Total pages in book: 247
Estimated words: 231436 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1157(@200wpm)___ 926(@250wpm)___ 771(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 231436 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1157(@200wpm)___ 926(@250wpm)___ 771(@300wpm)
She asks why he keeps it hidden, and he says he keeps it with what he cherishes the most. The comment makes her sick. She asks to hold the stone. When he lets her, she feels a jolt and sees the streaks of milky white inside the diamond. Images form in her mind, and she sees an Ancient, a dragon, and the destruction of a mountain creating the Star diamond. She watches as it buries itself. Then the visions shift to Eythos and Kolis and the events that played out for Eythos’s last moments.
Sera suddenly blurts, “You cried,” and Kolis freaks out. He asks what she saw and rips the diamond away. He turns Primal, and she becomes nothing but rage. She uses the embers, and he reminds her what he warned, saying what happens next is on her.
He traps her, and she panics, then has a moment of clarity. The bars can be destroyed by her since, for all intents and purposes, she is the Primal of Life. She takes control, letting out the rage and dismantling the cage and chamber. Then she attacks him. He tells her to stop, but she throws the words from her vision back at him.
He realizes she saw Eythos’s last moments, and she stabs him with a bone. After, she gets in close and tells him she wants him to remember that she wants nothing more than to kill him. Then, she stabs him repeatedly, leaving the bone buried somewhere sensitive.
She astral projects and finds Ash, seeing him coming. She watches as he annihilates all in his path while looking for her. She fills with eather but doesn’t feel right, then collapses. He gets to her and lifts her, telling her to open her eyes and assuring that he’s got her.
She sees flashes outside and tenses, but Ash tells her it’s just Nektas. She can barely talk but manages to ask if she’s dreaming. He tells her it’s real. When she asks if he’s okay, he laughs, given the circumstances. She reminds him that he was imprisoned, but he says she was imprisoned, too, just in a different way.
They discuss Veses a bit and what to do about Kolis. They also talk about what happened, and Sera has to soothe Ash’s anger. She tells him he needs to take her somewhere safe and remove the embers.
Elias comes in, and they discuss where his loyalties lie. Ash keeps from killing him—barely—and Elias swears his fealty to Sera. He says he sent word to Attes and insists he can take Kolis somewhere that will buy them some time.
Attes arrives and urges them to get a move on. When Ash moves to attack him, Attes pleads his case, and Sera tells Ash the other Primal can be trusted. Says he saved her life.
She gets dizzy, and Attes says she was shifting into her Primal self. When Elias once again says he can get Kolis away, Sera asks if it’s safe for him, and he’s honored she’s worried about him.
Attes conjures Setti, and they get Kolis onto the horse. As they’re about to leave, Sera remembers The Star. She tells them they need to get it and they discuss how. She reveals to Ash that his father’s soul is in the diamond, and he asks if she’s sure. She says she is.
After she summons the diamond, Ash says he can’t feel the soul. Sera wonders how they can put Sotoria’s soul in the stone, and Ash says Keella should know how to get a soul out and in.
Ash shadowsteps them to a beautiful cavern of hot springs in the mortal realm, and she tells him the story of Kolis and Eythos, leaving out the part about his mother. When he asks to hold The Star, she doesn’t let him, explaining that she doesn’t want him to see what she did.
As they clean up, one thing leads to another, and they have sex. Losing themselves in each other for a bit.
As they spend time together, they talk about everything that’s happened and catch one another up, talking about what things mean and what’s next. They discuss his nota and Primal forms, then Ash leaves to get her some clothes.
When he returns, he tells her that he went to the Bonelands, and Sera asks about Bele and Aios. They talk more about freeing Eythos’s soul, and Sera wonders if Ash will be able to interact with it.
As talk turns to Attes, and Ash makes it clear that he still doesn’t trust him, Sera tries to make him understand why Attes could never be loyal to Kolis. Then, she tells him what Phanos did. When she sees the wheels of his mind turning, she has to stop that train of thought and insist that nobody else will give their life to save hers.