A Shadow in the Ember (Flesh and Fire, #1)

by Jennifer L. Armentrout

“You,” he said, his voice smoke and shadow and full of everything that awaited after someone took their very last breath. “I have no need of a Consort.”

“And you, liessa, are very brave.” His thumb moved, sweeping over the curve of my jaw. “But, sometimes, one can be too brave.”

“How dare I? Do you think that maybe I don’t want to be stabbed again with it?” “You wouldn’t have to worry about that if you simply said hello!” I shouted. “But what if I just happened to startle you?” he challenged. “You’d likely stab me even then.” I balled my hands into fists. “Now, I really want to stab you again.”

“What does liessa mean?” The god didn’t answer for what felt like a small eternity. “It has different meanings to different people.” The eather pulsed in his eyes, swirling once more through the silver. “But all of them mean something beautiful and powerful.”

Então é isso que significa ehhe

Standing, I stared down at him for a few seconds as I wished away the warmth gathering in my hands, the instinctive reaction to death. I stared at his still form, ignoring the unwanted knowledge that I could undo this. I wouldn’t.

Esse.é o seu poder?!!! Uau

“What you can do is a gift, a wonderful one that is a part of who you are,” he’d said, kneeling so we were at eye level. “But it could become dangerous for you if others were to learn that you could possibly bring back their loved ones. It could anger the gods and Primals, for you to decide who should return to life and who should not. It is a gift given by the King of Gods, one that should be held close to your heart and only ever used when you’re ready to become who you were destined to be. Until then, you are not a Primal. Play as one, and the Primals might think you are.”

“Some call me Ash.” “Ash?” I repeated, and he nodded. Something about that was familiar. “Is it short for something?”

“But there is something I do know.” Curiosity rose. “What?” “I want to kiss you, even though there is no reason for me to other than I want it.” The heated intensity of his stare held mine. “I would even go as far as to say I need to.”

So, how did he believe that he was in love with her?” Sir Holland shrugged. “He saw her and fell in love.”

“No one knows exactly how long Sotoria lived her second life, but she ended up dying. Some say she purposefully starved to death, but others say she began to live again, to fight against her captor despite how powerful he was. She was strong, Sera. She was the kind of warrior that fought back through the grief of losing her life at such a young age. Through the loss of peace and control, no matter how badly the odds were stacked against her. That’s why you remind me of her.”

“I am known as the Asher,” he said, and I shuddered. Is it short for something? I’d asked when he told me his name. It is short for many things. “The One who is Blessed. I am the Guardian of Souls and the Primal God of Common Men and Endings.” His voice traveled through the Great Hall, and absolute silence answered. I could barely force air through my lungs. “I am Nyktos, ruler of the Shadowlands, the Primal of Death.”

“I would ask what kind of mortal you are, but it is evident that you’re a pathetic pile of shit shaped into that of a man.”

exatamente!

“But you spoke with no fear. You acted fearlessly. Each time I saw you,” he continued. “You interested me, and I hadn’t expected that. I didn’t want that. But at that lake, you were just Seraphena,” he said, and my breath snagged at the sound of my name spilling from his lips. It was the first time he’d said it. “And I was just Ash. There was no deal. No perceived obligations. You stayed simply because you wanted to. I stayed only because I wanted to. You let me touch you because that was what you wanted, not because you felt as if you had to. Maybe I should’ve told you, but I was…enjoying myself with you. I wasn’t ready for that to end.”

“Of Death. I’m powerful. One of the most powerful. I can kill quicker than most. I can deliver lasting punishment that goes beyond death. I’m feared by mortals, gods, and the Primals, even those who push.”

“Does anything happen to the mortal when a Primal or god feeds off them?” “No. Not if we’re careful. Obviously, a mortal may feel the effects of the feeding more than any of us would, and if we were to take too much, then…well, it would be a tragedy if they were not third sons or daughters.” Her lips tensed. “It’s forbidden to Ascend them—to save them.”

Cravens?

“My interest in you is a very real, very potent need.” His fingers skimmed the curve of my jaw and then the line of my throat. They stopped over my wildly beating pulse. “It’s almost as if it’s become its own thing. A tangible entity. I find myself thinking about it at the most inconvenient moments,”

“But when I’m around you, the last thing I want is to be uncomplicated.” Ash’s lips coasted over my cheek, dragging a ragged gasp from me as they neared my ear. “Or in control. Or decent,” he said, and I shuddered at the decadent, wet flick of his tongue across my skin. “What I want is your taste on my tongue again. What I want is to be so deep inside you that I forget my own fucking name.” His sharp teeth closed around my earlobe. My entire body jerked, and nothing about it was forced. “And I don’t even need to read your emotions to know how much you want that, too.”

