And Iunderstoodas the warmth pulsed in my chest and silver light wrapped in crimson and gold flashed behind my eyes. Because, for them, nothing was more miraculous than thecreation oflife. They cherished even their most nightmarish creations. Loved them just as deeply as they did the beautiful, elemental beings they designed.
Until they didn’t.
Until their benevolence turned to apathy. They watched as the Primals grew closer to the mortals, and the first Primal fell in love—just as the ten had dreamed. They stopped seeing the beauty in creation and began to only see the grave cost of unrestricted growth as the number of mortals grew and spread, overtaking the land and destroying it in the name of new creation.
And Iunderstoodwhat the Ancients could not. That when they saw the Primals now unbalanced by emotion and decided to take back everything they’d created, theytoofelt.
Iunderstood,as the Primals rose, and the Ancients either retreated into places of peace or were sentenced to the ground, what the ten who had dreamed only realized after it was too late.
That everything done to prevent what was coming had only ensured that it would.
Without the capability to love and hate, rejoice and mourn, gain and lose, there could be no balance. For every hardship, there must be prosperity. Hate could not exist without love. There could be no joy without knowing grief.
As the essence flowed through me, Iunderstoodthat there must always be balance. Life must continue, and death must always come. Because I saw what the ten Ancients dreamed—what they saw when balance was irrevocably disrupted.
I saw Ancients who had gone to ground and ones yet to Awaken claw their way free, shaking the realms. And I knew they were no longer the great givers of life and the anchors that kept the essence of the realms stable. They were the end that erupted mountains and turned days into endless nights, toppling cities of steel and drying oceans. I saw them rise, full of ruin and wrath.
But I also saw more.
Because in the center of those swirling colors, I saw the desperate King with the golden crown of laurel the ten Ancients had dreamed—the man who had descended from that tiny babe the true Primal of Life had held in his hands. I saw it all: the great power that rose as heir to the lands and skies;she,the first Chosen to fail,who was the true Primal of Life; and what the union between the bringer of life and the bringer of bone would unleash.
Two daughters.
Two Kings.
And the Great Conspirator.
It was inevitable.
The end would come.
But Iunderstoodwhat was threaded through those dreams and existed in the whirling colors as they faded into the crimson-streaked darkness.
Every beginning has an end. But for every end, there must be a new beginning.
That’s what the ten dreamed.
The fall of ruin and wrath.
And the rise of blood and bone.
CASTEEL
Thunder rumbled in the distance as the wolven next to me stood rigid, his hands balling into fists as what I’d said about the Revenant sank in. He’d sung the very same disturbing rhymethat had haunted Poppy—my wife, my Queen, myeverything—since she was a child. But it wasn’t just that it was fucked up and triggered a violent storm of emotions in both of us.
It was also what that Rev—now in bloody pieces strewn across the floor—had insinuated: thathehad been waiting a long time for what was his.
It took no leap of logic to know the Rev meant Kolis. And what he wanted was Poppy.
Kieran’s jaw clenched. “Absolutely fucking—”
A low rumble shook the floors and walls, causing objects in the bathing chamber to fall over.
Kieran looked at me. “That can’t be another god waking up.”
I agreed.
A sudden surge of energy filled the air, making the hairs on my arms stand up.
