Page 150 of The Primal of Blood and Bone (Blood and Ash #6)

Both Casteel and Delano came to a halt as I scanned the chamber.

I saw Emil standing by a lit fireplace, speaking to a male—an Ascended dressed in dark trousers and a loose shirt.

They looked to be having a rather important conversation and seemed unaware of our arrival.

A handful of other Ascended sat around a table, playing some sort of card game.

Another female with glossy, dark curls and cool-brown skin was curled into the corner of a settee, her attention fixed on the book in her lap.

None of them were dressed in fine silk or draped in elaborate jewels.

These Ascended were already nothing like the ones I’d seen at Wayfair or Castle Redrock in Oak Ambler. Or even in Masadonia. They looked… ordinary .

Malik cleared his throat.

Across from us, Emil’s head jerked up as the male Ascended turned and stopped moving. The card game halted. The book in the woman’s lap was forgotten. They all stared with dark eyes, and even though I couldn’t feel anything from them, it was clear they were either nervous or afraid.

I quickly glanced at Casteel and found him looking around the chamber. Stepping forward, I reached up to lower my hood. “Hello,” I said, because I honestly had no idea what else to say.

The Ascended moved at once. All of them. I’d frozen, but Delano moved forward, hand on his sword as if he believed they might attack.

They didn’t.

All of them lowered to one knee on the floor as they bowed their heads and placed one hand to their chest and the other on the thick carpet.

I continued to stare.

“This is…unexpected,” Casteel murmured.

“I told them it wasn’t necessary,” Emil announced. “That it would probably just make things awkward. But here we are. No one listens to me.”

Delano’s head tipped as he pinned a look on the Atlantian.

Malik stepped to the side. “Allow me to introduce you. This is Queen Penellaphe, as I’m sure you’re all aware.” I jolted at hearing myself addressed as such—I would never get used to that. Malik turned to Casteel. “And this is my brother, Casteel. The King.”

Several of the Ascended trembled when Casteel stepped forward and lowered his hood.

“This is Mira,” Malik said, nodding at the woman with the book and the dark curls.

“The blonde is Raina.” The woman who had been playing cards lifted a hand in acknowledgment.

“Beside her is Regis,” he continued, referencing the male Emil had been speaking to.

“The other two men are Everett and Wesley. And…” Malik leaned forward, looking toward the back of the chamber, where a broad-shouldered male with deep-brown hair knelt. “That is Heath.”

“Your Majesties,” Mira spoke, drawing her gaze back to mine. Her head was still bowed. “It is an honor to meet you.”

Slowly, Casteel looked at me.

I shook my head. If he was at a loss, I had no idea where he expected me to be. “Um…thanks?” I said and immediately cringed. I gave my head another shake and managed to pull myself together. “I’m sorry, but why is it an honor for you to meet us?”

Dark curls toppled over shoulders adorned in a simple sweater as the Ascended lifted her head. “We may be Ascended, but you are a god . It’s an honor.” She paused. “Especially since none of us thought we’d ever see one.”

Several heads nodded.

I supposed that made sense.

“You may rise,” Casteel said, his features unreadable as the Ascended obeyed.

They stood before us as silence filled the chamber. Finally, Mira spoke again. “Thank you for coming to see us.” She clasped her book to her stomach. “We wanted to thank you.”

“All of you,” the dark-haired Regis added, his olive-toned skin lacking the typical warm, golden undertones found in it.

I stiffened. “For what?”

“For taking the capital,” he said.

“And killing the Blood Queen?” Casteel questioned.

“Especially that.” Raina nodded.

My brows lifted in surprise. “You’re…happy about that?”

“Yes,” Everett answered with an eager nod. “Extremely.”

I was sure I’d fall over if even a gentle breeze flowed into the chamber. It took several moments for me to collect my thoughts. “Can you tell us why you’re not bothered, Mira?”

She glanced at Malik, and he nodded. She seemed just as nervous as Helenea had been.

She cleared her throat. “At one time, I would’ve been saddened to learn of her demise—all of us would’ve been.

” There were several nods of agreement. “But that was before we learned what the Blessing truly was. And that we had been lied to.”

“And exactly when did you all come to this realization?” Casteel asked, crossing his arms.

“None of those given over in the Rites—not the second or third sons and daughters—know the truth,” I reminded Casteel. “They only learn after the Rite.”

“Oh, I know,” he replied.

“I wish I could say it changed the very night of our Rites,” Mira said, glancing at the others, “and that we were…smart enough to realize then that we were being lied to when no god appeared before us.”

