Page 171

“She was only with you because I wouldn’t have her.”

Anger flashed in the Primal’s face. “Why must you say things like that?”

“It’s only the truth.”

“No, it’s the truth you’ve decided to believe,” Eythos shot back. “Mycella may have loved you when we were younger, and she continued caring about you until the moment you slaughtered her.”

Kolis looked away, his jaw tensing.

“But she loved me, Kolis. She did not choose me because she could not have you. That is not love. What we had? What grew between us? That was love. She loved me, and I never held what she may have once felt for you against you.”

“Fucking liar.”

“Never!” shouted Eythos. He took a deep breath, visibly attempting to rein in his temper. “Yeah, I wasn’t happy about it at first. Who would be? But I never blamed you.”

Kolis scoffed. “You just cannot stop yourself from playing the role of the better one—”

“It is no role!”

“Bullshit,” Kolis shouted. “You’re not as good of a liar as I am. You never were. There’s no coming back from this—any of this.”

“But there is. There has to be. We are of the same flesh and blood. Brothers. I love you—”

“Shut up!” Kolis screamed, his other hand thrusting out.

Eythos jerked, his eyes flaring in disbelief. He looked down at a rod of dull white penetrating his chest, entering his heart.

Time seemed to stop.

The swirling wind. The building storm. Everything ceased as pure, unadulterated energy ramped up.

Kolis snapped his hand back—his bloodied hand. His mouth parted.

“I knew… I knew you were capable of this.” A shudder rolled through Eythos as he lifted his gaze to his brother’s. Shimmery blood leaked from his lips. “But I…I hoped I was wrong. I always…had hope.”

“Eythos,” whispered Kolis. He shook his head, denial etching into his features. “No. No!”

Kolis caught his brother as Eythos’s legs went out from under him and then held him as energy exploded from his twin, filling the air and the realm.

The…vision or whatever it was faded away. I was still holding The Star, still staring at it, but all I saw was the red flowing down Eythos’s chest. The red streaming from Kolis’s eyes.

A wave of incredulity swept over me because I knew—I knew two things at once. “You cried.”

“What?” Kolis demanded, and before I could answer, he gripped my arm and whipped me around so I faced him. Silver wisps of eather erased the flecks of gold. “What did you say?”

Oh, damn, I shouldn’t have said that. Shock had gotten the better of me. “I…I don’t know what you mean—”

“Don’t lie to me.”

“I’m not.” A hiss of pain went through me as his grip tightened on my arm, stoking the already thrumming embers.

His wild stare dropped to the diamond I still held. He sucked in a sharp breath and lifted the arm of the hand that held the diamond so it was in my face. “What did you see?” Kolis shook me, causing my head to snap back and then forward again.

A burst of sharp pain radiated down my spine. My already too-tight skin prickled as I gripped his arm.

He reached across the arm holding me and pried the diamond free from my grasp, throwing it into the air. My eyes shot to it, my gaze following The Star as it returned to the cage’s ceiling, once more becoming the cluster of diamonds.

The milky streaks of silvery light throbbed down upon us.