For if they rose, they did so as blood and bone, the ruin and the wrath of that once great beginning.

As the essence of the stars hummed from within me, I saw the end.

And I knew.

I knew I was not a part of the cycle of life.

I was the cycle.

The beginning.

Middle.

The last breath before the end.

Death’s steadfast companion.

I was Life.

Slowly, I became aware of a pressure in my head. It built and spread, clamping down on my lungs.

My heart seized and then sped up. A sudden burst of pain lanced my upper jaw. Teeth loosened. A metallic taste filled my mouth as a tremor started deep in the center of my chest, where the two embers flickered and pulsed, expanding with each fast-pounding beat of my heart. The embers grew, swelling inside me until the chasm that had been cracked open splintered.

Pure, unadulterated power poured out, spreading like roots in my veins. The essence filled my organs. Eather entrenched itself in my bones and bled into my tendons, flowing to my muscles. My body warmed.

Something tightened around me. Not something. Arms? Yes, arms. Someone was holding me in…in water. A lake.

“Sera?” came a ragged whisper. His whisper.

The Asher.

I knew that voice. I’d heard it in the darkness, hadn’t I?

The One who is Blessed.

The Guardian of Souls.

The Primal God of Common Men and Endings.

The End to my Beginning.

My eyes flew open, fixing on the night sky—the stars and the moon.

“Sera,” he gasped.

That name. That name. That name.

It was important, but something…something was still happening inside me. Raw, Primal energy pressed against my flesh, seeping through my pores. My skin hummed—

Time stopped. There were no sounds of water or wind. No rustling animals or distant calls. There was just him leaning over me, his silver eyes wide as he held me in his arms, keeping me afloat.

“Liessa,” he rasped.

Eather erupted from my chest, shooting into the air in a spinning, sparking funnel. The stream of eather slammed into the sky. Time felt as if it stopped once more.

Arms tensed around me. “Oh, shit.”

The surge of power throbbed, and I saw the shockwave before I heard it, rippling in waves through the air, extending in every direction. With a massive, deafening boom that shook the land in all the realms, the intense silvery-gold light rippled across the skies, stretching as far as the eye could see and beyond. That shockwave reached us—

He was torn from me, thrown back into the trees as I was lifted into the air. The water of my lake flew out and up, halting as shadowstone cracked beneath us and gave way. Tall elms groaned as they quaked, bending back and then pitching forward, their roots ripping free of the ground. They began to slide and topple, sinking into the rushing water as the eather returned to its vessel.

To me.

Essence wrapped and churned around me, crackling and spitting sparks, encasing me in its light until it was all I saw.

All I became.

CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

I slept.

And I dreamed.

I was at a lake, floating in the cool water. It was so peaceful. Tranquil.

I was never alone.

A silver-white wolf sat on the bank of the lake, watching and always alert, keeping guard while I floated and…

Listened.

Someone was talking to me as I slept.

The voice was full of silky shadows and smoke. There were others, too. A raspier one. Softer, feminine tones. Quiet murmurings. But his, the voice of midnight…his I tuned into. It soothed me. Meant something to me.

He meant something to me.

“The first time I saw you—really saw you? You were just a child, but I didn’t look like this. I’d taken my wolf form.”

I looked at where the silver wolf sat. The wolf…it was him.

“Not that being in that form makes it…how did you say it?” A rough, low laugh traveled across the water, bringing a smile to my lips. “Any less creepy.”

I…I’d said that?

“You were this little thing carrying your weight in pebbles, your hair a pale tangle of moonlight. When you saw me, I thought you’d scream and run away. Child or not, most sensible mortals would do that when confronted by a wolf. You did neither of those things.”

I didn’t think I… I was known to be sensible.

“You just stared at me with those big green eyes.” There were several moments of silence, and I feared he wouldn’t speak again, but he did. “It was a long time before you saw me again. Not until the night you turned seventeen, but I saw you between then.”

I had the strange impression that the night he spoke about had once been important to me. Life-changing and haunting. A source of bitter failure that had once felt like it would never go away. But I also sensed the event no longer meant anything to me.

“I never told you about the dream I had of your lake before I even laid eyes on it,” he said. “I can’t even say it was a dream. It was…yeah, it was something else. But for years, I told myself that was all it was. Convinced myself until I no longer could. It was a warning, one I heeded.” Heavy regret filled his voice. “But I did so in the worst way possible.”

He fell quiet then, and I was grateful. I didn’t want him talking about things that made him sad. I wanted him to laugh as he had before.

Time passed as I floated, and I heard other voices. Ones I didn’t recognize. Some I thought I would know eventually. They talked about the past and the future. They shared ancient knowledge, speaking of magic and power until his voice silenced theirs.

He spoke more, mentioning the night he saw me in a Temple. He told me how he tried to distance himself from me. Talked about how he saw me again when he stopped me from attacking some gods.

It sounded like a completely insensible thing for me to try, but it made me smile.

“I already knew by then that you were brave,” he said. “I just hadn’t realized how brave you’d become. How fearless and passionate you were.”

I liked that part.

“And I wasn’t prepared for how much I’d feel… How I’d feel alive just being in your presence.”

I really liked that part.

“After I had my kardia removed, I was still capable of feeling. Caring. I was still myself, I just didn’t… I don’t know.” His voice sounded closer.

As I floated, I felt the ghost of a touch on my cheek. My eyes closed. I really, really liked that.

It struck me then that I always liked when he touched me. Loved it.

“I just didn’t feel things strongly. I was no longer capable of doing so,” he told me. “Until you. You made me feel things strongly. Everything, liessa.”

Liessa? Was that my name? I didn’t think so, but my heart skipped at hearing it. And it wasn’t a bad feeling. It was pleasant. I loved when he called me that. It had a special meaning.

“From that very first damn kiss, I should’ve known.” He sighed.

Known what?

Better yet… I wanted him to tell me about our first kiss. I wanted to remember it.

And he did, much to my happiness. “You knew I was, at the very least, a god, and you still threatened me.”

Well, that happiness was incredibly short-lived. Why had I threatened him? I had a feeling I’d been justified.

“You warned me that if I tried anything…”

Go for that weapon on your thigh again? I heard his voice—not then, but in my mind. He’d said that to me after I threatened him, and I had answered with a yes.

“When I shushed you, I really thought you were going to hit me,” he said with another low chuckle. “I never knew a mortal to be so…wonderfully belligerent to a god. It was refreshing.”