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

by Jennifer L. Armentrout

“You are the heir to the lands and seas, skies and realms. A Queen instead of a King. You are the Primal of Life,” Nyktos—the Asher, the One who is Blessed, the Guardian of Souls and the Primal God of Common Men and Endings—rasped.

I’d been Nyktos’s first. And he…he would be my last,

“Prophecies are the dreams of the Ancients,”

“Sotoria didn’t belong to him then, and Seraphena doesn’t belong to him now.” Seraphena. I could count on one hand how many people called me by my full name, and none of them spoke it like he did. As if it were a prayer and a reckoning.

In everything—even among the Primals. Life cannot exist without Death, and they should not be one and the same.”

“Wait.” I dropped my hands to my knees. “You mean like a…a Primal of both Life and Death? Is that possible? Because you said should not. You didn’t say could not.” “Anything is possible,” Holland replied. “Even the impossible.”

“What he means to say is that such a thing, a Primal of both Life and Death, is not meant to exist,” Nyktos said. “It would be unthinkable for the embers of both to thrive in one being. But if they could?” He gave a short laugh with a raise of his dark brows. “The kind of power they’d wield? It would be truly absolute. They could unravel realms in the same breath they created new ones.”

“Maia,” he said, speaking of the Primal of Love, Beauty, and Fertility. “I had her remove my kardia.” Penellaphe gasped, her eyes widening with shock. “Good Fates,” she whispered. “I have known none who’ve done that.” I was obviously missing something and also getting tired of asking questions. “What is a kardia?” “It’s the piece of the soul—the spark—that all living creatures are born and die with. It allows them to love another not of their blood irrevocably, selflessly.” Penellaphe swallowed. “It must have been terribly painful to have that torn from you. To truly be unable to love.”

Fate is never truly written in bone and blood. It can be as ever-changing as your thoughts. Your heart.” He paused, glancing at Nyktos. “His.”

“Love is powerful, Seraphena.” Holland lifted his hand to my cheek, and the touch carried a ripple of energy that hadn’t been there before. “More so than even the Arae could imagine.”

What you’ve spent your life preparing to become? What I trained you for? It wasn’t a waste.” Those dark, shining eyes held mine. “You are his weakness.”

Become his weakness. Make him fall in love. End him. Not Nyktos. Kolis.

But he was Nyktos now. Not Ash. He’d never be Ash to me again.

“It’s reality. I have to deal with it. So, I’m dealing with it. Like I’m dealing with the fact that I’ve spent my life planning to kill an innocent Primal. Just like I’m dealing with the fact that I’ve apparently lived the gods only know how many lives, all because I got scared in one of them and ran off a stupid cliff.” My skin prickled. “Like how did I run off a cliff? It’s not like it would’ve jumped out and surprised me. I had to know the edge was there, but I just kept running? What the hell?”

He slowly leaned forward. “Your safety is worth everything.”

“Nyktos is going to lose his shit once he realizes you’re out here.”

“Interesting. Your blood. It smells like…life.” He sniffed the air, and the glow of essence pulsed behind his pupils as his eyes widened. “Blood. Ash. Blood and—”

Then, through the mass of thick, throbbing shadows, I saw him. Nyktos, in his Primal form. He hovered in the air, his wings a mass of pulsating eather and shadows spread wide, his skin shiny and hard, a stunning, whirling kaleidoscope of shadowstone and moonlight. Silvery essence crackled from his all-white eyes and palms.

Nyktos Primal

“Because you just tore apart a god with your hands, and I found that…kind of hot.”

“Did this god say anything else?” “Yeah. He smelled my blood and said it smelled like life,” I told him, inhaling slowly as I struggled to ignore the pain. “And like blood and ash.”

“No, but you’re in pain, and I cannot allow that to continue. I won’t.”

“Let me help you, Sera.” His voice dropped to a whisper. “Please.” A shudder went through me. Please. Hearing him saying please…it was a weakness.

I found peace. Like the kind Nektas said that I brought to Nyktos. Peace that allowed him to sleep deeply when I was near. I wanted that to be true, maybe even more desperately than I wanted to stay where I was, but Nyktos eased his wrist from me.

“I can sense your need. Feel it. Taste it. You’re drowning in it.” His eyes slammed shut. “I’m fucking drowning in it.” A sharp dart of desire sliced through me. “Then drown with me.”

“What I’m feeling is how I always feel when you touch me. Like there is a fire in my blood.”

