The War of Two Queens (Blood And Ash, #4)

by Jennifer L. Armentrout

“Your bonded wolven? Preela? How did that break you?” “Jalara killed her in front of me,” he answered so flatly that I almost thought the swirl of grief was mine. “It wasn’t quick or honorable what he and the others did to her.” He faced me. “And you don’t have to ask what that was. You carry a part of her with you. You hold it in your hand even now.” Slowly, I looked down at the bloodstone dagger I held—the wolven-bone grip that never warmed to my touch. “No.” Malik said nothing. My gaze flew to his. “How would you even know?” “I saw each one made of her bones. I will never forget what they look like.” A tremor ran through my hand. “And it was gifted to Coralena, who in turn, gave it to Leopold,” he continued, a muscle ticking under his temple. “How you came into possession of it afterward, I am curious to know.” “Vikter gave it to me,” I whispered. “He was a viktor, too.” Malik smiled tightly. “Well, it sounds like fate to me, doesn’t it?”

His shoulders tensed. “Answer one thing, as a son to his father. Is it only the trust of the people and my experience that have guided this decision?” My father and I needed to discuss a lot of things once we saw this war to the end. And even though we planned for the possibility that we wouldn’t succeed, we did so only because that was what a responsible Queen and King did. However, no part of me didn’t believe there would be an after. Still, I said what I needed to say anyway. “You’re the one who taught me that I cannot save everyone,” I began. “But I can save those I love.”

I fell asleep wrapped in his arms and woke in the middle of the night, disorientated from the dream I’d had. I only remembered bits and pieces of it. The back of a woman wearing a crown of black diamonds on her silvery hair, sitting on a throne much like the one I’d seen at the Temple of Nyktos. She had been weeping. There was also a man with sandy-blond hair standing to her left. Something about him was so familiar. He had begun to turn and spoke just a word. But I woke before I could see his face. Still, the sadness of the dream gathered like tart ale in my throat. The woman… It had been the Consort. I knew it. And the man… He had felt like Vikter. But even if he were a viktor, why would I have seen him with the Consort? That didn’t make sense.

“And that’s why… That’s why you have to understand,” Isbeth said to Malec’s sleeping form. “You know how much I loved our son. You understand why it must be like this. That it cannot be any other way.” Concentration broken, my head jerked toward Isbeth at the same moment as Millicent’s. Isbeth jerked her arm up. Casteel pulled me to his side at the first glint of shadowstone. The jeweled belt at her waist had hidden a shadowstone dagger. I tapped into the eather, worried that she would turn that dagger on any number of people standing near— Isbeth screamed—and, gods, that was the sound of pure anguish. She brought the dagger down—into Malec’s chest. His heart. My mouth dropped open. Isbeth had… She’d stabbed Malec in the heart with shadowstone. Shadowstone could kill a god. I remembered Reaver saying as much. What we’d just witnessed didn’t make sense. Not in any realm. But she had…she had killed Malec. Her heartmate. “What in the actual fuck?” exclaimed Casteel, dropping my hand as Millicent staggered back, her eyes going wide. Kieran cursed as Isbeth jerked her hands free of the dagger. Her body folded over Malec’s. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry,” she wept. “I’m so sorry.”

Callum smiled. A nearly overwhelming sense of dread exploded in my chest as Callum slowly turned his head toward me. He clasped his hands together, bowing. “Thank you.” The essence stirred violently. I reached out, clasping Casteel’s arm. “Thank you for doing what you were prophesied to do long ago. Thank you for fulfilling your purpose, Harbinger.” Callum’s pale eyes brightened behind the golden mask, and the eather, it thrummed through my veins. “It wasn’t exactly as foretold or how many of us understood, but prophecies…well, the details aren’t always exact, and interpretations do vary.” “I don’t understand,” Millicent said, her wide-eyed gaze darting between Callum and our mother. “What is it that you don’t understand?” “Everything,” she seethed. “Everything about what just happened.” “You mean what could’ve happened to you if you hadn’t been a failure?” Callum countered, and Malik shot forward, blocked only by Casteel, who was simply faster. “You would’ve bled for him, and he would’ve rewarded you greatly for it.” Millicent drew back, her skin paling under the mask. Her stare hit mine, and suddenly, I understood. Mouth dry, my gaze fell to Malec. “That was supposed to be me, wasn’t it?” “You succeeded where she didn’t,” Callum said. “And I’ve been waiting a long time for you. He’s been waiting for the sacrifice. The balance the Arae always insist upon. Waiting for the one born of mortal flesh, on the verge of becoming a great Primal power. You arrived as promised, but…...

