“Poppy,” I said. “And he won’t. I made sure of it.”

  Surprise flickered over his features, tugging the skin around his scar. “What did you do?”

  “Made a deal with a Fate.”

  His eyes narrowed slightly. “That likely wasn’t wise.”

  “It probably wasn’t,” I admitted, then turned and started to walk away. We had a bit of distance to go. And, of course, it was mostly uphill. It had to be noon. Technically, we were here, so Kolis would just have to deal with it…for the short period he had left to breathe.

  “Hold up.” Attes stopped me. “I need you to understand something I didn’t get a chance to say yesterday.”

  I bit down on the inside of my lip, unsure if I wanted to hear this because Casteel’s words immediately whispered through my mind.

  Attes stepped in closer, lowering his voice. “I made Sera a promise that I would do everything in my power to not allow any harm to befall you.”

  My breath caught. “Did she ask that of you?”

  “She did, but she didn’t need to. I know how important you are to her and Nyktos.”

  “They don’t know me,” I blurted, feeling my cheeks warm. “I mean, I know I’m important to them—to the realm—”

  “Your importance to them has nothing to do with any of this,” he cut in, his eyes narrowing. “You’re of their blood. That is all that matters to them.”

  A sudden tightness bloomed in my throat. I didn’t trust myself to speak, so I nodded.

  Attes’s mouth opened and then closed as he eyed me. His stare was nearly as intense as Casteel’s. “Look, I don’t know much about your relationship with them, but since I know they just woke, there probably isn’t much of one.”

  A choked-sounding laugh left me. “I barely know them.”

  “Well, they would like to get to know you,” he said.

  Seraphena had said pretty much the same, yet hearing it still surprised me. I wasn’t sure why since Seraphena seemed to care for me. Actually, that wasn’t true. “I know they did everything they could to prevent me from being born.”

  “They did,” he said, not mincing words. “But that doesn’t mean they aren’t grateful you were.”

  Looking toward the manor, I clenched my jaw to stop my lower lip from trembling. Hearing that filled my chest with warmth and what felt a lot like hope. No one would ever replace Leopold, Coralena, Ian, or Vikter, but I wanted a family—I wanted that connection.

  “Can I tell you something?” Attes said quietly, and I nodded again. “Seraphena didn’t want you to be born because she didn’t want this for you. I know that doesn’t change shit, but she never wanted you to be in this situation, and if she could, she would take your place. So would Nyktos. Neither wanted this for you.”

  Something like this couldn’t be okay.

  I sucked in a ragged breath and blinked rapidly against the dampness in my eyes.

  “Fuck,” Attes grunted. “Now I’ve gone and upset you. That wasn’t my intention. I’m—”

  “I know.” I cleared the hoarseness from my throat. “It’s okay.”

  Attes looked like he didn’t believe me for one second. He exhaled heavily. A moment passed. “Either way, if things start to go south in there.” He jerked his chin toward the manor. “We get out. You don’t fight me. Understand?”

  Drawing in a deep breath, I exhaled slowly. “I do.” I turned quickly. “We should probably get moving.”

  Attes quickly caught up with me. “I’m serious about what I just said.”

  “I know.” And I did.

  But I also knew that if things went south—if I failed somehow—there would likely be no escape. And even if there was, it wasn’t in me to run. Especially not when running meant leading Kolis right back to those I would die to protect.

  A breeze lifted a shorter strand of my hair, carrying another scent that turned my stomach as it joined the stale lilacs. “But it’s worth whatever favor I may need to repay.”

  Attes was quiet for several moments as we walked. “For your sake, I hope it is.”

  “It is,” I stated.

  “And his,” he added.

  My fingers curled inward. I hadn’t been lying when I said Casteel wasn’t my focus right now. I could compartmentalize. I would’ve been able to, even if I hadn’t seen him before I left. But talking about him wasn’t helping. Especially with Attes, his great-grandfather, who may or may not have been in love with a much, much older and different version of me.

