The Primal of Blood and Bone (Blood and Ash, #6)

by Jennifer L. Armentrout

A pinprick of sapphire-blue appeared as the light faded, growing brighter. Bolts of stunning emerald spun from its center and twisted around the blue. Warm, rich brown followed, curling itself around the blue and green. And in the center of it all was the beginning of everything.

Gods. Benevolent guardians. Wrathful prosecutors. The watchers of man. Elementals. The Fair Folk. Fates. The first gods. The Great Creators. The Ancient Ones. And I saw their wars, first with the great winged beasts that ruled the lands, and then with their creations. Because they had begun to dream of what was to come. Ten of the Ancients. The dreamers. The protectors. I saw their flesh turn to fire as they burned off their essence to create the first Primals and understood why. They were desperate to ensure the balance of power remained untainted because their dreams had warned them of what would happen if it didn’t. A faint warmth sparked inside me and spread as creation changed. Gods were birthed from Primal unions—gods that would one day Ascend to Primalhood. And those ten Ancients dreamed. They saw what was coming. The beginning of the end.

I saw him lift a babe from the soil, their eyes a shining crimson that turned into a brilliant blue, then shifted into a mosaic of all the colors in existence before settling on a soft brown as he gazed upon the Primal. And I knew what was unknown to the Primal. That the free will from the winged beasts, which had been passed on to the draken, had then been bestowed upon the mortal.

That everything done to prevent what was coming had only ensured that it would. Without the capability to love and hate, rejoice and mourn, gain and lose, there could be no balance. For every hardship, there must be prosperity. Hate could not exist without love. There could be no joy without knowing grief.

I saw Ancients who had gone to ground and ones yet to Awaken claw their way free, shaking the realms. And I knew they were no longer the great givers of life and the anchors that kept the essence of the realms stable. They were the end that erupted mountains and turned days into endless nights, toppling cities of steel and drying oceans. I saw them rise, full of ruin and wrath.

I saw the desperate King with the golden crown of laurel the ten Ancients had dreamed—the man who had descended from that tiny babe the true Primal of Life had held in his hands. I saw it all: the great power that rose as heir to the lands and skies; she, the first Chosen to fail, who was the true Primal of Life; and what the union between the bringer of life and the bringer of bone would unleash. Two daughters. Two Kings. And the Great Conspirator. It was inevitable. The end would come.

Every beginning has an end. But for every end, there must be a new beginning. That’s what the ten dreamed. The fall of ruin and wrath. And the rise of blood and bone.

We were staring at an old Atlantian symbol—two symbols, actually. The circle with the line through it meant life, and the one at the top meant death. Combined, they stood for life and death. Blood and Bone.

Poppy’s fingers twitched. My legs went out from under me. I landed beside the bed on my knees, watching as Kieran pitched forward, catching himself with his palms on the bed. She will know herself. She will recognize us.

“Poppy,” I whispered, leaning toward her. A heartbeat passed, and then her fingers tightened around mine. Kieran gripped our clasped hands, and my cheeks dampened. She will know herself. She will— All I could hear was Kieran’s shallow, quick breaths as her lashes fluttered and her eyes opened.

Framed by thick lashes, they were orbs of pure molten silver, brimming with the essence—the eather—of the Primal gods.

The air in the chamber became stagnant, and I had the distinct sense that time had ceased to function properly. Heart pounding, I inhaled, suddenly smelling the fresh, delicately sweet scent of…spring. Renewal. Life. Lilacs. Kieran stiffened, and because his hand still gripped ours, I saw tiny bumps rise along his forearm. A new, slightly musty scent filled the chamber. It was like…stale lilacs. Or fallen leaves in autumn. “Death,” Kieran murmured, a tremor coursing through his hand. He had always picked up that faint scent on her, but we’d never understood why.

The back of my neck prickled a heartbeat before unfettered power flooded the chamber once more. But it was different this time. Stronger. I could feel it pressing on me and watched as Kieran staggered, going down on one knee. What felt like a charge of energy rippled from Poppy’s hand into mine and then Kieran’s. Hot and intense, it traveled up our arms, a silver glow tinged with gold and…shadowy crimson that lit up the veins. “Fuck,” Kieran rasped as fawn-colored fur sprouted on his arm before disappearing in a wash of light.

Then, I felt it. A quake began in the center of my chest, where the faint essence that all Atlantians carried within them resided, eather flowing into my abdomen. The energy ramped up, expanding and growing within me until the corners of my vision turned silver, shaded with gold and crimson. Raw, burning pain seized my heart as the eather soaked my flesh, drenching every vein and entrenching deep in my bones.

