“How would you know that?” Ash demanded.

“He knew Sotoria,” I answered. “I haven’t had a chance to tell you.”

Attes nodded. “I met her when Kolis first brought her back. In Dalos. I was…in her presence long enough to know her voice and laugh.”

“I have so many questions about that,” I murmured, but something suddenly occurred to me. “Even if I were Sotoria, and what Eythos planned worked, we still can’t kill Kolis, right? He is the only one with true Primal of Death embers.”

“Correct.” Keella drifted closer, a woodsy, earthy scent following her. “If Kolis dies without there being true embers of death in someone else, the release of those embers would devastate the realms and upset the balance.”

My brows lifted. “That brings me back to the point I was making. Kolis cannot be killed.”

“Yet,” Keella said.

“The Star.” Ash eyed the leather satchel Attes carried. “The Star can be used to transfer the embers from Kolis.”

“Of course,” I murmured as I frowned. “But it would be holding Sotoria’s soul.”

“Hopefully, not for long,” Attes said. “Eythos hoped Sotoria could weaken Kolis enough for the embers to be transferred to The Star.”

“But what if I hadn’t found the diamond?” I pointed out. “That was a huge risk to take.”

A wry grin appeared on Attes’s face. “As I said, I didn’t think Eythos’s plan was all that great.”

“Maybe it wasn’t his only plan,” Nektas commented. “Yes, Eythos could be impulsive, but I doubt he didn’t think of all the possible ways things could go wrong. He could’ve had other plans and simply didn’t share them.”

“There’s no way of knowing that,” Attes said. “But what I do know is that once Sotoria is reborn, we will have The Star and can end Kolis.”

Once Sotoria was reborn, she’d likely be raised as I was, steeped in death and groomed for one purpose only: to seduce and kill. Not to be her own person, with a future. My stomach twisted with nausea.

I shook my head. “What about until then?”

“Several things have to happen before then,” Keella said. “Even though Eythos was no longer the Primal of Life when we placed Sotoria’s soul in your bloodline, he still had the true embers of life then. For me to do what we did again, I will need the true Primal of Life’s assistance.”

“So you will need Ash,” I said. The subject of my statement tensed behind me. “Then what?”

Keella’s gaze lifted to Ash and then returned to me, but it was Attes who said, “Then we would have to incapacitate Kolis until Sotoria can be reborn and come of age. He will be weakened by the Ascension of the true of Primal of Life. It will be our one opportunity to strike.”

Ash spoke then. “You speak of entombing him. Putting him in stasis.”

I now knew how that could be done—by using the bones of the Ancients.

“You speak as if this will be easy to do,” Ash said. “Those loyal to him will resist. They will fight for him.”

“There will be war,” I whispered, looking up at Attes. “But that war has been coming.”

Attes nodded. “But it won’t be the kind of war Kolis would wage.”

“Kolis claims he doesn’t want war,” I shared. “I know that’s hard to believe, and only part of me thinks he spoke the truth. But that was before…well, before now. When he wakes and realizes I’m not really Sotoria, it’ll be bad.”

“And we will be prepared.” Attes’s stare moved to Ash. “We can’t let the only hope we have of stopping Kolis die.”

“The only person I care about not dying is Sera,” Ash swore.

My heart, well, it was doing flips now. Weak ones.

“And I understand that.” Attes lowered his voice. “But this is bigger than you—than Seraphena. Than all of us. You know that. Deep down, you do.”

My gaze crawled back to Ash. “He’s right,” I said quietly. “And you know it. You might not think so now, but later? When…when all of this was for nothing?”

“There won’t be a later when this was for nothing,” he countered.

“Ash.” A palpation in my chest—a whooshing sensation—took my breath, but only for a second. I ignored it. “This is important.”

“No, Sera. That soul isn’t important. You are.” His whirling silver eyes fixed on the other Primal. “She is what matters. And if I have to repeat that, I will rip out your tongue.”

A buzzing, bubbling sensation filled me as I stared up at the harshly beautiful lines of Ash’s face. It wasn’t the rather grotesque threat that made my heart swell and fill. It was the other words he’d spoken. That I was important to him. I mattered to him. I already knew I did, but I felt them in how he held me, tightly but gently. I heard them in how fiercely he spoke. I saw them in how he looked at me, his eyes a luminous, warm silver, and I knew them to be true.

I was important.

I mattered.

Not for what I had been born to do but for who I was.

And that realization wasn’t something that came all of a sudden, only because Ash had said them. It was something I’d always known, wasn’t it? I wouldn’t have been so relieved all those years ago when Ash refused to take me as his Consort. I’d known then that my life mattered, despite my duty and so-called failures. I just hadn’t allowed myself to accept the truth. Ash helped me see that. Accept it.

But I knew that Sotoria’s soul was also important.

Leaning into Ash, I cupped his cheek. Those frigid eyes landed on me. “I love you,” I whispered. “I love your protectiveness. I love that you see me. That I’m important to you. That I matter. I love you so very much for that.”

A shudder went through him as the eather whirled more fiercely in his eyes. “You are the only thing that matters.”

“But I’m not,” I told him. “Sotoria does. Like your father, she has been trapped and doesn’t deserve what will happen if her soul remains in me.”

A muscle began ticking in his jaw.

“That’s not fair to her. You know that.” I drew my finger along his lower lip. “And I know you wouldn’t want that for her. My importance doesn’t cancel out hers.”

Eather flared brightly in his eyes. “I disagree.”

“Are you sure your kardia was correctly removed?” Attes asked dryly. He lifted a hand when Ash’s head swung toward him. “Just asking.”

“Ignore him.” I guided his gaze back to me. “Look, I’ve started the Ascension, but I’m not going to fully Ascend right this moment. We have time to take care of this, and it’s not like it will hurt me.” I looked over my shoulder, glancing between the two Primals. “Right?”

“It shouldn’t,” Keella answered.

“That’s not entirely reassuring,” Nektas murmured from where he stood.

“No, it isn’t.” Ash’s eyes narrowed on the Primal goddess.

“What we plan in regard to removing Sotoria’s soul and setting her on a path to be reborn is not without risk,” Keella said. “It could incite the wrath of the Fates.”

“What doesn’t incite their wrath?” I muttered dryly.

“Not much.” Keella’s brief smile vanished as she knelt beside Ash and me, her voice becoming solemn. “There is a balance to life, one that Eythos understood, but Kolis never truly could, no matter how hard he tried to. You see, if there is life, there must also be death.”

Understanding crept in as I thought about Marisol and my stepfather. “If you bring someone back to life, another loses their life? That kind of balance?”

“It’s more than that, Seraphena. The Fates were never fond of restoring life. Not even what I do by giving those who never truly lived a chance to do so. But reincarnation is a loophole of sorts. What Kolis has done, what Eythos and I took part in, and what we are about to do again will upset the balance.”

I wasn’t sure what she was getting at.

Keella leaned in, her ancient gaze fixing on mine. “There was a reason Eythos had to be careful when it came to restoring life—giving it back to one who’d passed. It cannot be done twice for the same person—mortal, god, or draken—without the Arae intervening in some fashion, becoming the checks and balances. Therefore, doing so will never end the way one intends. Either death will come for them again, or the Arae will reset the balance in some other way.” Her lips quirked. “After all, look at the mess we—Kolis, Eythos, and I—have created with Sotoria.” She paused. “And there is no way the Fates have not dipped their hands in this and made it even messier.”