  Gods, I had so many questions about all of that. Not the love part, just everything else.

  I peeked over at him, then quickly looked away when his head started to turn. I clamped my mouth shut. Now wasn’t the time to walk down forgotten memory lane.

  “What?” Attes asked.

  “Nothing.”

  “You want to say something,” he replied as he ran a hand over one of the daggers strapped to his chest.

  “Are those daggers made of Ancient bone?”

  He frowned. “One is. There’s not enough of that bone to go around for more.” He paused. “And I seriously doubt that’s what you wanted to ask.”

  “How would you know?”

  He went silent, dropping his hand.

  “Because you know me—or knew me? Or, at least, a version of me, I guess.” My lips pursed as we walked under some bare branches that rubbed together like dry bones. “Gods, that sounds weird to say out loud.”

  “Yeah.” He sighed. “You remember nothing about that time? I know there was a chance you did as a child.”

  “I could’ve remembered much more as a child, but anyone I could ask is dead.” Except for Millicent. She had been around when I was young. “I only remember bits—like seeing your face, flashes of other people, and…other things.”

  “Other things?”

  “Yes.” I could feel his stare on me. “How did we know each other?”

  “Not sure if this is the time for that.”

  “What better time is there?”

  “Literally any other time,” he replied wryly.

  I sighed. “Whatever.”

  The breeze picked up, and the scent increased. It wasn’t just a sweeter smell. It was sickly-sweet with a metallic tinge. I had a feeling I knew what it was.

  “I met you—I mean, Sotoria—when Kolis brought her back the first time,” he said, and my gaze cut to him. “He…trusted others to be around her then. To guard her when he couldn’t.”

  I opened my mouth, then closed it. Then I laughed. It sounded harsh. What did I say to that? Where did I start? “And you were one of those guards?”

  “I was.” He sighed heavily. “We became acquainted.”

  “And you didn’t see anything wrong with what Kolis was doing?” I asked before I could stop myself. “While you were becoming acquainted?”

  A muscle ticked in his temple. “I never said that.”

  “Then why didn’t you do something?” I demanded.

  His silver eyes flashed to mine. “I never said I didn’t.”

  I stared at him, my gaze traveling over too-familiar features and lingering on the scar. What came out of my mouth was something I’d never thought to ask. “How did you get that scar?”

  “How did you get yours?”

  “Craven,” I answered. “I was a child when my father and…when the people I was with were attacked.”

  “Your father?”

  “The man I believed was my father.” The smell was getting stronger. It smelled rotten. “Leopold and—” Attes’s loud cough drew my gaze. “You okay?”

  Attes coughed loudly, drawing my gaze, then blinked rapidly.

  “Are you okay?”

  “Yeah,” he croaked. “Inhaled wrong.”

  “Primal gods can inhale wrong?”

  He cleared his throat, blinking rapidly. “You still can, right?”

  I wisely kept my mouth shut because, knowing my luck, I was seconds away from choking on a gnat.

  “What did you say his name was?” he asked.

  “Leopold.” I frowned at him. “Why?”

  “Just wasn’t sure if I heard the name right.”

  Something about his response didn’t sit right with me. Primals couldn’t tell outright lies, but I more than anyone, knew one could omit the truth. “You didn’t answer my question about the scar.”

  “I’ll tell you about it after.”

  My eyes narrowed. “That’s bullshit. I told you how I got mine.”

  A grin tugged at his lips. “I know.”

  “Glad we’re on the same page,” I grumbled, turning my attention back to the manor. “You going to tell me the real reason you choked…” I trailed off as we rounded a slight bend, and the dead trees thinned out enough for me to see the sweeping colonnade.

  My steps faltered, and my stomach dropped as I stared at the things hanging between the ivory pillars. Swaying.

  I now knew for sure what the smell was.

  Rot. Decay.

