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)
Nektas eavesdrops on Sera and Ash and then brings the younglings to say goodbye to the couple. He wants to go with them, but only they can answer Kolis’s summons. He tells Sera he will see her again.
Nektas and Jadis go to the mountains. On coronation day, he returns but leaves the younglings there. Landing in front of the thrones in draken form, he remains there the entire time. Attes stops to speak with him after talking to Sera and Nyktos. He nudges Keella’s arm in response to something the Primal says, and she strokes his cheek.
When the next big attack comes, he and Orphine attempt to fend off the enemy draken attacking Lethe. Nektas then fires on the dakkais attacking Ash, scorching those in front while Orphine takes those behind Nyktos.
Nektas comes to Ash’s aid when he breaks free of the Carcers and goes to rescue Sera. When Ash Ascends her, he’s there to help watch over her and talk to Ash as he talks to his Queen. At one point, he makes sure they’re okay and has his life threatened by his friend.
He’s pretty sure they’ll be just fine.
My next viewings of Nektas were in Poppy and Casteel’s time.
Nektas wakes when Poppy touches him, snarling and sniffing her and then giving a soft whirring trill.
When Poppy returns to Iliseeum the second time, he’s in his god form and tells her that Nyktos has rejoined the Consort in sleep. He urges her to be sure before she speaks the words that cannot be rescinded and says that once she summons the flesh and fire of the gods to protect, serve, and keep her safe, they will be cast in fire and carved in flesh. He then asks if she wants them to destroy the Blood Crown for her and is told she wants them to fight the Revenants and the Ascended. To fight beside Atlantia, not for them. She adds that she doesn’t want any cities destroyed or innocents killed.
Nektas asks Poppy if she plans to take what is owed and inquires whether she can bear the weight of two crowns. He also pleads with her to bring back what is theirs to protect and what will allow the Consort to wake—Poppy’s father. He then adds that Malec is lost to them; he was gone long before they realized, then reveals that Malec is not her father. His twin, Ires, sired her.
He tells Poppy how Ires was lured from Iliseeum some time ago and drawn into the mortal realm with Nektas’s daughter while everyone slumbered. He informs her they cannot look for Ires without being summoned, and while Ires has not called to them, he knows he lives.
Nektas says that Ires was fond of taking the form of a large, gray cave cat, much like Malec, and is surprised to hear that Poppy saw Ires and knows he’s in the Blood Crown’s clutches.
Poppy tells him Isbeth’s claim of being a god because Malec Ascended her, and Nektas laughs. He tells her that gods are born, not created, and that she, like the Revenants, is an abomination of everything godly. He then tells her that her enemy is truly an enemy of theirs.
As talk turns to Malec once more, Nektas tells her that anyone entombed by the bones of the deities would simply waste away but they would not die. They would exist in a place between dying and death, alive but trapped.
He then tells Poppy to speak the words and receive what she came to Iliseeum for. When she does, he tells her they are hers from that moment to the last and then calls her the Queen of Flesh and Fire.
Just as Poppy goes all Primal at the Bone Temple, Nektas arrives and takes out the dakkais on the Rise. He reveals that Reaver took Malec to Iliseeum after the stabbing and that he’s alive—for now. He then says that Jadis is alive and in the mortal realm.
When they talk about what happened with the mass resurrection, Nektas tells them that Poppy didn’t bring everybody back to life, the Primal of Life aided Poppy, and Nyktos captured their souls before they could enter the Vale or the Abyss. But he warns there must always be balance.
Poppy announces that the Consort is the true Primal God of Life and Nektas replies that the Consort is the heir to the land and the seas, the skies and the realms. She’s the fire in the flesh, the Primal of Life, and the Queen of the Gods. She’s the most powerful Primal. But then he adds, “For now.”
He tells them briefly about Eythos and Kolis and their true roles, relays the story of Sotoria and the aftermath, and states that Nyktos is a Primal of Death but not the true Primal. He was never the Primal God of Life and Death. There’s never been one, and he would never have answered to that title.