Total pages in book: 362
Estimated words: 347293 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1736(@200wpm)___ 1389(@250wpm)___ 1158(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 347293 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1736(@200wpm)___ 1389(@250wpm)___ 1158(@300wpm)
An eyebrow rose. “You would be correct.”
“No one does but…your father. He knew the truth. So do Kolis and the Fates.” My stomach pitched as I finally recalled what else I’d seen. “The Arae…”
Holy shit.
There was a reason the Arae were said to be everywhere and in everything. Why they didn’t answer to Primals. It was because they were the Ancients—those who didn’t go to ground or pass on when the Primals rose.
Which also meant Holland was an Ancient. And I’d kicked and punched him before. Cursed at him. I was also sure I’d probably threatened his life in a fit of anger at some point.
Ash watched me intently. “What about the Arae?”
I started to tell him what I had learned, but the words wouldn’t come to my tongue. They came to my mind, though, along with a sense of bone-deep knowing.
I couldn’t tell him.
My intuition didn’t tell me why, but I knew there would be consequences if I did. Grave ones.
Hating that I had to keep this from Ash, I stabbed a piece of cauliflower and thought about the conversation I’d had with Nektas on the balcony. I was willing to bet that he knew exactly what the Fates were. “Just that they know about the other lands.” I forced my thoughts there as the back of my neck prickled near my left ear. “They aren’t separated by time, but by thick veils of eather our power cannot penetrate. They wanted things to be different there.”
“Why?”
I bit down on the buttery cauliflower and searched my mind, finding nothing more on that topic. “I don’t know, but there is more about the Ancients. I know there is. I just need a moment to think about it.”
“And more cauliflower?”
“That, too,” I murmured, forking more of the vegetable into my mouth as I squinted at the wardrobe. There was definitely something more about the Ancients. Something that had to do with balance. I stiffened as a chill whipped through my chest.
I twisted toward Ash. “There is more, though. When the Primals rose and defeated the Ancients, some entered Arcadia.” Some became the Fates, but others… “There were Ancients who went to ground. They went into stasis, Ash. They are not gone. They are only asleep, and they can never wake up. They are why there must be true embers of life and death at all times. Why life must be created, and death must always come. It’s not just because someone says there needs to be balance. The Ancients made sure of it.”
Thoughts fired off rapidly as eather hummed beneath my skin. “It’s why Kolis has been creating the beings he calls the Ascended. So far, it’s kept the balance, but if that isn’t maintained? Whatever the Arae did that linked the balance to the Ancients who went to ground will lift. They will awaken, and that cannot happen—” I gasped as the fork I held heated and trembled. My hand spasmed open—my empty hand.
The fork had evaporated.
My gaze shot to Ash. “I didn’t mean to do that.”
“It’s okay.” Ash stretched, picking up an unused fork. He halted, glancing from the utensil to my hand. “You good?”
“I think so.”
Ash handed the fork over. “What exactly happens if these Ancients wake up?”
A chill went down my spine as I swallowed. “It’s worse than what the Rot would’ve done. I saw them destroying entire lands. Killing nearly everything and everyone. And those in the ground? They are the ones the combined forces of Primal, draken, god, and mortal couldn’t defeat. They could only be forced into stasis. I don’t know how they did that, but what I do know is that no matter how long they remain in the ground, they are no longer the beginning of everything—the great creators and givers of life.”
Ash had gone completely still, his gaze not leaving me as I spoke. I didn’t even think he blinked.
“If they awaken,” I said, Primal essence throbbing hotly through me, “they do so as unia and eram. The ruin and wrath of that once-great beginning.”
“Fuck,” Ash murmured.
Chilled to my very core, I exhaled slowly. “That was…dramatic-sounding.” I laughed. “Wasn’t it?”
“Yes, it was dramatic.” Ash blinked several times. “Unia and eram are what many of the Ancients became before the end of their time, but any Primal can become it if their rage truly consumes them or if they go too long without feeding but manage not to go into stasis.”
A shiver spider-walked down my spine. The idea of any Primal becoming that was terrifying.
Ash picked up a piece of beef with his fork. “You know, this begs one very important question—actually, more than one. But if the existence of the true embers of life and death keep the Ancients basically entombed underground, then why would a Fate train you to kill the true Primal of Death?”