Kolis materialized directly behind Ash, descending on him in a heartbeat.

Ash spun, pulling his sword back and plunging it deep into Kolis’s chest. The impact knocked the Primal of Death back several feet before he caught himself.

Looking down at the sword’s hilt, he laughed and grasped it.

I pushed forward, and Ash flew toward him, slamming his fist into Kolis’s jaw. I didn’t make it very far. An arm snagged me around the waist as Kolis staggered and then steadied himself. He pulled the sword free. The blade shattered, and he vanished again. Suddenly, I was moving through the air—

I smacked into a wall with enough force that my spine would’ve broken if I’d been mortal. Still, my immediate concern was the lives I carried within me as I fell forward. Primal or not, the impact had rattled every part of me and stunned me for several seconds.

Ash’s head cut toward me when I landed on one hand and my knees. I looked up through several loose curls to see Ash coming for me.

The air behind him warped, and Kolis appeared again.

“Behind you!” I screamed.

Kolis’s lips curved up, and Ash turned. The true Primal of Death was on him in a heartbeat, gripping the front of Ash’s tunic and baring his fangs. I shoved up off my hand, desperate to intervene.

“Oh, look,” Kolis spat. “The bitch is already on her knees.”

A roar left Ash, shaking the ruins as he jerked forward, bashing his head into Kolis’s. I started to rise, but a boot connected with my jaw, knocking my head back sharply. Pain shot down my spine, and the muscles along my neck protested. The sound of fists connecting with flesh echoed through the Temple.

A hand clamped down on my throat, lifting me roughly to my feet and then off them.

Varus stared up at me, his once smooth complexion torn open across his cheeks. “Payback’s a bitch,” he snarled.

There were only a few seconds to consider how strong the once-entombed god was before I was suddenly flying into the darkness.

In those brief seconds of weightlessness, I wasn’t thinking about myself or Ash. I was thinking about our children. I managed to twist my body so my upper back and shoulders took the brunt of the impact, a heartbeat before I crashed into the floor with enough force to knock the air from my lungs and crack the stone beneath me.

Fuck.

That hurt.

A lot.

A wall suddenly exploded, and Ash and Kolis came through it, sending chunks of stone flying in every direction. By the grace of the Fates, only the smallest pelted me as Ash and Kolis rose toward the pitched ceiling.

They were both in their Primal forms, a blur of shadows and crimson, clashing with the force of colliding stars and exchanging blows with their fists and eather.

An uncomfortable sense of déjà vu swept through me as they fought, and pain swept up and down the length of my body in waves.

“You still think you can defeat me, nephew?” Kolis’s laugh carried the scent of stale lilacs when he threw Ash to the floor. “I am true Death.”

Ash landed in a crouch, his pure silver gaze briefly meeting mine. I willed my stupid legs and arms to move. The pain was quickly fading, but all I managed to do was the lamest thing ever. I gave Ash a thumbs-up.

“There is no Primal more infinite than true Death,” Kolis boasted, crimson-streaked darkness spinning around him. “Nothing more certain and inevitable than I. There is no bond I cannot break, no magic I cannot undo, or life I cannot take.”

A low growl came from Ash. He rose, nearly solid wings appearing from the mist gathering around him. “You are and have always been nothing.”

Kolis looked down. “I was going to keep you alive, chained at the foot of my throne until I released her from her misery. Oh, how I looked so forward to it. Seeing every pain I inflicted on her mirrored in your features.” Crimson throbbed in the air, and the scent of death filled the chamber. “But I see now that I will just have to settle for your death and her endless suffering.”

Ash sneered. “Are you done talking, for fuck’s sake?”

A hiss slithered from Kolis, and the mist around him whipped out, spreading across the length of the chamber and billowing against the ceiling. “It is you who will become nothing,” Kolis seethed, his gaze shooting to me. “And so shall…” He trailed off as his head cocked. “I see your soul. I see…” He inhaled sharply with a shout of rage. “I see their souls!”

Oh, fuck.

Ash flew off the floor, sending a blast of eather into Kolis.

The true Primal of Death flew back, stopping in midair. “She’s pregnant!” His laugh was coarse—and crazed. “She will get to have children?”

Panic threatened to explode through me, but I fought it back. The pain finally retracted, giving me control over my body. I sat up. My hands were empty. I had no idea where I’d dropped the sword.

“I will carve them from her womb and feed them to my dakkais,” he swore.

“The fuck you will.” Ash crashed into Kolis with the force of a tempest.

“No. Better yet, she will birth them.” He grabbed Ash’s cheeks, his voice filling with a sinister glee. “And I will raise them as mine. They will be my gift to Sotoria—”

Ash’s head snapped forward, and he tore into Kolis’s throat.

Kolis laughed, grabbed Ash by the hair, and tossed him aside.

I gathered my legs under me just as Varus hopped over the half-standing wall. Eather tinged in red sparked from his fingertips. He smirked.

“Kolis says I cannot kill you.” Varus raised his hands. “But he did say I could hurt—”

The pillars behind Varus exploded under the strength of a black-and-gray-spiked tail.

Nektas.

His tail rushed across the floor, ramming into Varus. The god shrieked—actually shrieked—going airborne. My gaze tracked him as he flew across the Temple and out another opening.

I laughed.

Pushing through any lingering pain, I leapt to my feet, watching Ash and Kolis crash into the floor toward the back of the Temple, causing the entire structure to tremble. I started toward them, beginning to summon Thierran again—

I sucked in a sharp breath and felt a wrenching motion deep in my chest.

I froze. It was the same as I’d felt before, but not quite so intense. The sensation flowed through me, and the sky beyond the Temple lit up with silvery fireworks.

A Primal had fallen.

From the back of the chamber, Kolis roared in anger. It hadn’t been one of ours.

Phanos.

High-pitched, mournful calls split the air in a song of death. It was the ceeren, crying out in anguish.

As wrong as it was, a smile crossed my lips. I lifted my head—

The space around me stirred as Ash’s roar thundered. I spun, catching a brief glimpse of Kolis skidding across the ruined floor before my gaze locked with the pale blue eyes of a Revenant.

Callum smiled. “Miss me?”

I stepped to the side, fast but not fast enough. Air punched from my lungs in a fiery burst of pain.

Shadows peeled away from the sides of the Temple, rippling and racing across the floor. I looked down.

A bone dagger jutted out of me, the hilt reverberating from the impact of the thrust. The ungodly heat of the bone blade started to burn my flesh. I staggered back. “Were you aiming for my heart?”

“I was.”

I lifted my gaze, and a metallic taste filled my mouth again. “Guess what?” I gritted out, grabbing the hilt. “You missed.”

Callum sighed, shoulders slumping. “Shit.”

Behind him, a violent, churning mass of shadows pulsed and throbbed. In the center, two silvery eyes glowed with feral rage.

“And you’ve really pissed off my husband.” I smiled through the burn of pain. “Fucker.”

Callum started to turn, but the shadows snaked out, slamming into him. Twin streams of smoky eather burst through his shoulders, throwing him back several feet behind me and into a hall. Another sliced through his stomach. Screaming, he flailed wildly as he was sucked into the air.