Suddenly, I thought about the prophecy. “‘The Bringer of Death and Destruction,’” I murmured, and Casteel’s gaze flew to mine. “Not Death and Destruction, but the bringer of it.” My hand lifted to my mouth. That godsdamn prophecy… “And I did just that.” “Fuck,” Malik growled. “This is not the right time,” Casteel said under his breath, “but I just want to point out that I always said you were not death and destruction.” Kieran shot him a look because it really, really wasn’t the time, and because while Malik’s reluctance to give Malec to Isbeth may not have been rooted in knowledge of what was to come, if we had listened to him… No. If we had known, we wouldn’t have stopped. We wouldn’t have risked Kieran. Right or wrong, it was as simple as that. “Then what is this?” Millicent demanded. “Who is the Harbinger?” “She is the Harbinger.” Callum’s head swung to her. “The warning.” His eyes widened. “What did you think, dear? That she was the one who would destroy the realms?” He glanced at me. “A Primal born of mortal flesh? Her?” His laugh echoed through the valley. “Seriously?” I stiffened. “At any other time, I would find that kind of rude.” “No offense meant, Your Highness,” he said with a mockery of a bow. “It’s just that it would take eons for you to become that powerful, and that was if the power didn’t drive you mad first.” The limp, flat hair flew about Millicent’s face as she shook her head, while Isbeth continued sobbing—as the dread grew and grew. The last part of ...

“He’s been waiting.” Callum ignored Kieran, his chin dipped, eyes eager and voice soft, full of worship—so very much like the Priests and Priestesses in Oak Ambler. “This whole time, he too has slept fitfully. Kept well fed under the Temple of Theon.” Kieran’s skin blanched as a shudder rocked me. “The children,” I gasped. “The extra Rite.” “He had to be strong enough to awaken, and he was.” Callum dragged his teeth along his lower lip. “When you shed the mortal flesh and began your Ascension, it freed him. And soon, when Malec takes his final breath, he will be at his full strength. All these years—all these centuries and centuries—he’s been waiting. Sleeping even more restlessly after your birth. Sensing you, feeling you. He’s been waiting and waiting for the proverbial key to his lock, for his…pretty poppy to pick and watch bleed.”

Delano’s imprint brushed against my thoughts. Something’s coming… No, someone was already here. Death. Destruction. Stale lilacs. Oh, my gods. The dread exploded into panic as I jerked to the side. “Kolis.”

he was pulled into the crack. “Something’s in the ground,” Emil announced. “Not something.” Callum rolled onto his side, the wound…dear gods, the ragged hole in his chest still there, though no longer oozing blood. “The True King’s guards. The dakkai.” “The what?” Kieran held his swords. “It doesn’t matter what they are,” I said, closing my hands into fists as I tapped into the essence. “They won’t be anything for long.” Callum smirked. “And neither will you,” I warned, letting my will stretch out to summon the draken.

My entire body spasmed as I remembered what Reaver had said—what Vikter had told Tawny. The beginning verse of the prophecy. Born of mortal flesh, a great primal power rises as the heir to the lands and seas, to the skies and all the realms. A shadow in the ember, a light in the flame, to become a fire in the flesh… To speak her name is to bring the stars from the skies and topple the mountains into the sea… Her name was power, but only when spoken by the one born as she, and of a great primal power. “He told me you already knew her name,” Tawny had said. She stared back at me, and I saw us when I’d been floating in that nothingness, drifting until she had appeared to me. Until she’d said, “It wasn’t supposed to be this way.” When she told me that I’d always had the power in me. But those weren’t the only words she’d spoken to me. I now remembered. She had told me her name. She had begged me to wake her. How could the Consort be so powerful? Because she was no Consort. She held my stare and smiled, and I…I understood. She, too, had been waiting. I opened my eyes, and through the smoke and mist, I saw Casteel and Kieran surrounded by dakkais. By Revenants. They closed in on them as I planted my palms against the stone, and my hands sank into the rock as I threw my head back and screamed the name. Not that of the King of Gods, but the Queen of Gods. The true Primal of Life.

“The fire in the flesh, the Primal of Life, and the Queen of Gods. The most powerful Primal.” He paused. “For now.” For now? “How is that possible?” Casteel asked. “It is a complicated journey to how the Consort became the Primal,” Nektas said, looking at me. “But it started with your great-grandfather, Eythos, when he was the Primal of Life. And his brother, Kolis, the true Primal of Death.” “Kolis is my great-uncle?” I exclaimed, forgetting the whole for-now part.