“Love caused their deaths long before either had taken their final breaths. Before my father even met my mother. Love is a beautiful weapon, often wielded as a means to control another. It shouldn’t be a weakness, but that is what it becomes. And those most innocent always pay for it. I’ve never seen anything good come from love.” “You. You came from love.”

“My father loved my mother more than anything in these realms. More than he should have. And still, he could not keep her safe. That is why I have these conditions. These rules as you like to call them. It’s not about me attempting to exert authority over you or control you. It’s about trying to do what my father failed at. It’s about making sure you do not meet the same fate as my mother.”

“There is not a single part of Nyktos that doesn’t know exactly where you are.”

“You know what? Okay. Yes. I was jealous. You have been too busy to even speak to me for longer than five seconds over the last couple of days, leaving me alone, like always. To walk the courtyard by myself. Eat dinner by myself. Go to bed by myself. Wake up by myself. I’m really starting to wonder what I did in this life to deserve always being alone.”

“That’s another good question,” Ash replied, and I started to frown. “But I’ve been avoiding you because when I’m around you for longer than a few minutes, my interest in you quickly overshadows any common sense. And that is a distraction—a complication—I cannot afford.”

“Freckles,” he said, his cheeks…pinker than usual. “You have thirty-six of them on your face.” That strange, whirring sensation surged through my chest. “You actually counted them?” “I did.” Ash rocked back. “I did the first day you were here. I counted them again to make sure I was correct. I was.” He fixed the loosened tie of my robe. “I really hope there’s no doubt left when it comes to my interest in you.”

“And she wants Ash?” I surmised. “Only because he has never shown her that type of attention,” she answered. “To her, it’s personal. Even though he’s never shown interest in anyone until you.” Until you.

“For those who do not wish to sleep, they can enter what we call Arcadia, a place very much like the Vale. A garden, so to speak. It allows for an Ascension of another and peace for the Primal.” “Is that…another realm?” I asked as Jadis stretched, placing one talon on my other foot. I had no idea what the young draken was doing. She nodded. “But Veses can’t do that. None of them can.”

“I know one thing, liessa. A monster wouldn’t care if they were one.”

“Smile at me,” he murmured, the silver in his eyes swirling. “Why?” “Because when you do that, there’s utterly nothing I would not allow you to do to me.” I smiled fully then. “Fuck.” He groaned.

A shock of dark and red hair fell over his shoulder as he cocked his head to the side. Those eerily beautiful crimson eyes shifted beyond me. “I have never seen him sleep so deeply. Not even when he was just a babe. The slightest sound would wake him.”

“I knew his parents. I called them my friends, and I call Ash one of my own,” he answered, head straightening. His gaze caught mine and held it. “I think I will call you one of my own.” I really had to be asleep. “Why?” “Because you’ve given him peace.”

“That was a ripple of power,” Ash said, and my attention shifted back to him. I stepped back from the table, from where Gemma’s blood pooled. “One hell of a ripple of power, liessa. One that will most likely be felt through all of Iliseeum by many gods and Primals. There is no doubt in my mind that others will come searching for the source.”

“Liessa,” Ash all but purred, his chin dropping as he slowly rounded the table. I glanced quickly at the other gods and draken, but I doubted any of them would intervene. “I’ve felt that before. Over the years. Never that strongly, and I didn’t know what it was. Couldn’t even exactly pinpoint where it was coming from.”

“And I know for a damn fact that I wasn’t the only one who felt it before,” he said, shadows starting to gather and move under the table, drifting toward him. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Nektas motion for Reaver to come to him. “The night at the lake, liessa. I felt it earlier that day. I felt it the night before I came for you.” The area behind him began to thicken enough that I could no longer see Nektas. “And I felt it recently, the day you went into the Red Woods and the entombed gods broke ground.” My heart pounded fast. “The Hunters…they came for you twice that I know of,” Ash said, and I jolted. “Yes.” He nodded. “That is what they must be searching for. And I bet that is what Cressa and the other two gods are also looking for.”

“My father was the true Primal of Life.” Ash’s cool fingers touched my cheek. “Until his brother stole it from him. His twin, Kolis.”

