Kolis stumbled, the abyss of his eyes sparking gold and silver, but I didn’t see him. He wasn’t important as I held on to my will, picturing the silvery strands of eather stretching above the sanctuary and whipping outward, racing through the empty streets and between the sparkling buildings, past Cor Palace and the glittering wall of diamond and marble. I saw the winged statues guarding Dalos, and because I was feeling petty, I turned them to dust. Then I saw the mountains I’d looked upon earlier. I focused on the spots of darkness—the shadowstone—as I summoned the tendrils of throbbing power. They blanketed the foot of the Carcers like a silvery web before spreading up the sides of the mountain and winding their way through the maze of trees, finding the targets of shadowstone and blowing straight through them—through all the walls, floors, ceilings, and the chains within them.

At the end of the tendrils of eather I sent out, I saw eather-streaked silver eyes snap open.

And I smiled.

Kolis’s head jerked to the right, his jaw clenching as if he sensed what I’d done.

Who I’d freed.

His stare whipped back to me, and, yeah, he knew who was coming. Kolis had to feel the ice-drenched rage hit the air high above Dalos, fueling an unthinkable power, because I could.

A drop of blood hit the bodice of my gown as I shifted my focus to Kolis. The back of my skull tingled as the essence throbbed through what remained of the cage. Chests toppled. Gauzy gowns of white and gold lifted into the air, whirling around us like dancing spirits.

Kolis’s flesh reappeared as he returned to his mortal form. “Us?” he repeated.

“Shut up.” Eather surged, and I latched on to the power—my power. Crackling and spitting eather erupted from my fingertips, taking shape in my hand, stretching and lengthening into the thunderbolt I’d created before. My fingers closed around the humming mass of energy.

Kolis’s eyes widened. “Don’t.”

“Fuck you.” I threw the bolt as if it were a dagger.

And I rarely missed when I threw a blade.

I didn’t this time, either.

The lightning bolt struck true, knocking him off his feet and throwing him through the hole in the cage behind him. He hit the floor and rolled several feet.

I walked forward, lifting my hands. What remained of the gilded bones rose into the air all around me, mostly just tiny shards with a few the length of my hand or slightly longer.

Kolis shot to his feet, the skin of his chest charred and smoking. His lip curled as his chin dipped. “You don’t want to do this.”

I glanced to my left. “But I do.”

His gaze followed mine to the shards. “Fuck.”

He darted to the side, escaping the full brunt of what I sent at him, but several embedded themselves in his stomach and thighs. His head lifted as he grabbed one in his stomach, his face grimacing from the pain. “Stop this now.”

“Stop?” I laughed as a draken’s roar ended in a yelp in the distance.

“Yes. It’s not too late—”

“Do you swear that to me? That you can forgive me?” As I stepped out of the cage, silky material swirled around me, snagging on the shredded bones. “That we can start anew?”

Confusion flickered across Kolis’s features as he blinked. “Yes.”

I laughed as a thunderous roar of rage neared. “Come now, you speak as if you’re capable of still looking upon me as…her,” I said, changing only that in what he’d said to Eythos. “You’re not as good of a liar as I am.”

Kolis went still.

“You never were.” I walked through the spinning gowns. “There’s no coming back from this—any of this.”

Disbelief gave way to a mess of emotions I’d never seen on his handsome face before. Horror. Sorrow. Regret. “You saw…”

A longer piece of bone flew forward. Kolis lurched to the left, but his shock cost him. It got him in the shoulder, dragging him down to the floor.

My hand snapped out, catching one of the bones. The contact burned my hand as I prowled toward him, but I held on. The pain was worth it. “You didn’t believe Eythos when he said he loved you.”

Kolis struggled with the bone jutting from his skin, his wild gaze darting to the one in my hand.

“That is why you stabbed him. You didn’t think it would kill him. A wound to the heart wouldn’t have done that—not even with one of these.” I kicked his hand away, then slammed my foot onto his arm, pinning it down. “But he was weakened, wasn’t he?”

Kolis stared up at me as if I was a spirit he’d known had been haunting him but hadn’t been able to see until now. “I…I didn’t know he had removed the last embers from himself. If I had—”

“If you had, you wouldn’t have…what? Killed him by accident?”

A heavy breath shuddered from Kolis. “I…I didn’t mean to.” His eyes were so wide, so full of gold, that for a moment he didn’t look like the false King of Gods, but a man who had made many mistakes. “Because how could he love me?”

“Good question. I suppose your brother was a much more forgiving being than the rest of us. Definitely better than me,” I said, kneeling so I hovered over him but kept his arm pinned. “I want you to remember one thing, Kolis.”

Understanding dawned in his features, his gaze going to the bone I held.

“I want nothing more than to kill you.”

Kolis went completely still beneath me. He didn’t attempt to throw me off or defend himself. There was a flash of something akin to acceptance, and in the back of my mind, I thought maybe he wanted this. That he finally knew his actions had caused him to lose who he believed to be Sotoria, and death would now come as a relief.

It would’ve been sad if he weren’t such a bastard.

I drove the bone down onto his chest, into his heart and against the floor, jerking his entire body. I tore it free and thrust it down again and again, turning his breaths into nothing but gurgles. I counted as I had after he’d bitten me and kept stabbing Kolis. I counted as I had when I’d sat in that bath as I drove the bone into his throat, head, and stomach.

One.

Two.

Three.

Four.

Five.

Blood covered my hands and spotted my arms and cheeks as I slammed the bone into his heart again. My arms shook. My body trembled.

Then I felt him.

Sucking in a few too-shallow breaths, I yanked my aching hands free from the bone, leaving it buried deeply in what turned out to be a highly sensitive part of him. I crawled off Kolis, scooting back against the floor until I hit the legs of a chair, the still-spinning gowns falling all around me. I stared at the closed chamber doors.

Why hadn’t Kolis’s guards entered?

It didn’t matter.

Pain pierced my temples and lanced across my jaw, slowly fading into a dull ache. Panting, I closed my eyes and focused on the embers. The eather throbbed inside me, in my veins and bones, no longer contained to just my chest. They were weaker than before—way weaker—but I pulled on them as I struggled to breathe. I wanted to see him. I needed to because the feel of the hot essence in my veins was likely significant. Final. A spasm ran through me as I remembered what Ash had told me about the essence. That it was my will.

So, I used it to give me what I wanted.

A weightless sensation settled over me, almost as if my consciousness were leaving my body. I became a wraith that floated through the windows in the ceiling and drifted across the empty breezeway, through Kolis’s chamber and into the corridors, tethered to the wispy fingers of eather that searched and searched—

Until I found him.

Ash.

He stalked the halls of the sanctuary, his leather pants tattered and hanging low on his hips. His skin was ashen, those savagely beautiful features—broad cheekbones and strong brow—sharper than ever before. Dirt smudged his abdomen, where the packed muscles stood out more starkly, proof that he hadn’t eaten anything substantial in weeks.