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Kolis went completely still beneath me. He didn’t attempt to throw me off or defend himself. There was a flash of something akin to acceptance, and in the back of my mind, I thought maybe he wanted this. That he finally knew his actions had caused him to lose who he believed to be Sotoria, and death would now come as a relief.

It would’ve been sad if he weren’t such a bastard.

I drove the bone down onto his chest, into his heart and against the floor, jerking his entire body. I tore it free and thrust it down again and again, turning his breaths into nothing but gurgles. I counted as I had after he’d bitten me and kept stabbing Kolis. I counted as I had when I’d sat in that bath as I drove the bone into his throat, head, and stomach.

One.

Two.

Three.

Four.

Five.

Blood covered my hands and spotted my arms and cheeks as I slammed the bone into his heart again. My arms shook. My body trembled.

Then I felt him.

Sucking in a few too-shallow breaths, I yanked my aching hands free from the bone, leaving it buried deeply in what turned out to be a highly sensitive part of him. I crawled off Kolis, scooting back against the floor until I hit the legs of a chair, the still-spinning gowns falling all around me. I stared at the closed chamber doors.

Why hadn’t Kolis’s guards entered?

It didn’t matter.

Pain pierced my temples and lanced across my jaw, slowly fading into a dull ache. Panting, I closed my eyes and focused on the embers. The eather throbbed inside me, in my veins and bones, no longer contained to just my chest. They were weaker than before—way weaker—but I pulled on them as I struggled to breathe. I wanted to see him. I needed to because the feel of the hot essence in my veins was likely significant. Final. A spasm ran through me as I remembered what Ash had told me about the essence. That it was my will.

So, I used it to give me what I wanted.

A weightless sensation settled over me, almost as if my consciousness were leaving my body. I became a wraith that floated through the windows in the ceiling and drifted across the empty breezeway, through Kolis’s chamber and into the corridors, tethered to the wispy fingers of eather that searched and searched—

Until I found him.

Ash.

He stalked the halls of the sanctuary, his leather pants tattered and hanging low on his hips. His skin was ashen, those savagely beautiful features—broad cheekbones and strong brow—sharper than ever before. Dirt smudged his abdomen, where the packed muscles stood out more starkly, proof that he hadn’t eaten anything substantial in weeks.

But Ash had been feeding.

Blood dripped over the defined lines of his chest, drenching his throat and smearing his wide mouth.

A guard raced out from one of the halls, charging the Primal, the gold of his armor glinting in the fading sunlight.

Ash caught his arm before the sword blow could land. “Where is she?”

“Fuck you,” the guard snarled, but he quaked as he did so, his body revealing his fear.

“Wrong answer.” Ash snapped his arm in two.

The god howled as the sword clanged off the floor. Ash was as fast as the crack of a whip, tearing into the god’s throat. He drank deeply and fast before lifting his head.

I supposed that was…fast food?

Two guards spilled into the hall. Someone threw a shadowstone short sword.

Ash twisted, using the guard he held as a shield. The god’s body jerked as he took the blade in the back.

Flipping the god around, Ash tore the sword free, letting the body fall to the floor. A bolt of eather streaked through the hall as another guard rushed him. I saw a flash of pale blue eyes. A Revenant. Ash shadowstepped to his right, avoiding the blast of energy. He threw the sword, striking the god in the head as silvery streaks of eather fizzled out. Spinning, Ash caught the Revenant by the throat, tearing the dagger from its hand. “Where is she?”