I spared a glance around us. We weren’t alone. Others stood several feet back in the shadows of leafy palms. I only saw them because their shadowstone blades glinted in the moonlight. I didn’t know if they were Kolis’s guards or Phanos’s, but they had weapons, and that was all that mattered.
“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.”
I reacted.
There was no hesitation. No thought. I took off, darting past him and running hard and fast, my feet kicking up sand as the material of the soaked gown clung to my skin. I ran straight for the guards.
Surprise flashed across the face of a pale-skinned guard, his blue-green eyes luminous with eather widening a second before I slammed my palm into his chest. The god grunted, stumbling back as I reached for the hilt of his short sword.
“Fuck,” he gasped, reaching for me when I yanked the blade from its sheath.
I’d caught him off guard. I was simply quicker than he was. I jabbed the elbow of my other arm out, catching him under the jaw and snapping his head back.
“Do not touch her,” Kolis ordered as another grabbed for me. “Ever.”
The other guard froze.
Spinning toward the false King, I firmed my grip on the cool iron hilt the shadowstone blade had been forged to.
“Leave us,” he instructed. “Now.”
I didn’t dare look away from Kolis to see if the guards listened to him. I could only imagine that they had, which suited me just fine.
Kolis and I stared at each other in silence while I willed my racing heart to slow. I needed to be calm, careful, and purposeful. Because even though Kolis questioned what I claimed about Sotoria, he believed deep down. That was why he’d shaken so hard when he held me, and it created the awe in his voice that I’d heard only moments earlier.
That all meant he was vulnerable to me—only me—and this was my chance. Possibly the only one I’d get to end this.
“I expected you to run from me,” Kolis remarked. “That’s what she would’ve done. She always ran.”
“Not always,” I said, remembering what I’d learned about Sotoria. She may have run in the beginning, but that changed.
Laces of golden eather swirled faster across his chest. “You’re right.” His chin lifted. A heartbeat passed. “Put the sword down.”
That would not happen. “Make me.”
“Come now,” he said with a low chuckle, his wide mouth curling into a mockery of a smile that bordered on patronizing. He started toward me, the wind off the sea tugging at his linen pants. “What do you think you’re going to do with that?”
Waiting until he was within reach of the blade, I showed him exactly what I could do. I thrust out with the shadowstone sword, aiming straight for the bastard’s heart.
Kolis’s eyes widened, and his brows lifted, creasing the skin of his forehead. The stunned look on his face was comical. It was as if he couldn’t believe that I dared to do such a thing. I would’ve laughed, but he was a Primal.
And he was fast, his reflexes as insane as Ash’s. But like with the guard, I had the element of surprise. Kolis didn’t really believe I would attack, which cost him a fraction of a second.
The shadowstone blade pierced his skin, and my lips split in a savage grin.
The second the sword sank into his chest, he knocked the hilt from my grasp with such jarring force that I lost my balance in the unforgiving sand and fell to one knee.
The sword vibrated where it was partially lodged in his chest, a half an inch—if that—to the right of his heart.
Son of a bitch.
Shimmery blood trickled down Kolis’s chest as he gripped the sword’s hilt, tearing it free. The very moment the blade was out of his body, the damn wound immediately stopped bleeding.
Thick, dark clouds raced over the once-calm sky, blotting out the stars and moon. A stuttered heartbeat passed.
Lightning suddenly streaked above and energy swamped the air, slithering over my skin and causing the embers in my chest to flare. The weight of the soaking power was oppressive, threatening to push me into the ground.
Heart thundering, my head jerked up. Fury was etched into every line of Kolis’s face and set the hard jut of his jaw. The veins in his cheeks lit up with golden-tinged eather. The embers in my chest responded, beginning to thrum wildly as the Primal essence turned his eyes into silver pools with flecks of gold.
“That is the second time tonight I’ve had a sword pierce my flesh.” Light pulsed from his hand, and the shadowstone sword he held evaporated into nothing, not even dust. “I did not appreciate it before, and that has not changed.”
My stomach hollowed as I shot to my feet. I’d stabbed Ash more than once and threatened to do so again too many times to count, but I’d never been afraid of him. Not even when he went full Primal on me in the Dying Woods after I accidentally hit him with a bolt of eather.
But I was afraid of Kolis.
I tried to swallow, but my throat seized. I took a step back.
Kolis swiped a hand over his chest and looked down at his blood-smeared palm. He tilted his head and lowered his hand. “That was very unwise.”
“It was,” I rasped. “I probably should’ve aimed for the head.”
His gold-flecked silver eyes went flat. Absolutely dead.
I did the only sensible thing. Pivoting, I ran. This time, no guards stood in the shadows of the sweeping palms. My arms and legs pumped—
Kolis caught my hair in a fist, jerking my entire body back. Fiery pain erupted in my scalp as my feet slipped. I landed on my knees again. Knowing this put me at a dangerous disadvantage, I attempted to regain my footing while he dragged me through the sand.
Kolis hauled me up and whipped me around. “Now that, I am more accustomed to.” He yanked my head back.
I gasped as pain traveled from my scalp down my spine. Grabbing hold of his arm, I tried to loosen the tension.
“The running-away part, in case you’re wondering what I meant.”
A tiny part buried deep inside me knew this was one of the moments I needed to keep my mouth shut and think before I did anything. Not only for my life but also the entirety of the mortal realm.
But I refused to cower before him. She refused to do it, no matter the cost. No matter how foolish it was. I was not weak, and I’d been wrong when I first heard the legend of Sotoria. She was not weak either.
“That sounds like something to be proud of,” I spat, bringing my knee up fast and hard.
I’d missed his heart before, but I did not miss now.
My knee slammed into his groin. A roar of pain erupted from Kolis, and his arm cut through the air—
Agony exploded in my jaw and cheek. A metallic taste immediately filled my mouth. I went down, catching myself a second before I face-planted in the sand. I didn’t even know what part of him had hit me. His arm? A fist? Whatever it was had my ears ringing. For a moment, the pain stunned me enough that I feared it was something Ash could feel if he was conscious.
Rocking back onto my knees, I breathed through the pain until the initial brutal shock of it lessened. I spat a mouthful of blood onto the sand, shocked that a tooth hadn’t come flying out with it.
“Godsdamn it,” Kolis snarled. “I didn’t mean for that to happen.” The white linen of his pants edged into my vision. “Are you all right?”