“I always wondered if mortals wouldn’t be so afraid of death if they viewed it differently—as not an end but a new beginning.”

But death was the great unknown. No one knew how they would be judged or what truly awaited them. It was hard not to be afraid of that.

is.” Ash scratched at his jaw as he straightened. “Kolis was distraught and somehow heartbroken. He called for his brother, summoning Eythos into the mortal realm. He begged for Eythos to give Sotoria life, an act that Eythos could do—and had done in the past—but my father had rules that governed when he granted life,” he explained, and I shifted on the chair, thinking of the rules I’d made that I hadn’t followed. “One of them was that he would not take a soul from the Vale. You see, the tradition of burning the body to release the soul is a mortal one, an act more for the benefit of those left behind than those who have passed. The soul immediately leaves the body upon death.”

“My father would not take a soul from the Vale. It was wrong. Forbidden by both him and Kolis. Eythos tried to remind his brother that he’d agreed never to do something like that. When that failed, my father reminded him that it wasn’t fair to grant life and then refuse it to another of equal worth. But I suppose that was one of my father’s flaws. He believed he could decide when a person was worthy. And maybe as the Primal of Life, he could. Maybe there was some sort of innate ability that allowed him to make that judgement and decide that Sotoria was not one of those chosen while another would be. I don’t know what made him choose when and when not to use that power.”

“They designated her soul for rebirth,” Aios answered. “Meaning that Sotoria’s soul never enters the Shadowlands and is continuously reborn upon death—over and over.”

“Her memories of her previous lives wouldn’t be anything substantial if she had any at all, but Kolis continues to look for her. Because of what my father and Keella did by marking her soul, she would be reborn in a shroud. Kolis knows this. He still searches for her.”

“Kolis destroyed all record of the truth,” Ector explained from the other end of the table. “Both in Iliseeum and in the mortal realm. It was then that the Primal of Death was no longer depicted. He went to great extremes to hide that he was not supposed to be the Primal of Life. Even when it became apparent that something was not right. That he was losing his ability to create life and maintain it.”

“I was born into it, my destiny reshaped. But Kolis forced this onto himself and my father. What powers of life he gained were temporary. It took centuries for those powers to wane, and by that time, my father was dead, and Kolis had mastered…other powers. But there has been no Primal born since me. He cannot grant life. He cannot create it.”

And so, the unstable balance has shifted even more.” “Toward what?” I asked. “Death,” Ash replied. Ice touched my skin. “Death of everything, eventually. Both here and in the mortal realm. It may take several mortal lifetimes for it to destroy the mortal realm completely, but it’s already started. Two Primals of Death cannot rule, and that is what is happening. Because at Kolis’s very core, that is what he is.”

Ela tem que matar o kolis!!!!!!

“Do you really think I wanted to do this to you? To anyone? It was the only way we believed we could save our people. It was all I’d been taught. For my entire life. It’s all I’ve ever known.”

“I would say I’m sorry, but you wouldn’t believe me. I don’t blame you for that, but don’t you dare insinuate that what I’ve done with you was purely an act or that what I’m feeling is fake when I’ve spent my entire godsdamn life not being allowed to want or even feel anything for myself! Not when I spent the last three years hating myself for the relief I felt when you didn’t take me because it meant I didn’t have to do what was expected of me.”

“Let me ask you a question.” Nektas waited until my gaze met his. “Would you have followed through if you never learned that killing him would not have saved your people?”

“You truly have no fear of death, do you?” “I…I always knew I would meet an early death one way or another,” I admitted.

That word again—one I knew could no longer mean something beautiful and powerful to him. It couldn’t mean Queen. I would never be his Consort now. A word that was now a mockery. Or worse yet, never meant anything to him. An unexpected, dark pain flared in my chest at that realization—at how much it bothered me. Anger exploded as quickly as the hurt did. “You know what?”

And I didn’t know if I was. But I…I wanted his friendship. I wanted his respect. I wanted him to be Ash, and I wanted to be Sera. But that would never happen. I couldn’t save my people.

“What you did last night—out on the Rise,” he said, and a tiny bit of relief seeped into me. “Everyone’s been talking about how the mortal Consort was up there, shooting arrows and killing those beasts.” Something akin to approval filled his wide eyes, but the relief was short-lived. “We will be proud to call you our Consort.”

“I think the ember of life that was placed in you is giving you similar side effects as the Culling. You’re the right age for it.”