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October 31 - November 2, 2023
A guttural, inhuman growl shook the cage. “Get your fucking hands off my wife.”
“Because I will not allow you to die,” Kolis answered, speaking nearly the same words Ash had but… When spoken by Ash, they had always sounded like a tragic oath birthed of desperation, stubbornness, and want—so much want. A tremor started in my hands and swept through my body. Kolis’s words sounded like a threat and reeked of obsession.
“She had fewer freckles than you, and her face was shaped more like a heart. The hair isn’t right. Hers was like…like a polished garnet in the sun.” Kolis’s voice was soft, almost childlike in its awe, but his words slithered along the sand and brushed against my skin. “But if I look hard enough…if I let myself see, I do see her in you.”
And I couldn’t do it to Ash—to my love for him. More importantly, I couldn’t do it to myself. I couldn’t become an empty vessel again, a blank canvas. I was a person, not just a warm body created for manipulation, deceit, and the purpose of destruction.
I’d never had the choice to choose myself. Now, I would. I was choosing to fight.
“But Kolis likes to forget that Nyktos comes in as a close second in the top three Primals that no one wants to piss off.” “Let me guess. You’re number three?” I remarked dryly. “You’re very clever.” That dimple was back. And I was unimpressed. “Has anyone told you that you’re so very stab-worthy?” A low chuckle radiated from him. “I’ve been told that a time or a thousand.”
“With my sword and my life.” Eather-laced eyes lifted to mine. “I swear to you, the One who is born of Blood and Ash, the Light and the Fire, and the Brightest Moon, to honor your command.”
I swear this has to be Casteel in a former life. And the fucking dimples!
“It’s from the oldest of our language. Toria had a few meanings. One meant garden. Another could be loosely translated into pretty flower.” He smiled then, but no dimple appeared, and I couldn’t help but think of what Sotoria had been doing when she died. She’d been picking flowers. “But a more exact translation is poppy.”
POPPY IS SOTORIA
“So, Sotoria’s name could be translated into my pretty…” A strange shiver curled its way down my spine. “My pretty poppy?”
“Then I hope she hears this,” Attes said, swallowing once more. “I will save you this time.”
Attes/Cas + Sotoria/Poppy *brain exploding*
“Is it really you? Come to taunt me in my dreams?” “Your dreams?” I said, watching his eyes close briefly at the sound of my voice. “More like you’re in my dream.” Ash chuckled, and I sucked in a reedy breath. That rough, low laugh created heat in my blood. Gods, no one else could make such a simple thing sound so hedonistic. “Even in my dreams, you argue with me.”
“So don’t miss me.” I touched his jaw, feeling the slight stubble there. “Love me instead.” “I do,” Ash swore. “Fates, Sera, I do.”
“I’m nothing without you, liessa,” he whispered as he started to slip away, and the embers hummed in my chest. “And there will be nothing without you.”
And contrary to what is told and believed, the Ancients were not the first of the Primals, nor will any Primal become an Ancient, no matter how old they become.”
The embers of the Primal of Life were capable of so much, but my will… My will was capable of anything. Because I was not weak. I was not powerless. The embers hummed. The sharp glide of Kolis’s fangs scraped my throat. I wouldn’t let this happen. I refused to. I didn’t lose control. I fucking took it.
At the end of the tendrils of eather I sent out, I saw eather-streaked silver eyes snap open. And I smiled. Kolis’s head jerked to the right, his jaw clenching as if he sensed what I’d done. Who I’d freed. His stare whipped back to me, and, yeah, he knew who was coming. Kolis had to feel the ice-drenched rage hit the air high above Dalos, fueling an unthinkable power, because I could.
“Every time I was conscious, I felt you. Your pain. Your fear. The panic. The fucking desperation.”
😭😭😭
“With my sword and my life,” Rhain spoke, lifting his head. The others echoed his words. “I shall honor you.” Silvery, crackling eather erupted from his fingers, spreading across the sword. The blade collapsed first, and then the hilt turned to ash. “In blood and in ash, forevermore.”
“Even if I’m not looking at you, you are still all I see,” he said, his features encased in harsh ice. “I see you, Sera. I always have.”
“That is one of the things I’d rather be doing. Kissing you. Feeling the way you melt into me. You want me to live? This is when I feel the most alive.” His lips brushed mine. “Like this, with you. Live with me. I need that. I need you,” he growled against my mouth.
“Most of all, I wanted to be valued, to be needed and cherished and wanted for who I was and not who I was supposed to be or what I could do for someone. I wanted to be seen.” A surge of emotion clogged my throat as the ground trembled once more. “You gave me all of that, Ash. I’ve lived because of you.” A sound came from deep within Ash as if it tore itself free from the depths of his soul. “I will give you so much more.”
“It’s time,” I whispered. The eather slowed in his eyes. His chest stopped its rapid movements. He didn’t move, not even as the tremor beneath us came once more. I cupped his jaw. “Please.” One side of his lips curled up, revealing one sharp point as he snarled, “No.” Then he struck.
It was happening. After all this time, there was no escaping it, and despite being in Death’s arms, I smiled
“I will take the souls of those lost upon my flesh. I will gladly usher in the end, and I will do it with you beside me,” he swore. “And if not? If I fail and lose you?” His voice cracked from the agony of his sorrow and remorse. My heart shattered. “The realms won’t survive, Sera.”
“Please,” he pleaded. “Fucking Fates, I can’t lose you. I can’t…I love you. I do. Fates, I do. I fucking love you. How can I not? How can this not be love?”
Death wasn’t silent. Or peaceful. It sounded full of feral rage.
I knew that the Ancients who’d returned to the ground must never, ever return to the surface. Because they were no longer the beginning of everything, the great creators, the givers of life and the balance that kept the realms stable.
But even when it began to feel like a chore one had to force themselves to complete, life was still worth living. Even when it was unfair and heartbreaking, dark and full of the unknown, life was still worth living.
It was the one thing more powerful than the so-called Arae. It was that unexpected thread. Unpredictable. It was the unknown. The unwritten. Powerful. It was something not even the Fates dared to predict or control. The only thing that could disrupt fate. It couldn’t be found. It could only be accepted.
