A high-pitched yelp came, causing me to flinch. The entire sanctuary shook as something large landed nearby.
I now knew what Nektas was burning.
Other draken.
“You’re safe.” Ash caught my wide stare. “Talk to me, liessa. Please.”
“You found me.”
“Always.” Eather-laced eyes swept over my features before they slammed shut. His chest rose, and then he looked at me again. “I will always find you, Sera.”
Tears immediately rushed my eyes, stinging them. Drawing in a breath filled with his scent, I lifted a tingling arm and grasped the back of his neck, catching strands of hair between my fingers.
“But I didn’t find you.” Ash dragged his thumb over the curve of my jaw. “You found me. My beautiful, strong Consort. You ended this nightmare.”
I had, hadn’t I?
But didn’t that sound too good to be true? That I’d stopped Kolis before he…destroyed me in ways I wasn’t sure I would recover from? That I finally understood the full extent of how powerful the embers were and freed Ash from his prison?
My breath hitched.
I could see and feel him, but everything felt surreal—from the moment I’d touched The Star until this very second. It didn’t feel real.
What if this—all of this—was one of those too-real dreams? Panic slithered up my spine. What if I hadn’t stopped Kolis and had instead retreated far into my mind? Heart tripping, I turned my head to the side. My gaze skipped over small shards of gilded bone, swaths of fine cream and gold silk, and a wide pool of shimmery red-blue blood.
Kolis lay on the floor, his arms widespread. His face and throat were a mangled mess. So were other parts of him. A gilded bone jutted from his chest—from his heart—but that wasn’t where my stare lingered. It shifted back to his arms.
Arms he hadn’t lifted to defend himself. He’d gone still when I said I was going to kill him. I thought I’d seen…acceptance settle into his features. Maybe even a glimpse of…peace.
That couldn’t be right. It sounded like something my imagination would cook up. I sucked in a shallow breath as a draken’s growl grew closer.
“Is this…？” I rasped, my throat scratchy and hoarse. “Is this a dream?”
“No, liessa.” Ash guided my attention from Kolis with a gentle press of his fingers against my cheek. Tension bracketed his mouth. “This is not a dream. It’s real. I’m here. We’re not at your lake.”
A shudder of relief coursed through me as Ash’s confirmation scattered the remaining fuzziness from my mind. So many things rushed me at once—stuff I needed to be concerned about, but the only thing I cared about was him. “Are you okay?”
“Am I…？” A shaky laugh parted his lips as he shook his head. “I can’t believe you’re asking if I’m okay.”
“You’ve been imprisoned,” I pointed out, drawing in another deep breath. I didn’t feel like I needed to vomit, but the exhaustion remained, and I thought—
No, I knew what that meant.
I did.
A strange sense of calmness descended over me. My chest loosened. Resolve filled me. I needed to get up. We had to get out of here because someone, or multiple someones, were bound to arrive. And if someone removed that bone from Kolis, he would awaken. And then…
Everything would get really bad, really fast, because Kolis would know the truth—that I wasn’t Sotoria.
Even if that didn’t happen, Nektas’s fight could end up on top of the sanctuary, and there were innocent people like the Chosen here. I tried to sit up, but Ash’s arms were like steel bands around me.
“And you haven’t been?” Ash’s hand slid to the nape of my neck. The coolness of his fingers was pure bliss against the tight muscles.
“I’ve had it much easier,” I said, though the talk of imprisonment made me think of another. “Veses is free. I don’t know how.”
“With me being in stasis, the wards on the cells would’ve weakened,” he said. “Are you sure you’re fine?”
“Yes,” I assured him as he tilted my head back. “But what if she hurt someone—？”
“You are not fine.” His nostrils flared.
The air in the chamber suddenly thinned, charging with energy. The tiny hairs on my arms lifted as the embers in my chest thrummed faintly in response to the power pouring from…
“Ash?” I whispered.
Shadows appeared, whirling beneath his flesh in a dizzying rush as his eyes filled with tendrils of crackling eather—eyes that were focused not on mine but on my throat.
My heart thudded heavily. The memory of Kolis’s fangs scraping against the skin of my throat sent a wave of revulsion through me. He must’ve broken the skin. That would explain the dull pain there.
Ash’s head lifted, his attention shifting beyond me to where Kolis lay. His lips peeled back, revealing his fangs. He started to lower me to the floor. “I’m going to destroy him.”
My breath snagged in my chest. With the eather lighting up the veins of his, cutting through the whipping shadows there, and the darkness gathering on the floor, I thought there might be a good chance he could, in fact, do that, especially given Kolis’s state. As Kolis himself had said: His nephew was very powerful. But…
But Kolis couldn’t die.
I’d known that when I drove the bone through his heart. My hold on Ash tightened as I willed myself to be, for once in my life, the smarter, more logical one. “Let it go.”
Ash tensed against me as a thick mass of midnight whipped around us. “What?”
“Let it go,” I repeated, tugging on his hair until his gaze returned to mine. I could barely see the pupils in his eyes. “He’s not worth it.”
“Worth what, exactly?” he snarled. “Because right now, anything and everything is worth ending the bastard’s existence.”
“The end of the realms?” I reasoned.
His eyes narrowed. “I don’t give a fuck about the realms.”
A quick, hoarse laugh left me. “Yes, you do.” I took a deep breath to clear my mind more. “You care about the realms.”
“You give me too much credit, liessa,” he said. “You think of me too kindly.”
“You don’t give yourself enough credit,” I shot back.
Two clouds of shadowy eather rose behind him, taking the faint shape of wings. “I’ve told you this before. Any and all decent bones I have in me belong to you.”
“And I’ve told you before, that isn’t true.”
“Do not argue with me, Sera.” His body hummed with vicious power as the shadows in his skin melded. Somewhere in the chamber, something cracked loudly. “Not about this.”
“I’m not arguing with you!”
He glared, and I could’ve sworn he was counting to ten. “I don’t think you understand what the word argue means.”
“I don’t think you understand what it—”
“He bit you!” Ash roared, causing my body to jolt as the shadow wings slammed down onto the floor, shaking the entire chamber.
I sucked in a sharp breath, resisting the urge to touch my neck. “He didn’t. I stopped him this—” I stopped myself before I said more and made things worse. “I stopped him.”