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

by Jennifer L. Armentrout

“An assassin?” “A warrior,” he corrected. “Bait?” His expression was as bland as the leftover bread I’d managed to grab that morning from the kitchen. “You are not bait. You are a trap.”

A warrior. He could be right, but I was also one more thing. A martyr. Because whether the Primal came for me, regardless of if I succeeded if he did, the end result would be the same. I wouldn’t survive.

“You said I was touched by death and life. What does that mean? To be touched by both.”

“I hate to disappoint you, child, but that’s not a question I can answer. It’s what the Fates claimed upon your birth. Only the Fates can tell you what that means.”

“You would use that gift for something far more harmful.” My skin flamed hot as the insinuation struck a chord. There was no doubt in my mind that she was horrified by what I’d become. I really couldn’t blame her. The knowledge that her firstborn child murdered people on the regular had to haunt her. Except it was far too often upon her request.

Warmth poured into my chest without warning, pressing against my skin. My steps faltered on the obnoxiously steep hill. The tingling warmth cascaded down my arms. I sucked in a sharp breath as my heart banged against my ribs. That feeling… I knew what it meant—what I reacted to. Death. Very recent death.

Slick blood coated the blade, dark and shimmery in the lamplight—nothing like mortal blood.

The rattle of a breath being drawn and the crackle of lungs expanding silenced the god. My gaze flew to her chest just as the bodice of her gown rose. I froze in disbelief. “What…?” the god muttered. Andreia Joanis sat up, that gaping mouth opening even farther, the singed lips peeling back to reveal four long canines—two along the top of her mouth and two along the bottom. Fangs. “The fuck?” the god finished. “That’s not…normal, right?” I whispered. “Which part? The fangs, or the fact that she’s dead and still sitting up?” Andreia’s head tilted toward the god, seeming to look at him with eyes that were no longer there. “I don’t think she’s dead,” I said. “Any longer.” “No,” the god growled, causing my skin to pimple. “She is still dead.” “You sure—?” I swallowed a gasp as the seamstress’s head snapped in my direction. “She’s staring at me, I think. I can’t be sure. She doesn’t have eyes.” Out of instinct, I reached for my thigh, only to come up empty. I started to turn to the god. “I would really like to have my dagger—” A hissing sound came from Andreia, the kind of noise no mortal should be able to make. It rose and deepened, turning into a piercing snarl that raised every single hair on my body. Andreia rocketed to her feet, the movement so inexplicably fast that I jerked back out of reflex. Fingers curled, she launched forward—

I started to reach for the blade in my boot when the god met her attack, thrusting the shadowstone sword deep into her chest. The seamstress’s body spasmed as she reached out, trying to grab hold of the god. Tiny, spiderweb-like fissures appeared along her hands and then raced up her arms, spreading over her throat and then across her cheeks. Jerking the shadowstone sword free, the god stepped to the side, his focus intent on the seamstress. Those fissures deepened into cracks as her legs collapsed under her. She went down hard, folded into herself.

“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.”

Something beautiful and powerful. His words still caught me off guard. But in my defense, he had called me a name that meant something beautiful and powerful, even after I’d stabbed him.

Liessa. I couldn’t believe I had asked that instead of a hundred other more important questions. Starting with what his name was.

“I see I was correct.” Ezra noted the moment I sat across from her in the carriage after depositing the boy beside Marisol. “About what?” Ezra flicked a finger toward my chest. I looked down, seeing dark spots sprinkled across the freckles there. I sighed. “Did you kill that man?” Smoothing out the skirts of the gown, I crossed my ankles. “I believe he slipped and fell upon my blade.” “Was it his throat that fell upon your blade?” “Odd, right?”

For a moment, I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. It was a kiyou wolf. They were the largest breed of wolves in all the kingdoms.

But I had a soft spot for animals—well, except for barrats. Animals didn’t judge. They didn’t care about worthiness. They didn’t choose to use or hurt another. They simply lived and expected to either be left alone or loved. That was all.

