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)
Aios continues watching over Sera, doing everything she can to ensure everyone is safe. When Sera starts fretting, Aios tells her she did nothing wrong by bringing Bele back and asks if knowing the outcome will change her actions in the future. She imagines that Sera doesn’t really have a choice. It’s part of her makeup and driven by instinct.
Later, in the throne room, Aios stands next to Paxton as Nyktos tells them how Sera tried to go after Kolis on her own to protect the Shadowlands and that her bravery is unmatched.
When the Cimmerian arrive, Nektas brings Reaver and Jadis to Bele and Aios for safekeeping.
Aios spends time with Sera and the younglings, talking about how draken only sleep in their mortal forms when they feel safe, and the coronation being delayed. They gush as Reaver is sweet, bringing Jadis a blanket, and then discuss Aurelia and what being sweet on someone—as Reaver put it—means. Aios blushes when Reaver insinuates that Bele is sweet on her.
Later, Aios asks Nyktos if he thinks Kolis will be able to sense the embers in Sera. Before they leave, she helps Sera pick out an appropriate gown for her meeting with Kolis and remarks that she is like Bele in stashing weapons everywhere. Aios inquires whether Sera will go after Kolis while she’s there and asks why she thinks she can take the Primal. Sera tells her that she’s Kolis’s graeca. She is Sotoria. As they talk more, Aios asks Sera why killing Kolis and being Nyktos’s Consort can’t both be her destiny. Then, she reveals details about her time in Dalos when she was Kolis’s favorite and kept in a cage.
Sera apologizes and tells her how strong she is. As the discussion wraps up, Aios tells Sera that she’s wrong about what she can do because Kolis has no weaknesses—he’s incapable of love.
Aios and Bele have dinner with Sera and Reaver in the receiving room.
Before the coronation, Aios does Sera’s hair and makeup. Later, she takes Sera from Rhahar and escorts her to Nyktos with the guard, Kars. She asks if Sera has any questions. Sera asks her if she’s been in love, and Aios says she doesn’t think it feels the same for everyone. For her, it was like feeling at home in an unfamiliar place. Like being seen, heard, and understood for the first time in a way you never were before. She tells Sera that you know you’re in love when you’d do anything for someone. Then she hands Sera off to Nyktos.
During Kyn’s attack, the Primal kills her. She had just gone outside to help when he takes her down. Despite her mangled chest, Sera restores her. She wakes and is confused. Kars helps her inside.
Eons later, when the gods sleep, Aios comes to Poppy in a dream and keeps her from falling from a cliff in the Skotos Mountains.
PENELLAPHE
Goddess of Wisdom, Loyalty, and Duty (in Blood and Ash timeline)
Court: Unknown
Hair: Honey-colored.
Eyes: Bright blue—like sapphires that become silver in Blood and Ash timeline.
Facial features: Light brown skin.
Preternatural features: Powers of intelligence and will.
Other: In a relationship with Holland—an Arae. Slumbers under the Great Atheneum in Carsodonia in Blood and Ash timeline.
Background: Was young when she had her first vision. The source of Poppy’s prophecy and her namesake.
Family: Mother was a God of Divination.
PENELLAPHE’S JOURNEY TO DATE:
Penellaphe goes to the Shadowlands with Holland to discuss Sera. When she arrives, she bows to Nyktos and tells him she’s come about Sera and brought an Arae.
As the group chats, Holland tells Sera that he’s ageless because of all the liquor he drinks, making Penellaphe laugh. When they discuss what she saw and what has happened, she tells Nyktos that Holland didn’t technically intervene by being Sir Holland to Sera and that their years together were very long.
I feel this deep in my soul. Being away from those you love can feel unending, indeed.
They talk more, and Penellaphe tells Sera the Arae can’t do anything to affect her fate. At least, not anymore. But she clarifies that Sera has the essence of Eythos’s power, and it could be recognizing its source in Ash, signifying soul mates.
Penellaphe reveals that she had a prophetic vision before Eythos made the deal with King Roderick. It had never happened to her before, and she wasn’t sure what she saw or heard. And while she didn’t understand the words, she knew they carried purpose and were important. She told Embris, and he took her to Dalos. Kolis questioned her extensively as if he could force understanding or clarification. Eventually, he gave up. Afterward, she went to Lotho, figuring if anyone could make sense of what she had seen, it was the Fates.
The prophecy:
From the desperation of golden crowns and born of mortal flesh, a great primal power rises as the heir to the lands and seas, to the skies and all the realms. A shadow in the ember, a light in the flame, to become a fire in the flesh. For the one born of the blood and the ash, the bearer of two crowns, and the bringer of life to mortal, god, and draken. A silver beast with blood seeping from its jaws of fire, bathed in the flames of the brightest moon to ever be birthed, will become one.