Page 57 of The Primal of Blood and Bone (Blood and Ash #6)

POPPY

As I willed the essence to capture the ship, air lodged in my throat at the sound of an unfamiliar voice that seemed to drip power with each word.

Warning bells rang in my head. That something I’d sensed moments ago was here.

The eather pulsed, responding to what was inside him, just as it had with Casteel when I first woke.

But this was different. And those warning bells were telling me that I didn’t want to engage with this stranger, that I should step back because the kind of power I sensed in him was something I’d never experienced before.

It was infinite and old. I focused on the ship—the terrified screams—my chest throbbing wildly.

An innate sense of knowing was birthed then, one that recognized the significance of each pulse. Each scream silenced forever.

“It’s too late for them.”

“I have no idea who you are,” I ground out.

“But I know you.”

That statement sent a shiver down my spine. “That sounded entirely too creepy.” I pulled the ship back from the abyss. “But if you’re not going to help me, can you shut the fuck up?”

A low, long sigh answered, sending another chill dancing across my skin as I brought the ship back to land. I tried not to think about how only half the people remained on the platform. Sending the vessel in the other direction, I was relieved to see those on the ground scatter, fleeing its path.

“You’ve only accomplished delaying the inevitable. Prolonging their suffering.”

I spun toward the sound of the voice, gathering the eather in me.

A tall man dressed in gray stood a few feet behind me where the woman had been crouched moments before.

His dark hair was cropped close to his head, and some kind of design had been inked onto the skin along the sides of his face—a few shades darker than his brown complexion.

It was a pattern I’d seen in the shadows as they climbed up the sides of Casteel’s face.

My gaze lifted to his, and my breath caught. His irises were a collage of silver-pierced blue, brown, and green.

They looked like mine. Like—

I remembered .

I’d dreamed while in stasis, but it was more than just a dream.

It had been more like a vision that showed me everything.

The beginning of the realms. The creation of the Primals.

The first mortal. The fall of those with the same eyes as the stranger before me—eyes that mirrored the beginning of everything.

And I knew what it meant for him to have those eyes. It didn’t make sense because my eyes were similar.

I resisted the urge to take another step back as I quickly glanced around. No one paid attention to us. Most were helping the people on the ships get down and dealing with those in the buildings—the injured I could, despite what he’d said, help.

My gaze snapped back to him. “I know what you are.”

“You do.” He smiled, flashing straight, white teeth. “But you don’t.”

Well, that made next to no sense.

“But you don’t really know me . I can help them—”

“I know what you are capable of,” he cut in. “You could restore life to all those who perished, but they will not live to see tomorrow. You know this. You saw what happens if the balance is so gravely disrupted.”

I had.

Gods, I had seen this in my dreams.

“You cannot help them,” he said, his voice thick with sadness.

Eather throbbed, and I clenched my fists. “I can—”

The ground started to shake violently again, sending me staggering to the side. I turned back to the river just as the bank collapsed.

“It’s too late,” he repeated, his voice somehow louder than the chaos. “And you shouldn’t be here.”

My hands fisted tightly at my sides as I registered the sound of…

were those sirens? They were different than what I was familiar with.

This sound was jarring and relentless, a piercing, high-pitched wail that cut through the air.

Another unfamiliar noise drew my gaze to the sky.

It was a constant roar, similar to the beating of a draken’s wings but faster and stronger.

Above, a strange, fast-moving object with spinning…blades created a dizzying blur against the sky as it flew over the river. It was no beast, but other than that, I had no idea what it was.

I stared wide-eyed. “What the…?”

Another joined the oblong-shaped thing in the sky as the rumbling in the ground intensified, making it difficult for me to stand still.

The last of the water spilled down a massive, ragged opening in the riverbed. Deep and wide rifts opened in the wet soil, spreading rapidly toward the banks.

A voice boomed from the object in the sky, shouting instructions to those on the bridge.

People rushed from the metal boxes and raced in both directions as ruptures in the pillars appeared, sending stone and thick plumes of dust into the air.

Metal creaking, the bridge swayed. The first web-like cable snapped with a crack as loud as thunder, whipping through the air with a reverberating twang.