And I could sense it changing every part of my being. That was the source of the white-hot pain: the essence shattering bones in one breath before rebuilding and fortifying them in the next. I clenched my jaw as every vein in my godsdamn body collapsed and then expanded, strengthening as the essence wrapped itself around each organ. I bore the agony of my flesh catching on fire and then hardening, starting at my feet and traveling all the way up. As it reached the base of my skull, pain exploded in my head, shorting out every sense. My hearing. Sense of smell. Sensation was the next to go—thank the fucking gods. Right before it took my vision, I saw Primal mist seeping from Kieran’s outstretched arms, swirling gold and silver. And then I saw the mist churning around my arms in a dizzying rush of shadows and crimson.

But only after he’d seen me in the form of what resembled a gold-spotted black cave cat.

Where the aura behind my pupils had always been a faint silver, it was now a bright glow. If I looked closely enough, I could see fine threads radiating out from the orbs of eather, piercing the golden hue of my eyes. I’d seen the same in Kieran’s, though with his already vivid, cerulean gaze, it wasn’t as noticeable. Still, what I was staring at right now, and what I’d seen when I looked at Kieran, was impossible. At least it should have been.

The Joining. It was the only explanation we could come up with. It made sense, but neither of us expected the Joining to do more than ensure our lives were tied to Poppy’s. I knew in my bones that I wasn’t only an Elemental Atlantian anymore. And Kieran wasn’t just a wolven. We had become…something else.

A false Primal? The bigger, badder version of a demis? I’d never heard of such a thing. Then again, apparently, there was a lot of shit I hadn’t heard of. But I didn’t think that was what we were. I couldn’t say exactly why I felt that way, but it probably had something to do with the essence I could feel moving around in me. It was too powerful to be a false god’s or even a false Primal’s. It was cold and infinite. Ancient.

It wasn’t like the Primal mist I’d seen surrounding Kieran. His had been gold and silver. Mine was silver and crimson.

The essence that had transferred from Poppy to us wasn’t the same. Somehow, the two she had within her had split between us. Life. Death.

Because of our bond as an Elemental Atlantian and a wolven, we’d always been able to sense each other’s proximity. When Poppy began her Ascension, and the Primal notam kicked in, that had stopped. But it had changed yet again. Sensing where Kieran was didn’t happen immediately after we woke up. I couldn’t say exactly when I’d started to pick up on his whereabouts again over the last two days, but I had. And it wasn’t the only thing that was new.

Kieran’s mark brushed against my mind like an earthy, woodsy breeze. Poppy was right. Kieran did feel like a tree.

“How were you—how were any of us—to know that a Revenant would climb its happy ass up a fucking castle wall and try to take Poppy out?”

And while Reaver was more familiar with Kolis than any of us, he had only been a child during the true Primal of Death’s reign. The only other individual who could give us more information was Nektas, and none of us had seen him since Poppy went into stasis.

“So,” Naill said from in front of me, “the eyes.” “Yeah?” Glass crunched under my boots as I descended the steps. “I noticed Kieran’s are different, too.” “We think it’s because of the Joining. Not sure what it means, though.”

A vampry’s blood held no value. The Ascended fed on each other for pleasure, but I’d never heard of an Ascended draining another’s blood to the point of death.

“So, they died somewhere in the last ten to twelve hours.” “I was wondering when you would realize the next utterly unexplainable event,” Emil said. “They haven’t turned. They’re not Craven.” The Ascended were born mortal, so they weren’t immune to the effects any other mortal would experience if another Ascended drained their blood and didn’t destroy their heart or their head. Even Atlantians—damn, even the gods—suffered similar fates, falling into bloodlust if drained of blood and left alive with no way to feed. “None of them,” Naill confirmed. “And as Hisa said, we’ve found no other injuries—like broken necks.” My mouth opened, but I was struck speechless. A broken neck wouldn’t kill an Ascended unless the spinal column was severed completely, thus preventing them from turning Craven. None of this was possible.

and some dead birds. I stared at the metal birdcage. The colorful winged creatures lay on shredded paper covering the floor. I had no idea what kind of birds they were.

An Atlantian’s bite wasn’t poisonous. A god’s? I had no idea. I would assume it wasn’t, but I couldn’t be sure since we had been misinformed and misled on so much.

The sky was painted across the plaster in bright, sunny blues. There was also a mural along the walls of the common area—a painting of the Sun Temple in Carsodonia, its golden walls glimmering in the sunlight.

“The thing is, Emil, they don’t believe they’re monsters. Some have convinced themselves, despite knowing the truth, that they are blessed by the gods.”

“I mean, it’s not like they—the second sons and daughters—had a choice,” he quickly added. “They weren’t raised knowing it was all a lie.” Emil turned back to the mural, running a finger over the Temple’s golden spires. “They must have known what would happen if they refused the Ascension: submit to the Blood Crown or die.” “Wouldn’t death be a better choice when the other option is to become a part of the vicious cycle that has done nothing but take lives?” I asked. No sooner had the words left my mouth than I thought of Poppy’s brother, Ian.

