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

by Jennifer L. Armentrout

“You may not be Chosen, but you were born into this realm, shrouded in the veil of the Primals. A Maiden as the Fates promised. And you shall leave this realm touched by life and death,” my old nursemaid Odetta had once said.

And when he’d granted King Roderick’s request, this was the price the Primal of Death had requested: the firstborn daughter of the Mierel bloodline as his Consort.

There was no way he could know that in the two hundred years it had taken for me to be born, the knowledge of how to kill a Primal had been obtained. Love. They had one fatal weakness that made them vulnerable enough to be killed, and that was love. Make him fall in love, become his weakness, and end him. That was my destiny.

Even though I stood in the shadows, Lord Claus’s slow perusal was like a sweaty caress, lingering on the bare skin of my arms and the cut of my bodice before reaching my eyes. His lips puckered, blowing me a kiss. I arched a brow. His smirk slipped.

lmbo

It hit the marble with an oddly wet-sounding smack before rolling across the tile. Something round spilled out of the bag, leaving a spattering trail of…red behind. Brown hair. Ghastly pale complexion. Jagged strips of skin. Severed bone.

not a head lmbo

The head of Lord Sarros, Advisor to the Queen and King of Lasania, bounced off a Royal Guard’s booted foot.

oOpP

“You should’ve just given her to the Lord,” Tavius commented. “At least then, she might actually do us some good.”

i hate him already

Sometimes, it felt like I…I was nothing more than a faint trace of a specter—not fully formed.