A twisted, brittle smile formed on Regis’s face as he picked up the conversation. “Instead, what awaited us was confusion, pain, and death. And… this .” He extended his arms. “A life where the only sun we will ever look upon is the one I painted.”

My gaze went to one of the faux windows. A sun shone brightly beyond the oak limbs.

“They didn’t tell you what was about to happen?” Delano asked.

Raina shook her head. “They hardly said anything at all.”

“One would think the absence of gods would be all it would take,” Casteel said dryly. “That should’ve been all you needed to know to realize you were being lied to.”

“You’re right,” Wesley admitted. The brown-haired Ascended looked the youngest of all of them, likely only eighteen or so when he Ascended. “We should’ve listened to our suspicions, but…” His features pinched. “But if I’m honest…”

“That would be nice,” Casteel replied.

Wesley’s pitch-black eyes lowered. “We were cowards, Your Majesty.”

A tight, barely-there smile crossed Casteel’s features. I stepped forward. “How old were you when you had your Rite?”

“Nineteen, Your Majesty.”

Suspicions confirmed, I inhaled sharply. “You were not a coward, Wesley. You were young.”

“I was your age, Your Majesty.” He lifted his head. “You are young, but you were able to confront the truth.”

“I had help,” I said, feeling Casteel’s stare. “When did you all realize you had been lied to?”

“Many small things built upon one another,” Regis said, his gaze moving to mine.

“Inconsistencies that didn’t add up.” He took a shallow breath.

“It slowly became clear that everything we had been told about the Ascended wasn’t true.

Like the choice not to walk in the sun. As you know, we were told it was a choice made with respect to the gods, but it quickly became clear that was not the reason.

There were also other things we weren’t warned about—”

“Like what?” Casteel interjected.

“Bloodlust,” Everett said, swallowing. “We were never told we would need to…feed.” His voice quivered slightly, and the skin around his pale-pink lips tightened. “Nor about the hunger that comes with that.”

That’s true , I reminded Casteel through the notam . He didn’t respond, just dispassionately swept his gaze over the Ascended.

“It was…difficult to acknowledge that we’d been turned into”—blond hair slipped over Raina’s shoulders in loose waves as she dipped her head—“something so frighteningly similar to the monsters we’d feared our entire lives.”

“The Craven,” I surmised.

She closed her eyes with a brief nod. “We are nothing like those who took us.”

Her expression was sad. I wanted to believe her, almost desperately. My gaze moved to where the other male Ascended stood, quiet and listening.

Casteel exhaled slowly. “So, when exactly did you admit the truth to yourselves?”

“I can tell you the exact moment for all of us,” Mira uttered, her already quiet voice becoming nearly fragile.

“The following Rite for each of us, when we were allowed to re-enter the Temple of Perus,” she said, speaking of the crimson-stoned Temple hidden away in the Elysium Peaks.

“And we saw what…what had become of the third sons and daughters.”

My chest tightened. Images of what we’d found beneath the Temple of Theon rose.

The bloodstains. The bones, some of them small.

I had never stepped foot inside the Temple of Perus—a Temple dedicated to a god that never was—but I suspected that whatever they had seen in there mirrored what we’d found beneath the one in Oak Ambler.

Casteel frowned and glanced toward Emil. “The Temple of Perus was searched, was it not?”

He nodded. “We found nothing abnormal.”

“What you would be looking for would be gone by now,” Regis advised. “The…tombs where they kept them were in a maze of tunnels. I doubt any of us could find them again.”

Them .

Babes. Children. Eather hummed in the center of my chest, and Delano stepped closer to me.

Casteel’s head turned to Malik. “Can you find the tombs?”

He shook his head. “I was aware of them but never allowed to enter.”

Static danced across my fingers, causing several of the Ascended to shift back a step. Except for the silent one. His brows rose, and his alabaster face was marked with curiosity. “Is it possible the tombs are still…occupied?”

“Not after the last Rite,” Mira said. I barely breathed around the throbbing in the center of my chest. “We were not involved in it but…heard what occurred.”

I already knew, but I needed to hear it. “What did you hear?”

“Apparently, orders were given to…fill the tithes with crimson,” Mira said, her voice thin and strained.

The breath I took burned its way into my lungs, and I took a nearly involuntary step back.

“The stockpiles,” Casteel bit out. “That’s how they were able to hoard so much blood?”

Mira’s gaze lowered as she nodded.