A Light in the Flame (Flesh and Fire, #2)

by Jennifer L. Armentrout

As if it were a prayer and a reckoning.

“You’re a viktor named Vikter?” “He is the viktor,” Penellaphe said, sitting beside me on the dais. “The first.”

And my reckless heart leapt, just like then.

“What I did to those gods in the throne room will pale in comparison to what I do to whoever satisfies your needs.”

“He is how you wish him to be,” he said. “As you are what you wish to be to those of the Shadowlands and beyond. That is up to you. No one else.”

“Worth it,” someone called out.

I knew that, but this unexpected act frayed me at the seams and made that crack in my chest feel even more unstable.

“Sera.” I thought I heard Nyktos whisper my name as I began to doze off. “You were never a ghost to me.”

“Why did you visit my lake if you had this?” Nyktos was quiet for so long that I looked at him. He was still staring at the pool. “Because it was your lake.”

Not because he could create such things from water, but because he, a Primal of Death, played.

And because of that, all of that… I wanted more. I wanted to be his wife. His partner. His Queen. I wanted to be Nyktos’s Consort.

“The poppies,” I whispered. “The poisonous, temperamental poppies that remind you of me.” “The powerful, beautiful poppies that also remind me of hope,” Nyktos replied, his thumb smoothing under my lower lip before returning to my hip. “Those poppies are the hope of life. The power of those embers. Proof that life cannot be defeated, not even in death.”

“Empty.”

I would not. I would not. I would not.

I am always in awe of you. I could keep going, but most of all, what I feel is the closest thing to peace I’ve ever experienced.”

“Rise for the One who is born of Blood and Ash, the Light and the Fire, and the Brightest Moon,”

“I would’ve loved you if I could have. There would’ve been no stopping me.”