Kneeling, I took a closer look. In the darkness of the night, the trumpet-shaped blooms and oval leaves were such a deep shade of gray they nearly blended into the nothingness around them. Clearly, this wasn’t their natural state, and I had a feeling I knew what had done this. I glanced back at the home, remembering how the grass had crunched when we walked. That’d happened outside of each house. I hadn’t paid much attention to it then, but I had a feeling we’d see many lawns of dead grass come morning. Aware of Emil and Hisa watching me, I reached out and brushed my fingers over a curled leaf. The whole damn thing shattered into a fine, chalky gray dust, releasing a scent I was becoming all too familiar with. Sweet but stale. The smell of Death.

He’d stopped at the foot of the bed, looking down at Poppy. His angular features appeared even sharper. “She doesn’t…” I waited for him to finish. “What?” I asked when he didn’t. He went to speak, then shook his head. It struck me then that he hadn’t been this close to Poppy since she went into stasis. None of his feelings showed in his expression, nor could I pick up anything from him.

“Nektas said…” I glanced at Poppy, not wanting to discuss this shit while she slept—I didn’t know what she could hear. I lowered my voice when I spoke again. “He said we stopped Kolis from returning to his full flesh and bone form. We assumed that meant he wasn’t entirely corporeal.”

The Revs did smell like stale lilacs. Except for Millicent—the First Daughter spoken of in that damn prophecy—who was a Revenant yet…not. Poppy’s sister. The scent didn’t cling to her. Come to think of it, Callum didn’t smell like stale lilacs either. Then again, they weren’t like the other Revenants.

But I don’t sense him. Neither have any of the other draken.” “Would you have sensed him if he wasn’t fully restored?” Reaver snapped his jaw shut. A moment passed. “I don’t know.” “Is it possible for Kolis’s form to be more like a spirit? As in being able to move unseen but possessing enough of a physical form to have fangs.” A single brow arched. “You do realize how…nonsensical that sounds, right?” “Yes.” I sighed. “I do.” Taking a drink, I watched him drift away from the table. “So?” “I suppose,” he said, stopping at the window. “Considering how he was put into stasis and how long he remained in it, there’d be little left of him but a few bones and blood.” “What do you mean by put into stasis like he was?” “He was impaled to his tomb with the bones of an Ancient. It wouldn’t have killed him, but it would have slowly eaten away at him until only his essence remained. I suppose that could appear as a spirit.” Something struck me that I hadn’t thought about until then. “But he was being fed,” I said, mentioning the tomb in Oak Ambler I hadn’t been there to see. “Wouldn’t that mean he’d have some form?”

The aru’lis is different from a mortal’s or another god’s. It has form, a shape, even if it appears as nothing more than a shadow to us.” He paused. “And the aru’lis can solidify for short periods of time.” Meaning, there’d be fangs.

“I was a youngling when I heard Seraphena and Ione—the Goddess of Rebirth—speaking about it.” My lips pressed into a flat line. “I know who Ione is.”

“A vessel is needed.”

“The aru’lis would need to enter the vessel at the very moment the soul leaves their body. One moment too soon, and you’d have a situation where two souls would be in one body. And no one wants that again,” he said, muttering the last part. Again? “The vessel would need to possess, at the very least, similar embers—the essence—as those carried within the aru’sòl,” he said. “I don’t know if it has ever been attempted or successful.”

My gaze drifted to Poppy as I lifted the glass. Luckily, no one who possessed the same kind of essence as Kolis was around— My heart thumped as I realized how wrong I was. Poppy carried that essence. I likely did now, too—or some version of it. And…

“Malec would’ve carried embers similar to Kolis’s, right?” Reaver nodded. “He is Nyktos’s son. And Nyktos carries embers of true Death as—” “Kolis...

“Could Poppy have been a vessel?” Reaver’s look confirmed my suspicion regarding his tone. “Not until she completed her Ascension.”

Isbeth wanted Kolis to return. A vessel was one way for him to do that. She had asked for Malec to be returned to her—

“Isbeth lied to us,” I said with a harsh, biting laugh. No shocker there. But it meant Isbeth never planned to sacrifice Poppy. And the tiny sliver of good we grudgingly thought she had was also a lie. She never intended to choose between Malec and her daughter.

what the fuck had she—or Callum—needed Poppy for then? He’d clearly lied at the Bone Temple.

“Besides Sera, Nektas may know how that would be possible.” Him calling the Queen of the Gods Sera didn’t pass me by.

“When will he return?” “I don’t know.” My hand fisted. “I thought you said he was returning for his daughter. Or was that just an idle threat?” “If Nektas could, he would be keeping vigil at her side.” His voice was scratchier, and I noticed the blue of his irises brighten. “But he knows there is nothing he can do.”