“Ehthawn,” Nyktos observed. “He must’ve been near and saw us leave. He’s just keeping an eye on us.”
I nodded, relaxing.
“There have been times when Primals have fought over one offense or another,” Nyktos continued. “In the end, they are left standing while thousands fall. And all because one felt insulted. But those skirmishes were never wars. If I were to go to war with Kolis, it would be a war of Primals, and it would spill into the mortal realm. Hundreds of thousands would die, if not more.”
My skin chilled.
“But then I found you.”
I tilted my head back to look at him. “You didn’t find me. Your father basically…gave me to you.”
“That’s one way to look at it.” He shifted, his arm tightening around my waist, drawing my back flush to his chest. I faced forward, unsure if he was even aware of the act. “Up until the moment I learned that you carried the embers in you, I had no hope of avoiding such a war. It seemed inevitable. Not only because of what Kolis has wrought upon the Shadowlands, but because, eventually, he will turn his sights on the mortal realm. He’s already started.”
The back of my neck tingled as we finally passed the length of the Rise and a sea of untouched, crimson trees rose along the road.
“Kolis believes all mortals should be in service to the Primals and gods. That their lives should be dedicated to appeasing the whims of those more evolved than they are,” he continued, and my stomach tightened. “That those who do not worship the Primals with dedication and respect should be punished. He has already ordered the Primals and gods to punish mortals more harshly, even for the simplest indiscretions. You may not have seen this play out in your kingdom yet, or were simply unaware, but failure to even bow before a statue of a Primal could result in death in other places.”
I jerked in shock.
“While I do not relish the idea of wreaking the kind of havoc a war among Primals would cause, war seemed, as I said, inevitable.”
“Until me?” Weight settled on my chest, and I forced myself to take a deep, even breath. “Your plan. You think it will avoid a war if it works?”
“My plan will work,” he corrected. “Once I have the embers, Kolis will be stripped of his glory as the King of Gods. That alone will weaken him, but it might not be enough to entomb him. He won’t go down easily. He will fight.”
“And the other Primals?” I could now see the damage the draken had left behind in the Red Woods. Empty areas where trees once rose to the sky. “What will they do?”
“Some may opt to remain neutral.”
My lips peeled back. “That’s bullshit.”
Nyktos chuckled at my curse. “It is, but Kolis will have his loyalists. Not just his gods but Courts that have been able to rule with little to no order, able to do whatever they want to whomever they want, with their only concern being that of avoiding Kolis’s ire. Primals who enjoy the way it is now and would not like to return to how it was when my father ruled.”
“And how did your father rule?”
“That was before my time. But from what I know, it was with fairness. He wasn’t without flaw, but he would not allow what happens in Dalos.”
Honestly, did it matter how his father ruled, as long as it wasn’t like Kolis did? “But there will be Primals who would fight against him? Who would help?”
“I have my supporters. None that have armies such as mine or Kolis’s, but stripping Kolis of his title as King of Gods and rising as the true Primal of Life may be enough to sway others to abandon Kolis,” he said. “How much destruction is caused will depend on how many Primals are swayed.”
My grip on the pommel tightened. “There are a lot of possibilities there. No guarantees that the plan will weaken Kolis enough or cause other Primals to abandon him.”
“There are never any guarantees,” he said quietly.
He was right, and that made me think of the strange prophecy. “What Penellaphe saw in her vision? She made it seem like Kolis had gone to sleep.”
“Or was entombed.”
I nodded. “But it also sounded like he woke up again.”
“Prophecies are only possibilities,” Nyktos replied. “Parts of them may or may not come to pass. They, too, are no guarantee.”
But I wanted guarantees when the lives of hundreds of thousands were at stake. And there was only one I could think of.
Me.
I could prevent a war among the Primals, but Nyktos’s plan could go wrong. There could be enough Primals swayed that Kolis could be defeated without war, and I could fulfill my destiny, but not in the way Holland had inferred.
I noticed that Gala had slowed, and we were steadily creeping closer to where the Red Woods and Dying Woods converged. A few moments later, we left the road.
“Are the Pillars within the Red Woods?” I asked.
“No.” Nyktos led the mare through the trees. “I want to show you something.”
Curious, I fell quiet as we traveled on, under Ehthawn’s large shadow. I couldn’t help but wonder what the woods would look like in the sun. How rich would the leaves appear? How stunning? Once the Rot was vanquished, the sun would return to the Shadowlands, and I decided in that moment, without hesitation, that I would be here to see that.
Excitement built, but there was more to what I felt. The breath I took was unrestricted, deep and lifting. No threat of panic making it feel brittle or like it wasn’t enough, but there was a shivering sensation along the back of my skull and a whipping motion in my stomach and chest. It reminded me of removing a too-tight bodice. A release even more tantalizing than what I felt in Nyktos’s arms accompanied the excitement over deciding something as simple as wanting to see the leaves of a tree under the sun. But it was my decision.
My choice.
No one else’s. Not my mother’s or an ancestor’s. Not Nyktos’s. Not even Fate’s. All mine.
“Here,” Nyktos said quietly, drawing me from my thoughts.
I started to look back at him, but he caught my chin. The charge of energy caused the embers in my chest to warm. He directed my gaze down, past the glistening gray bark to the dry, gray grass—
I gasped.
A vine had sprouted from the dead soil at the base of a blood tree. Deep green and fragile, it wound its way up the bottom of the trunk. Tiny buds were scattered along the length of the vine, but one had blossomed.
It was half the size of my hand, petals the color of moonlight, folded up and closed in, revealing only a thin strip of crimson. It was what I’d seen Nyktos going into the Red Woods to check on before.
“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.”
Nektas was waiting on the road just outside the Rise, cloaked and seated astride a chestnut steed. He greeted us with a nod, and then we continued on. I didn’t know if I should feel relieved that the journey had been eventless or worried because it had been too calm. Eventually, as the three of us rode under Ehthawn’s shadow, the woods on either side of the road gave way to flat, barren land.
“What used to be here?” I asked.
“Lakes,” Nyktos said. “Just like on the road into the Shadowlands. There were lakes on both sides.”