“To make a long story short, Kolis fell in love with a mortal. Scared her while she was picking flowers for a wedding. When she ran from him, she fell from—” “The Cliffs of Sorrow.” My eyes went wide. “Her name was Sotoria, right? That was real? Ian…” I glanced back at Casteel. “Ian told me that story after he Ascended. I thought it was just something he made up.” “Interesting,” Nektas murmured. “It’s real. Kolis went to Eythos, asking that he bring her back to life. Eythos refused, knowing that restoring life to the dead wasn’t something that should be done often.” His gaze centered on me, and I sort of wanted to crawl into the ground to avoid his knowing stare. “It started a bitter animosity between the brothers, which resulted in Kolis using some sort of magic to steal his brother’s essence—allowing Kolis to become the Primal of Life, and Eythos the Primal of Death. But neither were meant to rule over such things. Kolis couldn’t take all of Eythos’s essence, nor could he erase all of his. An ember of life remained in Eythos, and another ember had been passed onto Nyktos. But Eythos feared that Kolis would discover the ember within Nyktos, so he took it.” “And placed it in a mortal,” I finished. “In the Consort. That’s why she was only partially mortal.” Kieran leaned forward. “Then what is Nyktos? I thought he was the Primal of Life and Death.” “He’s a Primal of Death,” Nektas answered. “But he’s not the true Primal of Death, nor was there ever a Primal of Life and Deat...

“It is.” Casteel’s thumb moved along the curve of my neck. “Why only a female?” “Because it follows whoever the current Primal of Life is.”

“So if Kolis hadn’t taken Eythos’s essence, and Nyktos had eventually become the Primal of Life as he should have, then Malec and Ires would’ve been Primals?” Casteel reasoned. “But they weren’t because it took a female descendant to be born first?” Nektas nodded, and I was glad that Casteel understood that because I wasn’t sure I did. “But what does that have to do with preventing this?” Kieran asked. Nektas’s gaze shifted to me. “Because what Nyktos and the Consort did to stop Kolis—what balance the Fates demanded—meant there could be no more Primals born. The why behind that, well, there’s not enough time in the realms to go into that,” Nektas said. “But Nyktos was supposed to be the last born Primal, and the Consort would be the last Primal born of mortal flesh. You,” he said quietly, “were never supposed to be.” “Sorry?” I whispered. The draken cracked a small grin. It was brief, but I saw it. “The plotting that brought about your creation is not something you should apologize for,” he said, his voice softening. “Malec and Ires were already well on their way to being born by that point. But what was done to stop Kolis meant that Malec and Ires could never risk children. Malec did anyway, but that…that is Malec,” he said with a sigh. “We all got lucky before.” “Because it meant risking having a daughter.” My skin chilled. “That’s why they stayed in Iliseeum.” “Until they didn’t.” Nektas’s gaze flicked to the night sky. “They were not forbidden to come here. They were ...

“Kolis,” Nektas said from behind us. “As I said, what was done to stop him has been undone.” The three of us faced him, our hearts lurching at the same moment. Casteel’s eyes narrowed. “Malec lives. We stopped what Isbeth planned.” Nektas’s head cocked. “You stopped nothing.” My stomach twisted as I suddenly understood what both Callum and Isbeth had meant—why I had sensed that we hadn’t stopped them and were too late. “Kolis was already awake.” Nektas nodded. “And what was done here tonight freed him.” “Son of a bitch,” Kieran growled as Casteel’s lips parted. “You only slowed what was done, preventing Kolis from returning to full, flesh-and-bone power. But he will if left unchecked.” Nektas stared at the ashy vine, his lip curling. “His corruption is already here, tainting the lands. This is why the Primal of Life aided you in restoring life to so many. You will need every one of them if you have any hope of stopping him.” “Entomb him again?” I asked. “Kill him.” My mouth dropped open. “And exactly how do we do that?” Anger and frustration burned through Casteel. “When it appears that the Primal of Life and Nyktos were unable to do so?” “If I knew the answer to that, do you think I’d be standing here?” Nektas questioned, and I snapped my mouth shut. Those vertical pupils constricted and then expanded. “Take me to Ires. We must find Jadis. And then, I will need to return to Iliseeum, and you—all of you—must prepare. Kolis is not the only one who has awakened. The Consort ...