The absolute fuckery of her statement cleared a little of the haze of impending bloodlust.
“Meanwhile, my daughter has taken my port city from me,” she continued, and my entire body tightened. “Ah, I see that has your attention. Yes. Penellaphe seized Oak Ambler, and I have a feeling I’m now a few Ascended short of what I was before.”
I felt my lips start to curve upward.
“Smile all you want.” Isbeth bent at the waist, her heavily lined eyes shrewd. “Do I look remotely bothered by the news?”
It took a moment to focus. No, she did not.
“Oak Ambler would always fall,” she said, her voice dropping to a whisper that I barely heard over her heart. “It had to.”
A low rumbling sound filled the cell, and she straightened suddenly, her crimson lips thinning. My lips had peeled back, and that sound…it was me.
“Oh, for godssake.” Isbeth snapped her fingers, motioning one of the Handmaidens forward. Something was in her hand. A chalice. “Hold him.”
Callum moved fast, but I saw him. I lurched to the side and to my feet, throwing out my elbow and making contact with the Rev’s chin, startling the bitch. The golden boy grunted as he stumbled back. There was no time to relish either of those things. I launched myself at her. The chain tightened around my throat, jerking my body back. I shot forward again, past the point of caring how tight the band around my throat clamped down. Past the ability to register the pain from the shackles digging into my ankles. I pulled hard against the chains, stretching out—
An arm clamped around my chest, hauling me back. “That hurt,” Callum muttered as he slammed his booted foot into my calf. The move, one I should’ve known was coming, took my damn leg out from underneath me.
I went down, my knees cracking off the stone floor as one of the Handmaidens gripped the chains securing my arms and twisted. She forced my arms to cross over my chest, pinning them there as fingers dug into my jaw, yanking my head back.
“Get this over with,” Isbeth ordered.
Another Handmaiden briefly appeared in my line of sight as I bucked against the Rev’s hold, my feet slipping over the floor as I threw my head back. The hiss of pain brought a wild, choked laugh to my lips as Callum’s head snapped back. I pushed my weight into him, slamming him into the wall as I dragged the Handmaiden holding the chains forward.
“Gods,” Callum groaned, shifting his hold from behind me. “He’s still strong.”
“Of course, he is,” Isbeth commented. “He’s of the Elemental bloodline. They are always strong. Fighters. No other bloodline would’ve been brave—nor idiotic—enough to stab me. Even when they’re mere hours from becoming nothing more than a blood-starved animal. And I bet he also has the blood of my daughter in him.”
And then everything was a blur of black and pain and something earthy and charred. Of fingers digging into my jaw and forcing my mouth open. Someone shoved a chalice in my face, under my nose, and a brief, iron-rich scent hit me before landing on my tongue, filling my mouth, and pouring down my throat.
I choked, gagging on the warm thickness, even as every cell in my body opened up, becoming raw and screaming in need.
“I must confess something, my dear son-in-law.” Isbeth’s voice was a lash of flames. “You know what I never wanted to be? A Primal. I never wanted that weakness.”
She was closer. Probably close enough for me to get to her again, but the blood hit my gut, and my entire body spasmed.
“A god can be killed just like an Atlantian. Destroy the heart and the mind. But a Primal? You have to weaken them first. And do you know how you weaken a Primal? It’s rather cruel. Love. Love can be weaponized, weakening a Primal and becoming the blade that ends their existence.” A soft laugh echoed around me. Through me. “I wonder how much you even know about Primals. I must admit, I knew very little myself. If it weren’t for my Malec, I never would’ve learned the truth. I never would’ve known that a Primal could be born to the mortal realm.”
A Primal born to the mortal realm?
“When the gods you know now Ascended to rule over Iliseeum and the mortal realm, forcing most of the Primals into their glorious eternities, it created a ripple effect that caught the eyes and ears of the Fates. They made sure that a spark was left—a chance for rebirth of the greatest powers. An ember of Primal life that could only ignite in the female lineage of the Primal of Life.”
My head jerked up, and I saw Isbeth in sudden, sharp clarity. What she was saying, suggesting… She hadn’t given birth to a god. She’d birthed a—