“Poor him.” I turned to Attes. “Can you take him?”

Attes nodded. “I’ll drop him off somewhere.” He flashed a grin. “Somewhere really inconvenient.”

“As long as it doesn’t interfere with the eirini,” Ash said, “you can drop him off in the Lassa Sea.”

“Actually…” Attes’s smile grew as he picked up the Revenant’s lifeless body and tossed it over his shoulder. “That sounds like a good idea.”

I woke with a jolt, essence thrumming through my body, along with an overpowering sense of something off in the air.

Something wrong.

Something unnatural.

I opened my eyes. The cool weight of Ash’s arm remained around my waist, and his chest rose against my back as my vision adjusted to the darkness of the chamber. I lay there in silence, waiting for the sensation to subside. It didn’t.

Did I have a nightmare? I had no recollection of such, but it wouldn’t be entirely surprising if I had.

Scanning our surroundings, I didn’t see anything wrong about the space. I looked at the balcony doors, holding myself completely still. I heard and saw nothing, but the sensation of some sort of…shift in the realm continued to rise. Hair slipped over my shoulders, falling into my face and across my chest as I rose halfway onto my elbow.

The arm around my waist curled. “Liessa?” Ash’s voice was gruff with sleep. “Is it a nightmare?”

I was so fixed on the sensation, I didn’t have much of a reaction to his assumption. “No.” I peered at the heavy curtains blocking the balcony door. “Do you feel it?”

In an instant, Ash was sitting upright. When he spoke again, all traces of sleep were gone. “Feel what?”

“I’m not sure, but it feels like there’s something in the air that shouldn’t be—something that shouldn’t be here.” Confused, I shoved tangled strands back from my face. “You don’t feel anything?”

“I don’t feel anything.” Ash’s chest brushed my arm.

Confused, I searched the silence and stillness of the chamber. What was I feeling?

Ash leaned in, dropping a kiss on my shoulder. “Do you still—?” He stiffened against me, going so quiet that unease blossomed.

I twisted toward him, my stomach dipping when I saw streaks of eather lighting up his eyes in the darkness.

“Shit,” he growled, tossing the blanket aside. He swung his legs off the bed and was on his feet in a heartbeat.

“What is it?”

“I feel it now.” Moving to the wardrobe, he pulled on a pair of breeches. Two of the wall sconces flickered to life, casting a soft glow into the chamber. His skin had thinned.

My hands fisted in the blanket. “Is it Kolis?”

“No,” he snarled, shadows swirling across the hard line of his jaw. “It’s the Abyss.”

CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

Relief and concern whirled together as I scooted to the edge of the bed. “That was not at all what I expected you to say.”

“And I didn’t expect you to feel that before me.” Pulling the pants up to his hips, he looked up and over at me. “Your senses are continuing to progress impressively.”

“I’m going to hold off on bragging about that until you tell me exactly what I felt that involves the Abyss.”

“I’m not sure.” He tugged a tunic over his head. “I can only feel the unrest radiating from there, though that is not entirely uncommon. Sometimes, it’s an escaped soul.”

I supposed that would explain why it felt like something was here that didn’t belong. “And when it’s not that?”

His gaze met mine. “Other times, when a soul makes it out, it stirs up the rest and becomes an uprising of sorts.”

I didn’t need any foresight to know that an uprising in the Abyss, where souls paid for every evil deed they committed while alive, wasn’t good.

I rose. “I just need to find something to wear.”

Ash grabbed the leather straps of his baldric. “That won’t be necessary.”

I turned my head toward him. Did he really expect me to stand back when he wasn’t? Oh, he knew better than that. “What do you mean it won’t be necessary? And don’t say it’s because I can’t enter the Abyss. I know I can,” I said, having had no knowledge of that before it came out of my mouth.

“Yes, you can.” Draping one of the straps over his shoulder, his fingers moved expertly over the baldric. “But that doesn’t mean you should.”

Crossing my arms, irritation flared to life. “Is it because the Abyss is your thing, and you’re, like, asserting boundaries or something?”

He paused, brows snapping together. “Seriously?”

I lifted a shoulder. “It’s a valid question. I mean, that is your arena.”

He stared at me for a moment, then curtly shook his head. “It has nothing to do with that. Especially since you’re the true Primal of Life, Sera. All the realm is your thing.”

My chest squeezed, and not because that was still overwhelming to hear. And it was. But it was how he looked at me. As if he couldn’t believe I would suggest such a thing. I hadn’t meant to offend him with my question, but perhaps I had. I shifted, uncomfortable. “Then why?”

“Would you like one reason or many?”

My eyes narrowed as my guilt over possibly upsetting him vanished. “Would you like me to give you one reason or many to explain the anger I’m sure I’m projecting all over you?”

I swore I saw him grin as he turned his head to the side. “You’re the Queen.”

“And you’re the King.”

“Yes, but you’re the Queen.” He buckled the harness, looking up. “The true Primal of Life.”

“Whose senses are progressing impressively, according to you,” I snapped. “And it’s not like I just Ascended yesterday, so it isn’t like I need to be resting and eating and feeding every five seconds.”

“That has nothing… Fuck.” Eather pulsed behind his pupils as his gaze swept over me. His lips parted, revealing a hint of fang as his citrus scent increased. “I’m not sure how I’m supposed to reason with you,” he said, his voice smoothening and deepening. “Not when you’re standing before me gloriously naked.”

Sultry heat hit my veins as my body happily responded to his arousal, but every other part of me was so not on board. “Well, you’d better figure it out.” I watched him cross the space between us. “I can help, Ash, and I refuse to sit back and do nothing while you put yourself in danger just because I’m the…whatever. That is not how this is going to play out.”

“I would never expect you to do that. I wouldn’t even want that.” He caught a strand of hair that had fallen against my cheek. “It thrills me that you have my back. You have to know that. But you are the Primal of Life.”

I stared up at him, my frustration rising. “I know. That’s been repeatedly established, Ash.”

“But you haven’t really thought about it.” He clasped the nape of my neck. “You would be entering the Abyss, Sera. Not just the outskirts, where the riders had you, but deep within the Abyss. Every soul there will sense you—will be drawn to you.”

I immediately thought about the Shades gathering at the edges of the Dying Woods.

“That alone will cause things to escalate,” he continued. “But it’s more than that. You’re already worried about not being able to stop yourself from bringing someone back. And remember what I said about my father struggling against his instinct to intervene when near the Pillars and how much it saddened him? Being there could be overwhelming for you.”

I clamped my jaw shut, causing my fangs to scrape the insides of my mouth. “Ouch,” I muttered, touching my lip. “These godsdamn fangs.”

“Careful with them. I like the way they feel.” Ash cupped my cheek, tilting my head back. “I need to go.”

The rational side of me knew he was right. My presence would make things worse, and my already tenuous restraint on my ability to restore life would be tested. Then again, I wasn’t sure I’d be all that inclined to bring those in the Abyss back to life.