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)
If you ask me, Nyktos is made of good. While no Primal can be good per se, Nyktos is the best of the best. And while he may not like to admit it, I am sure I’m not the only one who sees it.
Taking stock, Ash doesn’t believe the other gods sensed him and tells Sera to go home. When she challenges him and asks if he’s leaving, he informs her that he’s not.
Later, he startles her outside the Kazin home they’re both investigating and confirms he was following the gods, too. Once again amused by her spunk, he suggests they look around together since they seem to have common goals. He informs her that the gods have done this before and confesses that he planned to try to capture one of them and chat. While he has every intention of getting to the bottom of things, he warns her that she should let it go.
Sera, not afraid of much—apparently even a god, as she thinks Ash is—brings her shadowstone dagger to his throat. He questions her about the weapon given shadowstone is rare in the mortal realm. After they discuss it, she tells him she stole it from her stepbrother—a lie. When he asks her if she knows what would happen to her if she tried to use it on him, and she says she does, he confesses that knowing she’d still try makes him think of their kiss earlier and her tongue in his mouth.
Cheeky devil.
Ash disarms her and tells her she’s too brave, calling her liessa for the first time. He asks her what drowns out her fear and pushes her so eagerly toward death. She says she doesn’t know. After a little more discourse, she tells him to get on with it: killing her. He’s both surprised and amused that she thinks he would. He tells her to be careful but warns that he’ll be watching.
Following the gods later, Ash enters Joanis Designs. Acting on instinct, Sera stabs him in the chest. He chastises her for being reckless, pulls out the dagger, and destroys it. Not having learned her lesson about self-preservation, she threatens him and seems utterly unimpressed by his show of force and energy. It only makes him laugh.
He asks her what scares her and calls her liessa again, realizing she’s only scared on a superficial level. Unable to stop himself from touching her, he caresses her cheek and tells her that while she may feel terror, she’s not terrified. She snarkily asks him if he’s the God of Thoughts and Emotions, making him laugh again.
She’s clearly trouble, but he can’t keep away.
Ash confesses to Sera that he was alerted to the gods entering the mortal realm. He tells her that he’s kept an eye on her to keep her from getting into any more mischief. When she tells him it isn’t necessary, he replies that he wanted to—something that surprises even him. They share information, and he says he hasn’t discovered anything about the Kazin family murders nor found any evidence explaining why Madis did what he did, though he insinuates the god was lazy this last time.
He explains that the gods’ victims’ souls just cease to exist, which is a fate crueler than being sent to the Abyss, where you’re at least something. When she asks, he confirms that he’s indeed from the Shadowlands and tells her what happens to a soul after someone passes.
As they talk more, Andreia Joanis—who they thought quite dead when they arrived—begins to stir, then rises and attacks them. He kills the seamstress with his shadowstone sword and tells Sera that he’s never seen or heard of anything like what they just witnessed. He knows that Madis didn’t just kill her. He did something else to her—something disturbing.
When Ash tells Sera he has to go, he urges her to do the same, calling her liessa again. When she asks him what it means, he tells her that it has different meanings to different people but that it always means something beautiful and powerful.
I saw this exchange in a vision of the past, and let me tell you, I swooned.
Sometime later, Ash hides and watches Sera as she spends some time in her lake. When she demands that he reveal himself, he comes out from behind the waterfall and tells her she’s like a goddess made of silver and moonbeams—she really is. Seraphena is absolutely stunning. She gives him hell as she always does, and he calls her a liar when she tells him she doesn’t want him to stay. Their discourse continues, and he admits that he’s aroused but a little afraid of her, and is being careful around her despite the lure he feels to be bad.
When she finally asks his name, he tells her it’s Ash. She inquires if it’s short for something, and he tells her it’s short for many things. She asks about his tattoos, and he hedges, instead telling her to get dressed and promising not to look as she does. Not long after, he realizes they aren’t alone and instructs her to unsheathe her blade, saying that what comes isn’t from the mortal realm.