“Sera,” Ash rasped thickly, his hands lifting halfway. “What are you doing?”
I swallowed, my stomach full of knots of anxiety, but my hand was steady. “Stop fighting, or I will slit my throat open.”
Kolis’s chin snapped down. “You will do no such thing.”
I pressed the tip of the blade into my skin until I felt the prick of pain. Suddenly, Ash…gods, it seemed like he had no control over his body. He jerked back a step. “Yes,” I said, keeping my gaze trained on their chests. I didn’t trust either of them not to use compulsion. Though avoiding eye contact wouldn’t prevent them from doing it. Not completely. “I will. And if I even think one of you is about to use compulsion, I’ll do it.”
“Sera,” Ash said again. “Put the dagger down.” He took a step forward, seeming to completely forget about Kolis as his scorched chest rose and fell rapidly. “Please.”
I sucked in a sharp breath, my hand trembling. “I will—” I gasped, a sharp sting of pain slicing across my throat when someone ripped the dagger from my fingers.
Ash shouted, and the fear in his yell…gods, it was palpable. I immediately knew I’d made a grave mistake.
Oh, gods.
I’d underestimated what they would and wouldn’t do. I’d thought I could distract Kolis. That he would be vulnerable to his love, his obsession for Sotoria.
But I’d distracted Ash, too.
The dagger I’d held to my throat was now in Kolis’s hand.
The false King of Gods was so damn fast. He twisted, slamming the dagger into Ash’s chest.
Right into his heart.
CHAPTER THREE
The blow Kolis landed knocked Ash back, and horror seized me.
The blade was just shadowstone. It should have little effect on a being as powerful as a Primal, but the numerous injuries marking Ash’s body had weakened him. That much was clear.
Ash caught himself, reaching for the hilt of the blade as he staggered forward, his wide eyes fixed on me and the wet warmth I could feel dripping down my throat. He dropped…oh, gods. He fell to his knees.
“Run,” he choked out, pitching forward onto one hand.
A high-pitched, terrified sound blasted my ears. It was a scream. My scream. The embers fluttered, briefly swelling before stalling. Pressure built in my chest and head, rapidly becoming an unbearable weight. I started toward Ash but didn’t make it. My legs collapsed, and I hit the cracked floor. Starbursts exploded across my vision.
Snarling, Kolis grabbed a fistful of Ash’s hair, yanking him back. The dagger was still in his chest, in his heart. “I offered you grace.”
“Stop,” I wheezed, my fingers pressing into the tile as I crawled forward on my belly.
Kolis threw Ash onto his back. “And you tossed it back into my face.”
Arms and legs shaking, I pushed up onto my knees. “Please,” I forced out, blood dripping onto the floor beneath me. “Stop—” My throat seized, cutting me off.
“You, of all people, should know better.” Kolis swung his leg up and then brought his foot down on the dagger’s hilt.
Ash’s entire body jerked.
A hand smacked down on my mouth, silencing my newest scream. “Listen to me,” Attes hissed in my ear. “Ash is still alive. A shadowstone blade will not kill him. He’s just weakened from battling Kolis. But if you keep screaming, Kolis will kill him.”
Kolis stomped his foot down on the dagger once more, and I felt it. I swore I felt the blow in my chest. My entire body shook.
Everything felt like it was rushing and spinning. The chamber. Attes’s words. What I saw. I strained against the Primal of War and Accord’s hold, desperately needing to get to Ash. Kolis was…oh, gods, he pulled the blade free and then thrust it into Ash’s chest again. A spasm went through me, swift and sharp. I went boneless and limp. Lifeless.
Attes cursed under his breath as he shifted me in his arms. “Sera?” Bright tendrils of eather whipped through his eyes. “Sera?”
My mouth was open, but only the thinnest bit of air got in, and there was this godsawful thumping and a wet, fleshy sound. I struggled to breathe, to turn my head toward Ash.
All I saw was the rise and fall of Kolis’s arm. Up. Down. Up. Down. A blood-slicked dagger glinted in the moonlight.
I screamed. I knew I did, even if there was no sound. I screamed and screamed, still shaking.
“Fuck.” Attes’s head shot up. “Kolis! She needs your help,” he shouted, his skin thinning. “Godsdamn it, listen to me. Sotoria is about to die.”
Thump. Thump. Thump.
“If you let that happen, you will lose her. Do you hear me?” Attes squeezed his eyes shut, and I thought I saw panic flash across his features. But I wasn’t sure what I was seeing. My eyes couldn’t focus. “You will lose your graeca.”
The horrific thumping ceased.
“No,” Kolis croaked. “No.”
The faint scent of vanilla and lilacs—stale lilacs—enveloped me, and then Attes was no longer holding me.
Kolis had me in his arms. He lifted me as he rose, my head lolling. “Put him in the cells,” he said. “I will deal with him when I return.”
If more was said, I didn’t know. A rush of wind whirled around us, and I was vaguely aware of warm night air touching my skin.
I struggled to open my eyes, but they no longer responded to my commands. The darkness smothered me, suffocated. My breaths came in shallow gasps, and my heart raced before it stuttered. Time. It sped up and slowed down, leaving me to exist in those too-long gaps between the beats of my heart and the ceaseless roar of the wind.
I didn’t want to die.
Not like this.
Not alone in the darkness with this monster.
I wanted to be with Ash, in his arms at my lake, as he’d promised we would be when my time came.
This wasn’t right.
It’s not fair, I swore I heard Sotoria whisper, her thoughts briefly mingling with mine.
The embers of life vibrated wildly. Panic surged like a wild animal trapped in a cage, desperate to break free, but there was no escape.
Death had always been inevitable.
I sensed that we’d stopped moving, stopped shadowstepping. A palm pressed down on the center of my chest, and my breath, my heart, snagged as a strange pins-and-needles sensation swept over me.
Then, there was nothing.
Ash.
That was the first thing I thought as I came to. The battle between him and Kolis, the blade striking him, moving up and down, up and down, stabbing into Ash’s body.
My eyes peeled open, going wide. The sky above was drenched in starlight, and I gulped salty, damp air that turned into thin breaths that barely did anything to ease the constriction in my chest. The buzzing in my ears retreated, and I heard voices coming from every direction. Whispers followed us as I caught the vague impression of people lowering themselves to their knees, and glimpsed twinkling lights inside sandstone buildings and larger structures in the distance. I couldn’t be sure, though. All I knew was that I was still being carried as I struggled to breathe.
Ash.
I didn’t know where I was or where he’d been taken. I had a vague memory of hearing a cell referenced. And before that, a wet, fleshy, thumping sound and the flash of a blood-slick dagger.