I sank my hand into the blood-soaked fur. The center of my chest thrummed, and the dizzying rush flooded my veins to spread across my skin. Heat flowed down my arms, reminding me of the feeling of standing too close to an open flame, and slid over and between my fingers. I simply wished for the wolf to live.

No one knew how I’d gained such a gift or why I’d been marked for death before I was even born. It made no sense that I would carry an ability that linked me to the Primal of Life—to Kolis.

Here, with only the whistle of the wind between the trees and the rushing water of the falls, I felt like I was home. I couldn’t explain it. I knew it sounded ridiculous to feel at home on a bank of a lake, but I was more comfortable here than I’d ever been within the walls of Wayfair or on the streets of Carsodonia.

“You still could’ve said something so I wasn’t just standing there—” “Like a goddess made of silver and moonbeams, rising from the depths of the darkest lake?” he finished.

“I considered announcing my presence just so you knew, especially after last night. The Fates know I don’t want to be stabbed again.” I so wanted to stab him again.

Fury pulsing through my blood, I rose to my full height. “I doubt you will find me so amusing when you’re gasping for the last of your breaths.” He became still again, and…good gods, the water coursing down his chest froze. The droplets ceased. “I’m already gasping,” he whispered, his voice rougher, deeper.

“In case you’re wondering,”—his voice was a kiss against my skin—“this is me intentionally staring.”

“I don’t even know your name,” I pointed out. “Some call me Ash.” “Ash?” I repeated, and he nodded. Something about that was familiar. “Is it short for something?”

But it was the ink sprawling across the entire length of his back from the upper swells of his rear all the way to the edges of his hair that I couldn’t look away from. In the center of his back was a circular, twisted swirl that grew larger, lashing out to form the thick tendrils I’d seen reaching around his waist to flow along the insides of his hips. There wasn’t nearly enough light for me to make out what made up the swirling design, but I had never seen any sailor with a tattoo like his.

“They’re known as Gyrms,” he answered. “This type? They’re called Hunters.”

I started toward the creature. The gaping wound on the Hunter’s wrist had already begun to close as the creature…smiled. Or at least tried to. The stitched gash of a mouth lifted as if it were about to grin— The stitches split, and its mouth tore open. Thick, ropey tendrils spilled out of the gaping hole— Serpents. Oh, gods. Horror locked up every muscle in my body and sent my heart pounding. Snakes were the one thing that truly terrified me, nearly to the point of loss of rational thought. I couldn’t help it. And serpents inside a mouth? That was a whole new nightmare.

“There are two types of Gyrms. These were mortals who had summoned a god. In exchange for whatever need or desire they had, they offered themselves for eternal servitude. Once they died, that is what they became.”

“Are the Priests Gyrms, then?” I asked. If they were no longer truly alive, it explained how they survived with their mouths sewn closed. It also explained their innate creepiness. He nodded. “The Primals stitch the Priests’ lips shut?” The skin around his mouth tightened. “What happens to them when they die was established a very, very long time ago. It has become an expected act.” Expected or not, it seemed unnaturally cruel to do such a thing. “And the serpents…” He spoke again, drawing me from my thoughts. “That is what replaced their insides.”

“What is written in your histories about the gods, Primals, and Iliseeum is not always accurate. Some Primals’ age would shock you.” “Because they’re so old?” “Because they’re so young in comparison,” he corrected. “The Primals you know of now didn’t always hold those positions of power.” “They didn’t?” I whispered. Ash shook his head. “Some gods have even walked both realms far longer than the Primals.”

“You lie so prettily,” he murmured, and gods help me, it was a lie.

“Well, aren’t I lucky that you’re a polite pervert?” Ash laughed, low and smoky.

“The Shadowlands consists of three separate places,”

“There is the Abyss, which is what everyone thinks of when they picture the Shadowlands—fiery pits and endless torment,” he said, staring at the strand of my hair. “But there is also the Vale, and that is paradise for those worthy.”

“What awaits in the Vale cannot be shared with anyone, mortal or god. Not even Primals can enter the Vale,”

“But the rest of the Shadowlands is like an entryway—a village before the city. It is beautiful in its own way, but it was once one of the most magnificent regions in all of Iliseeum.” Once was? “What happened to it?” “Death,” he stated flatly.