“I’m sorry,” I whispered, breathing through the sting in my throat and eyes. I wished he could hear those words and that he believed them. I wished for many things in those seconds before turning back to the balcony, blinking back dampness. My shoulders tightening, I lifted the hood and stepped out onto the balcony before quietly closing the door behind me, focused on only what lay ahead.

“Did you seriously just try to run?” Nyktos’s breath stirred the hair on the top of my head. “From me? Why? Why would you do that?”

“Answer me.” I realized he wasn’t shaking me. It was his body. It shook under mine. “Why were you running from me?”

“Yeah, that’s exactly it. Not that I was actually trying to save you, you jackass!” Nyktos went completely still and silent, and I realized my mistake right then. His chest rose sharply against my back. “You couldn’t have—no, Sera. No.” I felt the moment the shock hit him. His arm loosened around my waist, and I knew it was my chance—my last chance.

“Tell me I’m wrong. Tell me!” he shouted, the shadows spreading until his flesh was the color of midnight streaked with starlight, and the fingers around my wrists became as hard as shadowstone. “Tell me you were not going after Kolis!” “I had to.” “Wrong,” he snarled, the flash of fangs a shocking white against his skin.

“I’m going to die no matter what. The mortal realm will be lost. You can’t stop that. No one can. But I can at least do something about Kolis. Then, he won’t be able to hurt anyone again. He won’t be able to hurt you.” He lowered his head even more, his mouth barely a breath away from mine. “I will gladly suffer anything Kolis dishes out as long as my blood is spilled instead of yours.”

“You’re not going to let me go, are you?” “Never,” he swore.

“The next time you put a dagger to anyone’s throat,” he said, his breath coasting over my cheek as he guided Odin toward the palace, “you’d better mean it.” I stiffened. “Even if it’s yours?” Nyktos’s arm folded over my waist, tugging me against his chest. “Especially if it’s mine.”

Choking on more words I really didn’t need to speak, I stomped up the stairs like a full-grown-ass woman.

A tremor ran through his entire body. “Promise me,” he rasped. “Promise me you’ll never go after Kolis again.”

“Seraphena has taken no oath, sworn no loyalties, nor does she yet wear the crown of the Consort. She has not been here long, but she was still willing to risk her life to protect all of you—all of those within the Shadowlands and beyond. Believing that she was the cause of the recent attacks, she planned to turn herself over to Kolis. Though she is not the cause,” he said, the slight lies rolling off his tongue smoothly. “Her bravery is unmatched, even among all of you.”

Nyktos’s thumb brushed across the inside of my palm, causing me to jerk. “Seraphena will be a Consort more than worthy of the swords and shields each of you will wield to guard her. One the Shadowlands will be honored to have.”

Ector stepped out from the throng, withdrawing his sword. He crossed it over his chest as he lowered himself to one knee. “Then we will endeavor to be deserving of such an honor.”

“None of them will harbor any ill thoughts toward you now. They will see you as you are. Brave and daring.” Nyktos had lowered his head, speaking so only I could hear him. His cool breath danced over the shell of my ear, sending a shiver over my skin. “And if they still harbor any ill thoughts, they will be the last ones they ever have. No matter how loyal they are to the Shadowlands, I will destroy them.”

What he said meant the realm to me, because every word he’d spoken had been about me and my actions. Not what he believed about me. Not what I or the embers could do for him, but what I had chosen to do. And for the first time in my life, I felt like I was more than a destiny I’d never agreed to. More than the embers I carried within me. I felt like…more.

“Heartmates usually only occur between two people whose unions are linked to some great purpose.”

“How much do you know about what Eythos did?” “Everything.”

Nektas was the first to become a draken. He was the draken who gave his fire to the flesh my father lent to create the first mortal.”

We all need someone to watch over us.” Heat crawled up my throat. “Do you?” “Desperately,” he whispered.

I almost laughed, thinking Holland really did walk that fine line of interference.

“Striking me with the spear would not be how you should repay me for ensuring you live to see a crown upon your head.” Nyktos’s smoky voice was in my ear.

“When I didn’t take you as my Consort, I wasn’t giving you your freedom.” A faint tremor ran through me. It wasn’t a question. It needed no answer. “I’m sorry, Sera.”

I will not play the I-don’t-want-you-but-no-one-else-can-have-you game. With you or anyone.” “There is no one else, Sera.” His

Attes replied. “I also hope you’re more careful with your tone. I may find your boldness refreshing. Alluring, even. Others will not.” “Those who do not likely won’t live long enough to wallow in their insult,” Nyktos responded before I could.

Nyktos laughed darkly. “Because my Consort will likely plunge a dagger into their hearts before I’m even aware of what has occurred.”