Total pages in book: 222
Estimated words: 213974 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1070(@200wpm)___ 856(@250wpm)___ 713(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 213974 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1070(@200wpm)___ 856(@250wpm)___ 713(@300wpm)
A jolt danced across my fingertips the moment my skin came into contact with The Star. The rush of energy flowed over my hand and up my arm as the embers in my chest immediately thrummed to life, humming and buzzing so fast I couldn’t stifle the gasp or hide how my entire body jerked.
The intense current bordered on painful as it pumped through me, forcing my hand to tighten around the surprisingly warm stone. A tremor started in my arm as the diamond heated. I tried to force my grip to loosen, but I couldn’t let go of the stone, couldn’t look away as its sheen intensified. The light I’d seen hadn’t been a reflection. The streaks of milky, silvery-white light were inside the diamond. They now expanded, filling the entire stone—
Images appeared in my mind without warning, rapidly forming and flipping as if a tome of paintings. I saw a lush forest—a heavily wooded area atop a mountain—and a man caught in a windstorm with long, whipping strands of dark hair around features partially covered in russet-hued ink. And his eyes…
His eyes.
They were the color of the realms—blue, green, and brown, with stars filling his pupils. He yelled at the sky, his words lost to the wind.
Hot, violent air came from the open jaws of a massive, winged beast. A dragon the color of the ground and the pines its breath toppled.
Red sparked from inside the dragon’s mouth, along the sides. Bright flames erupted from the majestic being, a funnel of fire that swamped the man on the mountain. And the flames kept coming, obliterating the entire crest of the peak until nothing remained where the man had stood.
Nothing but scorched earth and a diamond that sank deep into the ground, burying itself—
The images rapidly changed again. The mountain and the dragon were gone, replaced by another man, a black-haired one this time, who held the diamond just as I did, tightly, his knuckles bleached white. His arm shook as mine did. His entire body trembled as he lifted his head, shock filling his silver eyes and flickering across his broad cheekbones, slackening his wide mouth and strong jaw, paling his golden-bronze skin. He stared at the man across from him, one with golden hair who shared his features.
I knew who I saw now.
“Nothing can erase the past,” Eythos rasped.
A hand the same shade as Eythos’s closed over his. “I have no interest in erasing the past. I will change the future,” Kolis swore.
Their stares locked as lightning erupted above them. “Not the way you think you will,” Eythos pleaded, his large body trembling as he struggled to lift his other arm and clasp the back of Kolis’s neck. “Listen to me, brother. It won’t bring anything but pain to the realms—to you.”
“As if I don’t already live with nothing but pain!” Kolis shouted. “That is all there has ever been for me.”
Tears filled Eythos’s eyes. “I wish nothing more than for your life to have been different. If I could change it for you, I would. I would do anything—”
“But you had your chance to make me happy. You had a choice to do anything for me, yet you refused,” Kolis snarled. “And now look at us. Look at where we are!”
“I’m sorry.” Eather crackled from Eythos’s skin. “I am. But it’s not too late to stop this. I swear to you. I can forgive you. We can start anew—”
“Forgive me?” Kolis laughed roughly as thunder roared. “Come now. You speak as if you’re still capable of looking upon me as your brother. As if you could after Mycella. You’ve never forgiven me for her loving me.”
Eythos drew back. “Never forgiven…? Brother, she once held a tender spot for you—”
“She was only with you because I wouldn’t have her.”
Anger flashed in the Primal’s face. “Why must you say things like that?”
“It’s only the truth.”
“No, it’s the truth you’ve decided to believe,” Eythos shot back. “Mycella may have loved you when we were younger, and she continued caring about you until the moment you slaughtered her.”
Kolis looked away, his jaw tensing.
“But she loved me, Kolis. She did not choose me because she could not have you. That is not love. What we had? What grew between us? That was love. She loved me, and I never held what she may have once felt for you against you.”
“Fucking liar.”
“Never!” shouted Eythos. He took a deep breath, visibly attempting to rein in his temper. “Yeah, I wasn’t happy about it at first. Who would be? But I never blamed you.”
Kolis scoffed. “You just cannot stop yourself from playing the role of the better one—”
“It is no role!”
“Bullshit,” Kolis shouted. “You’re not as good of a liar as I am. You never were. There’s no coming back from this—any of this.”
“But there is. There has to be. We are of the same flesh and blood. Brothers. I love you—”