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My heart began pounding. No, no, no. My muscles locked.

“She can see your truths and lies,” the false King continued. “See all that is needed.”

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

At once, the façade of my blank canvas began to crack.

My gaze swiveled from the Primal to Ione as I rose from the divan. Good gods, how could I have forgotten about Taric and not think about there being another god like him? One who could see right into my mind—and my memories.

Foolishly, I hadn’t prepared for this, and there was no time to do so now.

Dread took root, dampening my palms as the reality of the situation hit me with the force of an out-of-control carriage. This was bad, really bad.

“It will not take very long,” Kolis explained, that fabricated smile plastered across his face. “Ione will be quick and efficient.”

Pressure clamped down on my chest. Not only was I mere moments from Kolis discovering way too quickly that I was manipulating him, I also clearly remembered how painful it had been when Taric flipped through my memories as casually as Callum had turned the pages of his book.

“Sit down,” Kolis instructed, “so we can be done with this.”

I didn’t move. Outside the cage, Callum’s smile grew even wider. That bastard knew what was about to happen. Whether it was just his distrust of me or something else, I had no idea, but he looked like he was about to witness all his dreams coming true.

The weight of the burgeoning fear was suffocating, threatening to crush me. My stomach twisted as the consequences of my lies being exposed loomed before me like a curse. I wouldn’t gain Ash’s freedom, and if Ione saw anything having to do with Sotoria’s soul and how I wasn’t truly her? I was as good as dead.

“Sit,” Kolis snapped, his patience already running thin.

I felt Sotoria then, near my thundering heart. I felt her fear and anger, and it joined mine, forming a combustible mix. The embers started to thrum.

“You seem…nervous,” Kolis remarked, his features stoic but his fingers curled inward.

I most definitely was.

The gold flecks in his eyes had stilled. “Why is that?”

My pulse pounded, and my mouth dried. Think, Sera. Think. “I am afraid,” I admitted, my thoughts racing. I could only come up with one thing to say. “A god did this to me before, and it hurt.”

Kolis’s forehead creased as he eyed me.

“Taric,” Callum surmised, his lips pursing as he walked the length of the cage. “Well, I suppose we now know for sure what happened to him when we last learned he was somewhere near or in the Shadowlands.”

Kolis’s mouth tightened. “Taric found you?”

“It wasn’t just him. Cressa and another called Madis were with him,” I said, hoping this delay would allow me to come up with something else to say. “Why did you…?” I glanced at Ione, unsure how much she knew, and then deciding it wasn’t my problem if she wasn’t supposed to know. “Why did you have him searching for the embers if you already knew where they were?”

“Because I didn’t have him searching for them. Obviously,” Kolis said in a slow, deliberate drawl as if explaining a complex idea to a child. “He was supposed to be searching for my graeca.”

His love.

I wasn’t the only one who’d assumed Taric and the others had been searching for that. Even Veses had.

“Did the others feed from you?” Kolis asked.

I shook my head. “No, it was only him. I…I didn’t know yet about who I was, but he seemed to already know it was me when he looked at me. I didn’t think he needed to feed. He just wanted to.”

A muscle twitched in the Primal’s jaw. “So, he fed from you but did not tell either you or Nyktos what he saw?”

“He really didn’t get the chance,” I told him.

Ione raised a brow as she continued staring at the floor.