I shot forward, summoning the essence as another cable popped. And another. The rifts in the pillars split wider, and the entire bridge seemed to rise and then buckle.

“ Stop .”

One word.

That was all it took.

Every muscle in my body locked up. I was frozen with one leg half-bent in mid-step. My will collapsed, and the essence recoiled like the cable slicing through the air.

“There is nothing you can do for them,” he said.

My lips wouldn’t even move, nor would my tongue curl around the words building in my throat.

“This entire city and everyone in it will be gone by the time the sun sets.”

No.

I didn’t care what he said or what I saw while in stasis. I refused to believe there was nothing I could do. There had to be something. Why else had I been drawn here?

Concentrating on the essence, I felt it press against my skin. The air crackled and hissed, but I couldn’t summon it forward. It was like my connection to it had been severed.

My gods. He had that kind of power?

Panic crept through me as sweat broke out on my forehead. I was utterly helpless. Anything could happen, and I wouldn’t be able to stop it or defend myself. And no one was here to help me. Casteel was back home, in our realm, and—

“There is no reason to fear me,” he said. I would’ve laughed had I been able to make the sound.

His words weren’t at all reassuring.

As I could do nothing but wait for the inevitable pain and terror to reach me, my gaze rose to the sweeping structures east of the bridge.

But the pain never came.

My breath thinned. I couldn’t sense anything —not the fear or pain, nor the pulse of death from those desperately fleeing the bridge as the middle collapsed. Things began to plummet to the ground—

No. No. No.

I pushed against the invisible restraints, screaming without sound for the essence to break free as the terrible noises of grating steel and metal blasted from across the sunken river.

White clouds rose from the ground, filling the air. The structures along the coast swayed, their reflective sides warping under the sunlight.

“ They are what you should fear,” the stranger spoke, sadness clinging to each word he uttered. “Now, they rise. Not from the blood and ash, but from the ruin and wrath of all they created.”

My head turned without conscious effort toward the island with the statue.

It was…gods, the island was falling apart.

Trees snapped, the bark of their trunks cracking like brittle, cold bones as the ground that grew them fell away.

The statue trembled, the metal quivering with a metallic groan that shook my body.

Fissures appeared in her carved skirts and raced up the length of her body, the surface cracking like brittle parchment as the vibrations sent a hollow, ringing tremor through the air.

The statue shattered, sending a volley of shards into the atmosphere.

I could do nothing but watch in horror as several sharp pieces pierced the metal objects hovering above, sending them spiraling wildly to the ground as smoke billowed from them.

One crashed into what remained of the bridge, erupting into flames.

The other disappeared into the dust clouds of the fallen structures.

A hand broke through the surface of the sunken river before us, sending mud and rock flying—one little more than bone and fragments of sinew.

The screams and chaos faded as it pulled itself free from the ground. Tendrils of eather erupted from the bony hand, crackling over the shape of a head and shoulders, shifting colors—blue, silver, gold, and crimson. Dirt fell from it in sheets as it planted a foot down.

The ground shook.

And buildings fell.

The being rose to its full height, and it had to be nearly seven feet tall.

Maybe even taller. Muscle formed and thickened, wrapping over bone.

It lifted its fully formed hands as if studying them.

Flesh appeared beneath the sparking eather and dirt, changing from the palest white to the darkest brown.

The eather dimmed, and I noticed it was entirely nude.

I could safely say the being was…uh, definitely of the male sex.

The being shuddered, lowering his hands.

I heard a cracking sound that reminded me of dry branches snapping.

My eyes widened as delicate bones emerged from his back, slender and spindly, arching outward as they extended, gradually taking on the unmistakable shape of a pair of wings.

The skeletal wings were both haunting and mesmerizing.

I had not seen that while in stasis.

But this had to be an Ancient.

The bone wings twitched as the Ancient turned his head toward us. His eyes locked with mine. I tensed, seeing that his irises were like the stranger’s: a stunning swirl of colors and eather. But this one’s eyes had blood-red flecks.

He inhaled deeply, tilting his head back once more. The essence dancing across his flesh pulsed, stoking the eather in my veins.