The late-morning sun washed over the Peaks as I stood at the window.
Hours had passed since Poppy left. When I asked Aydun what he’d done to keep others unaware of her absence, all he had said was that they would believe she still slept. But I had a feeling he was doing something else. No one had even knocked on the chamber door.
That should concern me, but everything he’d told me about the lands beyond the Primal Veil—what had happened there and why—consumed my thoughts.
The knowledge that Poppy had felt all those deaths sickened me. Even with my newly acquired abilities, I couldn’t imagine what she’d experienced. I just wanted her in my arms and to erase the horror from her memory.
My jaw tensed until I wondered if I’d crack my molars like my body had when it hit the wall.
After Aydun had announced that the end had begun and it would be worse than what had happened beyond the Veil, he’d decided to word the why behind the devastation there poorly. Very poorly.
“The Ancients woke because of her,” he’d said. Like he wasn’t putting all that shit on my girl. “Just as we dreamed.”
Because of her.
I’d lost my shit.
Lunged at him and managed to get my hands on him. I’d seen the flicker of surprise in his eyes before he introduced my body to the wall.
Because of her.
Bullshit.
And it wasn’t denial that had me thinking that. Yeah, I got that the Ancients Awakened in those lands because of Poppy’s Ascension into a Primal with the powers of life and death, but it was notbecauseof her. It wasn’t her fault, and I swore to the gods, if any of the other Arae said that shit to her, I would end them.
I drew in a long, slow breath as metal clinked off dishes.
The bastard wasstilleating.
Aydun had also told me who the Ancients once were, why some had gone to ground, and who they were now.
Unia eta eram.
Ruin and wrath.
And they were asleep, even here, likely right under this damn castle, and in the east, beneath the streets and homes of Atlantia—or what Aydun had called the Bonelands.
This whole time, we’d believed that the first Primal gods were the ones who created the realms. We’d been wrong. The truth had either been hidden or was lost to time. Regardless, I was willing to bet I knew exactly what the Fates were.
But, according to Aydun, the Ancients weren’t the problem.
At least, not right now.
Kolis remained the most pressing issue. A big one that’d kicked off a clock that was ticking down to the end. His presence alone wasn’t the only reason, though. That had to do with the other shit Aydun had spouted off.
Of course, none of it told me how to defeat Kolis.
“That would be considered interference,”he’d said.
How the fuck was everything else he’d saidnotconsidered interference?
Either way, I kept turning over his words as my gaze shifted to the Rise. I stretched my neck to ease the tension gathering in the muscles there. A draken took flight, launching off the wall.
My jaw clenched. Aydun had said a lot of shit that had nothing to do with the Ancients and everything to do with what the ruling Primal gods would do if Poppy—
“Heartmates.”
I briefly closed my eyes. He’d been doing that often—throwing out a word like he was answering a question only he was party to.
