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September 23 - October 2, 2025
“And I never see you as just Poppy,” he continued.
“There are no moments when I don’t need you with every fucking fiber of my being.” His hands slid back to delve into my hair. “And you know that, Poppy.”
“Blood is a source of strength and energy, but it’s not necessary to exist. That is just another lie fostered by the Blood Crown,” she told us. “In reality, blood is just a…”
“We may not age. We may be…killed in the same ways as others, but our strength? Our needs? They are those of a mortal,” Raina said. I suddenly felt as if I needed to sit down. “We are the Unbound,” she continued. “We do not feed on blood.”
“Ian… He was Unbound?” I asked, needing to hear it confirmed. “He was.” Malik waited until my attention returned to him. “And Millie introduced him to the Unbound way of life.” He paused. “And taught the Ascended there was another way to live.”
“It would be a boring bet because you would lose,” I countered. “Oh, man,” Delano murmured, fully halfway down in his chair now. “Mother and Father are fighting,” Emil remarked under his breath. “Again.”
They can’t see the colors, I responded as Kieran watched Cas and me. Pausing, I brought him into the conversation. Only the Arae—the Ancients—the true Primal of Life, and the true Primal of Death can. And Deminyen Primals. The others don’t have enough essence in them to see them.
Valyn turned his head slightly at the name. “I’m half-Atlantian. My mother was an Elemental, and…”
“Attes is my great-grandfather?” “He is,” Valyn said,
“No. I’m a…demigod,” he muttered, dropping his hand as he looked up. “Not a demis or a deity. Just a demigod.”
So’ meant my or mine. And toria meant garden. Flower. Or… I inhaled, but it didn’t feel like I took a breath. Toria meant pretty flower. Poppy. My pretty flower. My pretty poppy.
His smile faded. “I see the bitch’s blood has tainted your tongue.” “Are you speaking of my mother?”
“Not that bitch,” he seethed. “The other bitch. Seraphena.”
“Your blood tasted like it, too.” My stomach churned. “It changed a little each time. Less sweet. More sweet. This time…” The Revenant drew his lower lip between his teeth. “It tastes like…honeydew
“He was smart enough to take from your vein where it wasn’t visible, and you wouldn’t look. After all, my pretty flower was so obedient then, submissive to the Priestesses. You would never…explore such forbidden, shameful areas.”
But she was here. And the bitch was smiling up at us. Isbeth.
“Strike me down, Daughter,” she urged. “I’m sure that will help with…” She glanced around with an idle flick of a slender wrist. “Whatever you planned with this.”
“A Fate will be there,” she added. “To make sure the conversation remains…appropriate. He”—she nodded at Attes—“can confirm that is how things are done.”
“Right now, Iliseeum is a one-way realm. You can leave, but to enter, you must either be the Queen or born in Iliseeum. Which means, only he”—he jerked his chin toward Attes—“who I do not see, can return.”
The Queen is also in trouble.”
“She did something she was not supposed to do.”
“And, no, she was not harmed. She’s simply in a…time-out.” “A time-out?” Attes repeated under his breath and then laughed. “Bet that went over well.” “Oh, definitely didn’t almost have to put Nyktos down.”
“That Kolis isn’t as weak as we previously believed,” I stated. “That he was being fed for hundreds of years.”
“Kolis could’ve been in a stasis instead of withering away,” Attes continued. “He would be at full power or damn near close.”
Kieran stepped closer. “He knows he would never be able to put you in the ground. That’s what’s pissing him off. It makes him feel…” He shook his head, his shoulders rising. “Weak. As if he can’t control everything. And in case you haven’t noticed, he has control issues.”
“I love you, Casteel Da’Neer,” I whispered. “And I will return to you.”
Attes stepped in closer, lowering his voice. “I made Sera a promise that I would do everything in my power to not allow any harm to befall you.”
“I would’ve loved to see her face.” He yanked the dagger free, his gaze flipping to mine. A wave of shadowy eather washed over the dagger, collapsing it.
“Do you really think I’m so desperate, so insane, that I would still love the bitch who helped entomb me for over a thousand years?” Kolis demanded. “I had a lot of time to think things over. To get over it. I’ve moved on, so’lis
“Where are you going?” Kolis asked. “I still want you—well, I want what’s inside you, Poppy
Something in a messy heap, smoking—something in black with golden-bronze skin. Attes
“He took a direct hit for you—for someone who doesn’t even remember all he’s done for you. All he sacrificed for you.” Kolis’s fingers trailed over my temple. “Or perhaps I should say all he forced others to sacrifice for him.”
Kolis’s head turned to my right. Delano stiffened, then shuddered. Crimson poured from his eyes and nose. His mouth opened, and blood—gods, blood gushed from it as his knees collapsed and his head fell back.
The flesh peeled away from my father’s face, his throat. His armor shattered as Delano slipped from his arms, crumpling to the floor. Exposed muscle ripped and splintered. His spine snapped. Bone crunched and turned to ash. “I promised both of you,” Kolis hissed. “That I would kill everyone you held dear in front of you.”
A buzz hit my blood, and the corners of my vision darkened. The air around me charged as I stared at my father. He was gone. His last words a threat. Delano was also gone. My last words spoken to him a taunt.
I tipped forward, unused muscles along my shoulder blades twitching as wings slammed down on either side of me—wings with silver feathers tinged in dark gray and threaded with crimson. The fluttering of smaller wings came, flapping wildly as snow began to fall. I suddenly understood Aydun’s words about our union because something was rising from within me. It was a thing—a powerful thing that had always been there. Waiting. Watching. Caged. And it was cold. Unending. And it tasted of ruin and wrath.
“Attes—the Primal I wrote about—told me. I tried to tell Cas but…” That had not gone well and ended with the manor being destroyed. And Attes…well, it hadn’t ended well for him either. I rubbed at my chest. “She was taken there. She was injured,”
“It’s the only thing I can come up with to explain why we’d still be here but not able to feel her.” “She’s alive, then.”
“I see some redecorating has been done in my absence,” Millicent said, the delicate lines of her brows arched. “I like it.”
“He is why I’ve been gone.” Millicent knelt and untied the rope at the top of the sack. Pulling the burlap back, she revealed matted, blood-streaked golden hair and— “Callum,” I spat. “Yep.” She rose. “I’ve been chasing him clear across the kingdom as he tried to get back to his daddy.”
Cas…yeah, he was in his asshole era.
He sat on a throne crafted by a dark rage. It loomed like an omen, its frame sculpted from the remains of those I suspected had served Kolis. After all, he had gone to Pensdurth. Each bone was fused together by the black vines that wove through ribs and spiraled through the eye sockets of the skulls that made up the back.
And what sat on the throne was a being I barely recognized and couldn’t connect to through the notam. Couldn’t even get a read on it. It wore his clothes, and the fingers that idly tapped on an armrest constructed from what I guessed were the bones of actual arms moved like his. But what sat there wasn’t the man I’d known my whole life and loved deeper than a bond forged in blood.
Poppy was the Harbinger, just as we’d believed. And Kolis was the Great Conspirator. But the death and destruction Poppy would bring to the realms was not what Kolis would unleash. It was the choices and actions of Kolis and of old gods long forgotten. Of the three of us. The Ancients had seen this but hadn’t understood.
It had never been Poppy. Or even Kolis. It had always been him. Casteel.
The wings were not visible, but a crown the color of the darkest night and shaped like jagged bone antlers rested upon his head. He sat upon the remnants of ruin and wrath, a throne of bone and ash. The Primal God of Death and Destruction.
