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Ash folded his arm over my waist again. “What you meant to say is that I was right, and she was wrong.”

I shot him a glare over my shoulder. “That is not what he said.”

He glanced down at me. “It’s what I heard.”

“Then there’s something wrong with your hearing.”

“Is this a continuation of the discussion where you two were not arguing but disagreeing?” Nektas asked.

“Yes,” Ash and I snapped at the same time.

“At least you can agree on that.”

“I was simply telling him that he needs to take the embers,” I began.

“Not to sound repetitive,” Ash said, “but I disagree.”

“Oh, my fucking gods.”

“Now, you’re just being sacrilegious.”

I glared at him.

His lips twitched.

“That wasn’t even funny.”

Ash opened his mouth.

“If you say disagree again, I cannot be held accountable for my actions—my extremely violent actions.”

“As I was saying,” Nektas jumped in again, a lock of crimson-streaked hair sliding over his shoulder as he tilted his head. His eyes met mine. “You’re right. Ash cannot afford to weaken himself. But,” he said before Ash could intervene, “he only gave you a little of his blood. Not nearly enough to have stopped this inevitability.”

I snapped my mouth shut.

“I think it was more like his sheer will made it so you woke up,” Nektas continued.

His sheer will?

“And is waking up in the arms of the one you care so deeply for a waste of time? There is nothing I would not give to have one more moment with Halayna.”

My breath snagged at the raw honesty and lingering pain in his voice. I twisted toward Ash. “I don’t think any extra time with you is a waste. I wasn’t thinking.”

“I know.” Ash cupped my cheek.

“But Sera doesn’t have much more of that precious time,” Nektas said quietly. “And that cannot be denied. I can feel it.” He placed a hand against the coppery skin of his chest. “Scent it.”

My upper lip curled. “You can…smell it?”

“The body goes through natural changes when it begins to die. That is something we can smell,” he explained. I thought about the last time he’d said I smelled like death. Had I smelled like this the whole time? “And we can sense the fading of the embers.”

I looked at where Ehthawn rested and thought about the low, mournful sound I’d heard him make.

“So can Ash,” Nektas continued. “So can any Primal who is near you.”

Reaching down, I folded my hand over the arm at my waist.

Nektas lifted his ruby eyes to Ash. “You know what has to be done. And soon.”