktos at the crossroads. When I thought that Nyktos had possibly wanted to kiss me goodbye, and somehow felt that was almost as good as him doing so.

Nektas was still grinning.

“Shut up,” I muttered.

“I didn’t say anything.”

“You didn’t need to.” More of the mist cleared. The diamond road appeared endless, snaking through the grassy hills and the heavily blossomed weeping trees, their hanging branches nearly reaching the ground.

“I didn’t know you could read thoughts.”

I shot him an arch glare.

His grin didn’t fade, not for a second as he drew his steed closer. He was only quiet for a few moments. “Is it true? What you told him at the crossroads?”

My face warmed, and it had nothing to do with the sun. I still couldn’t believe that I’d blurted that out. But I had, and I couldn’t exactly say I regretted it. Maybe I’d been wrong to think it was better if Nyktos didn’t know. “I did,” I said finally. “I meant it.”

We rode on for a few paces. “You care for him.”

It wasn’t a question but a statement of fact. Truth. I opened my mouth as I glanced over at him, my stomach tumbling as if I’d slipped from Gala—from the horse Nyktos had gifted me. “I do,” I whispered.

That grin remained as he arched a brow. “I know.”

“Well, glad that’s established.” I cleared my throat, facing the road.

“I knew that before you were ready to admit it to yourself.”

“Congratulations,” I muttered.

“Why do you think I told you to go to him when he needed to feed?” he continued as if I hadn’t spoken. “I knew you needed to help him. Not wanted. Not because you felt like you had to. But because you needed to.”

“Did you smell that on me, too?” I asked with a sigh.

Nektas snorted. “I saw it when you couldn’t answer if you would’ve followed through on your plan if you had learned it wouldn’t save your people.”

The breath I took was thin. That question had left me as uncomfortable then as it did now. “I still can’t answer that,” I admitted hoarsely. “Part of me says yes because I would do anything to save Lasania. Anything. But the other part says no. But if I had, there would’ve been no need to kill me. I think that…that would’ve done the job for you.”

I could feel Nektas’s stare on me. “If that is the case, then I’m more right than I even realized.”

I shot him a quick look, but he was now staring ahead, his brows a dark slash across his forehead.

“You know,” he began after a couple of moments of silence, “I also took you to him that night because I knew he wouldn’t hurt you.”

My stomach gave another tumble. “But you thought he would hurt me the night in the Dying Woods.”

“That was different. When the Primal takes their true form in anger, they are not themselves. They become anger and power and can lash out. And while I knew he wouldn’t harm you in anger as he is usually, I didn’t know what he’d do in that form.” His gaze touched mine. “But now I do. He stopped himself. Not because I was there. He could’ve fucked me up. He stopped himself. Now, I know.”

“Know what?”

“That what he feels for you goes beyond fondness. He cares for you.”

“I…I know that, too.”

He was quiet for a bit. “You know what he did to himself? And why?”

Swallowing hard, I nodded. “He had his kardia removed because he didn’t want love to become a weakness or to be weaponized.”

“You’d think it’s because Ash doesn’t want to become his father,” he said after a moment. “Eythos changed after he lost Mycella. He was still good, but he lost most of his joy when Mycella died. If it hadn’t been for Ash, I think he would’ve wasted away until he slipped into stasis.”

I wondered if that was the same for Nektas. If it weren’t for Jadis, would he too waste away?

“Ash grew up seeing that loss and sadness every time he looked in his father’s eyes. He felt that himself, never knowing his mother’s touch or hearing her voice,” Nektas said. “But Ash doesn’t fear becoming his father. He fears becoming his uncle.”

I jerked. “He could never become Kolis.”

“I don’t think so, either, but even I never expected Kolis to go to such extremes.” There was a pause. “He was never like Eythos. A bit more reserved. Colder. Preferred solitude. Part of that was because of what Primal essence coursed through his veins. He is Death, and Death does not want for company. And as Ash grows older, I see a bit of that in him already,” he said, and my heart seized. “Life and death are not very different. Both are natural, a necessary cycle, for there cannot be life without death, but where Eythos was celebrated and welcomed, Kolis was feared and dreaded. That would foster jealousy in the best of us, and he was jealous of his brother. Still is, even now.”

Nektas laughed without mirth, shaking his head. “But it wasn’t until Kolis experienced love and loss that he changed. That he began to become what he is today. Love can breathe life and inspiration into one, and the loss of it can rot and taint the mind of another. That is what Ash fears most.” His gaze found mine again. “Loving someone. Losing them. Then becoming something even worse than Kolis.”