“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.”

Love!

I knew I shouldn’t. Just like I probably shouldn’t have worked up the nerve to enter The Jade and experience physical pleasure on my terms and just for me. I had no idea what the Primal would think if he ever came for me and realized that I was truly no longer the Maiden—if he would even know. I also knew there was a higher risk involved with Ash because he wasn’t a god from another Court.

But I wanted to feel. I wanted to be someone. I wanted to be kissed again. By him. And I wouldn’t let who I was supposed to be, who I ended up becoming, or any thought of the Primal of Death stop me from allowing myself to want. My pulse pounded dizzyingly fast. “Then kiss me.”

“Show me,” he repeated, voice rough as he skimmed one finger along my center. “Show me what you like, and I will give it to you.”

!!!

“You feel like silk and sunshine. Beautiful.”

“That’s it, liessa, fuck my hand.”

“I…” Words failed me when he lifted those two very wicked, glistening fingers. His luminous eyes held mine as he drew them into his mouth. My body arched as if his mouth sucked on my flesh, not his. I had never seen anything so shameless in my life. He grinned around his fingers, slowly drawing them from his mouth. “You taste like the sun.”

“It’s not your palm I want wrapped around my cock right now. It’s you I want. Tight and wet and warm,” he breathed, and a deep shiver rolled through me as my grip on him firmed. He groaned. “And if you keep touching me like that, that’s what’s going to happen. I’m going to get inside you, and it won’t be my fingers you’ll be fucking.”

MY OH MYYYY

I’d never seen him before. I’d never seen anything like him before. He was tall and…golden all over. His mane of hair. His skin. The elaborate…facial paint. A shimmery gold swept up over his brows and down his cheeks, a design that resembled wings. But his eyes…they were such a pale shade of blue they nearly blended with the faint aura of eather behind the pupils. I knew then that he was a god, but that wasn’t what left me unsettled. The facial paint reminded me of the charred skin on the seamstress’s face.

Nestled against cream velvet was a dagger. Not just any dagger, though. The corners of my lips tipped up, and a smile stretched across my face as I freed the blade from its soft nest. The dagger was…it was a magnificent creation. A piece of art. The hilt was made of some kind of smooth, white, surprisingly lightweight material. Perhaps stone of some sort? The pommel of the hilt was carved into the shape of a crescent moon. I gripped the hilt and pulled the dagger free. The dagger…gods, it was delicate yet strong. Beautiful and powerful. The blade itself was at least seven inches long and shaped like a thin hourglass—deadly sharp on both sides. Someone had etched an elaborate design into the dagger—a spiked tail on the blade, and the muscular, scaled body and head of a dragon carved into the hilt, its powerful jaws open and breathing fire. The dagger was made of shadowstone.

Kolis’s attention focused on me had to be my imagination. The alcove I’d knelt in had been packed with people, but I thought of my gift and its source. It must have come from him.

I gasped. Or maybe it was Ezra. It could’ve been both of us at the sight of the faint whitish glow seeping out from under my skin and along the edges of my fingers. “I don’t remember that happening with Butters,” Ezra whispered. “It…it didn’t.” I watched with wide eyes as the silvery glow throbbed, sluicing over Marisol’s skin. The light…it was eather. The thing that had to fuel my gift. I had just never seen it coming from me before.

There were only ten beings in either realm that were powerful enough to tear open the realms. A Primal. But as the shadows stopped the maddening spinning, and the shape of wings became nothing more than a hazy outline, I saw who stood in the center, and it made no sense. Because it was him. The Shadowlands god. Ash.

His skin…it had thinned, taking on a silvery-white glow. The breath I took lodged in my throat. Oh, gods… The silver of his irises seeped throughout his entire eyes until they were iridescent. They crackled with power—the kind that could unravel entire realms with just a lift of a finger. A web of veins appeared on his cheeks, spreading across his throat and down his arms under the silver band on his right biceps then traveling along the swirling shadows that had gathered under his skin. He was…he was like the brightest star and the deepest night sky given mortal form. And he was utterly beautiful in this form, wholly terrifying.

“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.”