But not today.

Nothing would stop Nyktos from showing his wife his paintings.

And perhaps, if his Queen was not too tired afterward, he would have her sit for him, and he would know exactly which paints it took to capture the pink in her cheeks and the green and silver in her eyes.

After all, getting her to blush was easy.

Nyktos knew just how.

The Star

The one we watched was neither alive nor dead. Neither god nor mortal, yet risen from Primal blood.

He was something else.

An abomination.

And yet, it was a miracle of creation that even the most jaded had to admire.

There were no others like him, but the realms had whispered that another would come—neither dead nor alive, god nor mortal. An abomination. A miracle. A cruel twist of fate.

The first daughter, with blood full of fire, fated for the once-promised King.

The first Chosen who would fail. Who would be forgotten, just like the ancestor she would so closely resemble. Her failure would signal the eventual arrival of the second daughter, the one born with blood full of ash and ice, the other half of the future King.

So, we did what we always did. We watched.

And he walked for days, weeks, and years, his face no longer painted in gold.

He always came back to the same place—where it all began.

The Cliffs of Sorrow.

He never stayed long while sitting on the edge, arms wrapped tightly around the brown leather satchel he always carried with him. The one he didn’t open.

He walked as kingdoms fell and new ones rose in their places. He traveled as all the old Primals faded into history, as the one who had created him was forgotten. He continued as new gods rose and their offspring inhabited the mortal realm. He walked the lands east of the Skotos then, staying hidden as the son of Primals helped build the new world. He didn’t return to the east after wolves were given dual lives by the true Primal of Life to guide the offspring of mates of the heart. Like with the draken, he was clever enough to suspect that they would sense something off about him. He walked as the pestilence of the most craven spread across the mortal realm. He traveled as the War of Two Kings ignited, forcing the great kingdom to the east to near ruin. He continued as Nyktos honored the oath he’d made to the true Primal of Life, and, one by one, the gods went to sleep to prevent vengeance against those who had harmed her child.

The one who walked only stopped when he saw her, his hand protectively cradling the leather satchel that had faded from brown to yellow in the centuries that had passed.

We waited.

We waited and watched as he whispered in the new Queen’s ear, told her more than what the son of Primals had even spoken of. We watched as heroes became villains and entire histories were rewritten. We wept when the forgotten symbol of true Death was raised throughout the mortal realm, etched in gold and surrounded by crimson. And we saw the day he brought the Crimson Queen to the cliffs and, for the first time, opened the satchel, now a shade of tan, pulling out The Star. We watched as he gave it to the Queen, and she took possession of it with great care.

And we knew that what the realms had first whispered thousands of years ago, even before a Queen ruled Iliseeum, would not be stopped.

And we saw.

Her birth stirred Death from his slumber. Each year that passed, he grew stronger, and those buried even deeper than him in lands across all the realms began to grow restless. We could not look away when her Ascension, at the hands of her fated mate, released Death and woke our brethren in lands beyond the Primal Veil. We wept again as the tallest mountains erupted, spewing forth flames and clouds that consumed all in their path, boiling the rivers and turning seas into deserts as they clawed their way from the ground. We didn’t look away when they saw what man had done to their precious land and blessed forests. We mourned as they laid waste to sprawling stone kingdoms and toppled great steel cities in their rage, ending the lives of billions of mortals in one cruel sweep of retribution.

For as told by the last oracle, they had risen as the ruin and wrath of the once-great beginning.

And she, the second daughter, with blood full of ash and ice, fated for the future King, summoned the true Primal of Life and then rose as Blood and Bone.

And what we saw then, as old gods rose and the Primal Veils weakened, shocked even the eldest of us. We saw the future that would come, but this end was different.

It would be a beginning soaked in blood. For every choice—from the moment the first viktor sacrificed himself to save the Silver Queen to when Sotoria fell from the cliffs; when Nyktos screamed at the realms and Ascended a mortal to become the Queen of the Gods; the failure of the first daughter and the birth of the second; the desperate love of a mate, to that of a mother’s desperation—and every action had been birthed from the same emotion.

Whether it was unrequited or welcomed. Whether it was felt between siblings who never moved past the loss of the other or for one’s children before they were even born into the realm. Whether it was forged from unending grief, between true mates of the heart, or drove a mother to plunge a dagger into the heart of her true mate instead of her daughter. It was all the same. Some great. Some terrible. And it had driven the realms to the brink of what was to come.

It was the most selfish and altruistic thing in all the realms, more powerful than the Ancients, and the only thing that could snap the threads of fate. It was the only hope the realms had now.

Love.

Visions of Flesh and Blood

A Blood and Ash/Flesh and Fire Compendium

Available in hardcover, e-book, and trade paperback.

Click here to purchase.

VISIONS OF FLESH AND BLOOD: a Blood and Ash/Flesh and Fire Compendium is a comprehensive companion guide for background, history, reader-favorite information, art, and reference materials. Combined with original short stories and scenes from some of the world’s most beloved characters, as well as never-before-seen visual enticements, it’s a treat for the senses.

Told from the point of view of Miss Willa herself, the compendium acts like research material but reads like a journal and cache of personal notes, allowing the reader to revisit the characters and history they so love yet view things in a different way.

VISIONS OF FLESH AND BLOOD by Jennifer L. Armentrout with Rayvn Salvador is a must-add addition to the series that any Blood and Ash/Flesh and Fire fan will enjoy.

Discover More Jennifer L. Armentrout

From Blood and Ash

Blood and Ash Series, Book One

Available in hardcover, e-book, and trade paperback.

Click here to purchase.

Captivating and action-packed, From Blood and Ash is a sexy, addictive, and unexpected fantasy perfect for fans of Sarah J. Maas and Laura Thalassa.

A Maiden…

Chosen from birth to usher in a new era, Poppy’s life has never been her own. The life of the Maiden is solitary. Never to be touched. Never to be looked upon. Never to be spoken to. Never to experience pleasure. Waiting for the day of her Ascension, she would rather be with the guards, fighting back the evil that took her family, than preparing to be found worthy by the gods. But the choice has never been hers.

A Duty…

The entire kingdom’s future rests on Poppy’s shoulders, something she’s not even quite sure she wants for herself. Because a Maiden has a heart. And a soul. And longing. And when Hawke, a golden-eyed guard honor bound to ensure her Ascension, enters her life, destiny and duty become tangled with desire and need. He incites her anger, makes her question everything she believes in, and tempts her with the forbidden.