Total pages in book: 248
Estimated words: 236909 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1185(@200wpm)___ 948(@250wpm)___ 790(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 236909 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1185(@200wpm)___ 948(@250wpm)___ 790(@300wpm)
Nyktos nodded. “As am I.”
I curled my fingers around the edges of my sleeves. In the silence, I remembered what Saion had said on the Rise. “The Cimmerian? The one called Dorcan. He mentioned you had an army.”
“I do,” he said.
“Is that something all Primals have?”
He shook his head.
My mind started racing. “How many do you have?”
“The army is substantial.” His gaze hadn’t left me. Not once since Nektas had left with the younglings. “They’re stationed at the Shadowlands’ borders.”
“Why didn’t they give aid when the dakkais attacked?”
“They would have if needed.”
The attack had been rather large. To me, that should’ve warranted the involvement of his army. And the only reason I could think that he wouldn’t send for them would be because he’d rather not risk losing any soldiers. Perhaps because he believed he needed all of them.
Which could mean…
My heart turned over heavily. “What would you have done about Kolis if the embers of life hadn’t been placed in my bloodline?” I asked. “Based on what you said in the throne room, it’s clear you haven’t simply accepted this way of life. To live under someone who slaughters without reason and commits the gods only know how many atrocities.”
Nyktos was quiet.
I held his stare. “Are you planning to go to war with Kolis?”
Chapter 14
Nyktos’s fingers continued to tap, matching the tempo of my heart. I tried to keep the awakening frustration at bay. If he didn’t answer, I wasn’t sure what I would do, but it would probably be loud and a little violent.
“To openly speak of such a thing against the King of Gods,” he finally said with a slight curl of his upper lip, “would earn one, even a Primal, a sentence in the darkest parts of the Abyss, where even a god of death would not willingly travel.”
And to speak of actively working against Kolis wasn’t? Like he’d done in the throne room? I smirked. “I doubt that has stopped you from planning just that.”
“What do you think a war of Primals would entail?” he countered instead.
“Something unimaginable.”
“That would be accurate.” He pushed off the desk and walked to the credenza. “No Primal in their right mind would attempt to go to war against the King of Gods, false or not.”
I watched him pull the tome I’d seen him with before the Cimmerian showed closer. I knew I was right, and he wasn’t speaking the truth. He just didn’t want to talk about whatever plans he may have made or still plotted.
He didn’t trust me.
It wasn’t like I expected him to. Not after everything, but it still…bothered me. Stung. And the sting made me think of that unfamiliar thing again—a future. If Nyktos’s plans regarding the embers worked, I could be Nyktos’s Consort for hundreds of years—if not more. That was if we all survived Kolis. But would we continue this way once I was crowned in a day’s time? Would we still live like this? Separate beds? Separate lives? A Consort in title only, uninvolved in the politics of Court and possible battles sure to come? Would I be left behind as he ruled as the King of Gods? A knot lodged in my throat. Or cast aside, no longer the Consort at all?
“What are you thinking about?” Nyktos asked.
Jarred from my thoughts, I looked up. “Just your plan.”
“I don’t think that’s true.”
“Why?”
“Because you just projected…sadness.”
I stiffened. “I did not.”
“Tell me something, Sera?” His head tilted. “When is it that you speak the truth?”
“When I’m comfortable doing so,” I retorted.
An eyebrow rose. “I think that was actually the truth.” He eyed me for a span of a few heartbeats and then opened the tome. “There are things I need to attend to…”
In other words, I was being dismissed. Without him even making a single reference to what had occurred between us last night. And, yeah, his refusal to acknowledge what’d happened was a nonissue compared to everything else. But I’d rather be frustrated with him over that than dwell on a future that may or may not come.
So, I welcomed the rising frustration. “When I first arrived, you said I could go wherever I wanted inside these walls and the courtyard. Does that still stand?”
“It does.” He turned to a blank page.
“You’re not worried about me making a run for it?”
“Not when I’ve made it so every guard who patrols the Rise and the palace is sure to watch the gates.”
My eyes narrowed on his bowed head. “So I can go anywhere?”
Nyktos nodded.
I moved quietly toward him. “Even here? Your office?”
“I’m sure there are more interesting places to be.”
“I’m beginning to doubt you actually live here if you think that.”
“I live here, Sera.”
“Well, you said anywhere. And I choose here.” I paused by the chair. “With you.”
The breath he exhaled practically rattled the walls as he looked up at me.