Eather thrummed beneath the surface as I closed my eyes. I could do it, too. I could Ascend gods in their Courts to replace those who fell, ensuring minimal impact to the mortal realm. I could take control, releasing the Chosen and any draken Kolis had forced into servitude.

But that was the part of me I hadn’t slain talking.

Doing something like that would start a bloody war. Innocent gods and draken in the Shadowlands and throughout Iliseeum would die. It would spill over into the mortal realm, costing countless lives.

And as the true Primal of Life, none of that should feel as right as it did.

But as Ash had said, there was no changing this. And he was right. I didn’t need intuition to tell me there would be no abdicating the throne. There would be no period of adjustment. This was my present and future, and there wasn’t time to pretend that my entire existence and that of the realms hadn’t changed—or freak out in a spiral of self-doubt.

So, I needed to be…well, less like the version of me who could lie as easily as I could kill. I couldn’t continue being the temperamental, anxiety-ridden mess I was. Sure, Ash accepted all of that, even the part where I had attempted to kill him. He accepted me. But this was bigger than me—than us. I had the gods to think of now. The draken. Mortals. I needed to be better.

And standing in a bathing chamber with my eyes closed while giving myself the worst pep talk in history wasn’t where I should have started.

Taking another deep breath, I opened my eyes. The first thing I saw was the golden swirl of the marriage imprint on the top of my right hand. The sight helped to calm me. I lifted my gaze to the mirror.

Oh, dear.

My hair was a nearly silver, pale-blond nightmare. Wet, tangled curls and waves fell past my shoulders, brushing the curve of my waist. I was so not looking forward to attempting to brush out the knots. My gaze shifted to my face. I looked the same as I had before: freckled, stubborn jaw, slightly pointy chin, arched brows. But the pallor and bruises I had while in Dalos were gone.

I lifted my upper lip to reveal two canines barely longer than before. Tentatively, I prodded at one of them with my tongue and immediately winced as I nicked it. They were definitely sharper, even if they were, at least according to Ash, small.

Nothing else had changed about me except for the fangs—

“Holy gods,” I whispered, my lips parting in surprise.

The fangs weren’t the only thing that was different about me. My eyes had changed, too. I leaned in closer to the mirror as if that would somehow change what I saw.

It didn’t.

I looked past the glow behind my pupils. The aura had been there leading up to my Ascension, so that wasn’t unexpected.

My eyes were still green—well, sort of. Streaks of silver now splintered the irises, giving them an almost shattered effect.

I blinked once and then several times, but the shimmery lines of silver remained. My heart rate kicked up, and the streaks and flecks brightened.

How had Ash and Nektas not mentioned this?

I pushed back from the vanity and forced a dry swallow. “Well. Okay, then.” I nodded jerkily. “This…this is also who I am now. I can deal with it.” My chin lifted. “I will deal.”

And I would.

Because I had to.

The realms depended on it.

CHAPTER FIVE

“So.” I drew out the word as Ash placed a bowl of sugar-dusted strawberries on the table he’d moved closer to the couch. He’d done it so, as he’d put it, his Queen could be more comfortable while we ate. “When were you going to mention my eyes?”

“I did,” he replied, placing several more covered platters down. “I told you earlier that they were beautiful.”

“I just assumed you were being sweet.” My stomach grumbled as the aroma of herbs and spices rose. Exactly when had I last eaten? I had no idea. “It didn’t even cross my mind that you were saying it because they look broken.”

His deep, melodic chuckle skated over my skin. “Your eyes don’t look broken, liessa. They are as beautiful as they were before. Just slightly different now.”

“But they’re different than any other Primal’s. Even Bele’s eyes became silver after her Ascension.”

“I’m not sure why that is, but I imagine it has to do with you once being mortal.”

I watched him lift the lid from a plate of chicken, then another with beef. As he revealed another platter containing several helpings of different vegetables, my gaze lifted. I tracked each striking line of his face until I reached the curve of his jaw. “How did you get the scar on your chin?”

An eyebrow rose as he glanced over at me. “That was a random question.”

“I know.” My cheeks warmed. “It’s just something I’ve always wondered, and I thought I might die without ever learning the answer.”

Ash’s hand froze with the knife poised over the chicken. Our eyes locked, and his chest rose with a sharp breath. The aura of essence brightened behind his pupils, seeping out.

Concern blossomed. I reached for him, hesitating for only a heartbeat before placing my hand on his arm. “Are you okay?”

“Yes.” He cleared his throat. “It’s just that, for a few moments, I forgot how close I came to losing you.”

My heart stuttered as I squeezed his arm. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean—”

“Don’t apologize. There’s no reason to.” He leaned over and placed a quick kiss on my forehead. “It happened when I was younger, a few years after my Ascension and before I was able to keep my temper in check while around Kolis.”

My shoulders tensed. Of course, the scar was connected to the false King—also known as The Fucking Bastard.

“Kolis ordered me to sentence a god he’d recently killed to the Abyss. The god didn’t deserve his death or the punishment. I refused, pissing off Kolis while being too close to one of his draken.”

Gods, I hated Kolis.

“I thought the bastard was asleep,” he went on, slicing the chicken. “I was wrong.”

“Was it Naberius?” I asked, thinking of the large draken with the black scales tinged in red. “He was sleeping most of the time I saw him.”

Ash smirked. “That would be him. Nab is nearly as old as Kolis.”

Nab? Nap would’ve made a better nickname.

“He’s also one of the crankiest sons of bitches you’ll ever meet.”

My attention shifted to the bare shadowstone wall above us. “I saw a couple of his draken. Diaval was one of them.”

“You mean the blond-haired fucker?”

My lips quirked. “You mean the one with the prettiest hair I’ve ever seen? That fucker? Yes. When I tried to escape, he was with Elias when I got caught,” I said, thinking about the guard who had been spying for Attes. “I hit Diaval with eather like I did to you in the Dying Woods. Knocked him back several feet. I think he was too shocked to really react to it.”

A slow smile spread on his lips. “That’s my girl.”

My grin kicked up several notches. “There was another I never interacted with. I only saw him in passing, but something about him struck me as different than the others. He had light brown skin, and his hair was in braids.”

“That’s Sax,” Ash told me. “He’s the quietest of Kolis’s draken.”

“What do you mean by quietest?”

“I’ve never heard him speak. Not once.” Ash looked over at me. “Diaval and Nab always belonged to Kolis. They were with him when he ruled the Shadowlands.” He paused. “Sax was one of my father’s draken.”

Meaning he had been forced to bond with Kolis and was given no choice but to defend the Primal to the death. Gods, that sickened and angered me to the core. I fiddled with the edge of a napkin. It wasn’t right. “What happened with Nab?”

“I was mouthing off to Kolis, and, like I said, I thought Nab was asleep. He wasn’t, and when I stepped toward Kolis, the draken swiped out with his claws. He got me in my face—my chin and nose.” Ash gestured with his knife at the fainter scar on the bridge of his nose. “And then my throat. Almost severed half my damn head.”