I rose, not as the true Primal of Life but as a Primal of devastating ruin and wrath.

That combustible mix poured into every fiber of my being. I turned to see Kyn and the Primal God of Wisdom, Loyalty, and Duty flanking him. An aura of silver and gold pulsed as a shockwave of ruinous wrath erupted from me. The ground began to tremble. Fissures appeared in the battlements. Dust clouds rose from streets and homes, and roofs peeled back, shattering in the wind, and walls collapsed. Flashes of vibrant orange, yellow, and brilliant, flickering red flames funneled into the sky above the capital. The earth beneath my feet cracked as I took a step forward.

“And you will soon learn that for yourself,” Kyn promised, wrenching the bone spear from the ground.

The land stopped trembling. The wind ceased. Blood rain no longer fell. The very air itself contracted. I saw the flash of unease loosening the corners of Kyn’s mouth, erasing his fucking smirk, and Embris’s eyes widened. All the violent, devastating energy came roaring back to its creator. Me.

My head jerked back as the pressure built and built, joining my will.

“Shit,” Kyn growled, launching the spear.

Eather streaked from my hands, slamming into the ground and then lifting. The energy rammed into the spear, shattering the bone.

“Fuck,” Embris rasped, moving fast. His hands were a blur.

Hot, stinging pain erupted in my shoulders, causing me to stagger back. I looked down to see two hilts vibrating from where the daggers were now embedded.

Reaching up, I pulled the first dagger free, wincing as pain radiated down both arms. I tore the second one out. The midnight blades were slick with shimmery, blueish-red blood. I lifted my head, breathed in the pain, and let it become part of me.

I laughed.

And the wall around Wayfair turned to dust.

Stepping forward, I threw the shadowstone daggers. Kyn cursed and spun. Embris lurched to the side. One grazed Kyn’s arm. The other struck Embris in the chest.

Too bad.

I’d been aiming for the head.

“Fates,” seethed Embris, yanking the dagger free.

“Well, now I think you just pissed her off,” Kyn spat, his head jerking to the right as he shouted a command.

Cimmerian peeled away from the walls and raced from the now tomb-like halls of Wayfair. More ran past where the wall had once stood. Hundreds of them. They rushed toward their end as the two Primals stood back.

Cowards.

They were fucking cowards.

Blood dripped from my arms when I thrust them forward. Bands of eather rippled out and split as I pictured the essence forming tendrils. They snaked across the ground, glancing over bodies before rising like vipers, striking their targets to my left and right.

Screams once more tore through the air when the streams of eather funneled through the Cimmerian’s chests and heads. The cloak of night fell away from each of them, and I raised my arms, lifting them into the sky. The warriors squirmed, shouting as strips of their flesh burned off.

Kyn’s glare met mine.

I smiled and closed my fists.

The screaming ceased when I crushed their throats. The sound of cracking bones radiated over the capital like thunder.

I stalked forward, bursts of eather appearing over the courtyard like dazzling, silvery fireworks. Blood dripped from my fingers, splashing off the soil. My chest throbbed with echoes of death. I didn’t falter as what remained of the Cimmerian fell to the ground in clumps and pieces.

Ancient instinct fueled me, and a great howling wind picked up. I pulled the essence from the very air itself, as well as the deepest parts of the ocean. All across the land, dots of silvery essence appeared. The realm contracted.

Kyn started backing up, lifting his hand to blow me a kiss. “Later.”

Shooting forward, I willed the eather toward him. Primal mist poured out of Kyn. The realm split open, and streaks of eather whipped out, slicing through the thick mist.

The essence slammed into nothing as Kyn shadowstepped back to Iliseeum.

I turned to Embris.

A thin, silvery line tore open behind the Primal, and he shadowstepped. He was fast, but my rage was unending—madness pouring from a bottomless well deep inside me.

I rushed forward, grabbing Embris’s arm just as Lasania fell away. Violent power tore through the empty air with a scream, collapsing the mist swirling around Embris’s legs.

I fell from the sky into a field of corn, landing on my knees. I didn’t feel the pain as I rose, though. Looking around, I saw the green, rolling hills of the kingdom of Terra.

Ahead, stalks of corn shuddered, and Embris staggered to his feet. He whipped around to face me. I prowled forward, and the energy ramped up, building as stalks of corn bent sideways.

Embris shouted, and the air opened behind him once more, this time revealing the stunning violet clouds surrounding the lush green hills of Lotho. Staggering, high-pitched draken calls could be heard.

The ground cracked under my feet, golden wisps of essence rising from the fissures. Eather as brilliant as the summer sun streaked out, searing the ground. The eather stretched between us, closing the distance between Embris and me. Essence rose, wrapping itself around his legs.

The tear in the realm flickered and then sealed, silencing the draken calls.

Embris’s head jerked around, his eyes widening. “You can’t do this!” he roared, flesh thinning. Tendrils of eather snapped around his wrists, stretching his arms out until his back bowed. “You can’t—”

I lifted my hand, silencing him with a twist of my wrist, shattering his jaw. “You will die in this realm.”

My words set fire to the corn, and the hills lit with an orange glow. The sky above me cracked open just as my heart had done when I saw Ezra’s face. Eather rushed down my arm, crackling and spitting.

All around me, the realm screamed, and I thought I heard my name in the loudest of them.

The valley shuddered when I rose from the ground, gripping Embris’s boyish curls. I twisted his head back and then struck, sinking my fangs into his throat.

The Primal shouted, and his energy lashed out at me, stinging me through my shirt and breeches. But I didn’t care. I drank deeply, taking in his blood—the very essence of the realms. I didn’t care that I had never really spoken to this Primal. I drank until I felt him weakening, felt his breaths becoming labored, and his heart falter. Only then did I tear my fangs free.

Silvery eather lit Embris’s veins, but it quickly turned golden. Blood leaked from the Primal’s ears, nostrils, and mouth, then seeped from his pores.

“You will not pass into Arcadia.” My lips brushed his cheek, peeling layers of his skin back. I dragged him into the air and away from the trembling walls surrounding Masadonia, the capital of Terra. I took him as far from the city as possible—from the bells I now heard ringing within the city’s walls. “There will be no long rest for you. No peace. You deserve nothing. You will cease to exist.”

The flesh of Embris’s throat had begun to flake off, golden eather flooding the rest of his body. I forced him to his knees.

“I am the One who is born of Blood and Ash, the Light and the Fire, and the Brightest Moon, the true Primal of Life and the Queen of the Gods and Common Man. I will give you what you deserve,” I whispered, but all in the realm, from the west to the east, heard my words. My skin tightened as I lifted my right arm. “I condemn you to the final death.”

Lightning erupted from the sky, striking my right palm. A jagged bolt formed, as hot as the Pits of Endless Flames of the Abyss. Guided by instinct, I jerked his head back and slammed the lightning bolt through the underside of his jaw.

The end of the Primal of Wisdom, Loyalty, and Duty wasn’t instantaneous.