  I also knew where the Blood Crown had gotten their penchant for displaying bodies.

  “I warned you,” Attes said quietly.

  He had.

  He had said I would see worse. My gaze crawled over the colonnade. There had to be dozens of them hanging there. Likely mortals. Servants? Most of their clothing was stained and torn, but I could make out the black uniforms of Rise Guards on some of them. Had they resisted? Or had this been done out of cruelty?

  “Kolis’s taste in décor leaves much to be desired,” Attes remarked.

  My gaze lifted to their heads. Bile rose. Their faces were obscured by white veils or shrouds. Eather thrummed as I picked up my pace.

  This wasn’t just Kolis making himself feel at home with his morbid decorating choices. The white veils were a message.

  The eather hummed violently in my chest, causing the tips of my fingers to tingle. Anger and disgust churned as the breeze lifted the edges of the veils. Why? That was the question that kept repeating itself. Why do this? What purpose did this serve? Why did life mean so little? The eather in my blood heated.

  “You need to calm,” Attes stated.

  “I am.” I headed for the steps.

  The sudden contact of Attes’s hand around my forearm as he stopped me sent a jolt of energy coursing through me that was quickly followed by an odd sense of familiarity. My gaze flew to the fingers wrapped around my forearm and then slowly rose to his. “You’re going to want to let go.”

  Tension gathered at the corners of his mouth. “I would love to.”

  My fingers twitched. “Then what’s stopping you?”

  He moved his stare to the colonnade. I followed his gaze, my breath catching as I saw thin cracks forming at the bottoms of the pillars and spreading across the steps. I felt the faint tremor in the ground beneath us then.

  “You’re calm?” he asked, his voice low.

  Clearly, I wasn’t.

  “I can only imagine what’s going through your head right now, what you’re feeling,” Attes said, keeping his voice barely audible.

  What I was feeling? I was furious, disturbed, and a hundred other things as my gaze returned to the swaying bodies. My lungs burned as I pressed my lips together. I tugged on my arm.

  His grip tightened on my arm. “You’ve seen worse, Poppy.”

  My entire body jerked as my head snapped in his direction. “When I was Sotoria…?”

  A muscle flexed along his jaw. He nodded curtly. “And you’ve seen worse in this lifetime.”

  A wave of tiny bumps broke out over my skin. I had thought exactly that minutes ago, but I knew he couldn’t have known that. “How would you know?” Something occurred to me. “Seraphena?”

  The muscle by his temple ticked now, and his silence was the answer. It hadn’t been Seraphena.

  “How?” I repeated.

  Attes remained silent, and for some reason, possibly the vadentia, the image of a large bird of prey flashed in my mind.

  I sucked in a short breath. “Have you been watching me—watching us—while in stasis? Like Seraphena did?”

  His nostrils flared. “We really don’t have the time to go into this, especially when you make it sound like that. Like it’s something disturbing.”

  “How else is it supposed to sound?” I demanded.

  “Not like that,” he muttered. I opened my mouth, but he cut me off. “He can feel your essence, Poppy. He knows you’re here. He’s known from the moment we got here. And now he knows you’re angry.” His chest rose, even though I didn’t hear him inhale. “You’re already fucking up.”

  My head snapped back. Denial flooded my system, but it quickly faded.

  “We should leave.” Attes glanced toward the manor. “This isn’t going to work.”

  “What?” I pulled on my arm again, but he held on. “We can’t leave. If we do, he will attack Carsodonia. People will die.”

  “So be it—”

  This time when I wrenched my arm free, I broke his hold. “I am not leaving.” I stepped back, hands fisting as my gaze fell on the cracks in the stone pillars. “You can go, but I’m not.”

  “Poppy—”

  “You’re right. I am fucking up,” I admitted, tearing my gaze from the evidence of such. “I can lock it down. I will. You can believe that or not, I don’t care. Either way, I’m not leaving. What you do is up to you.”

  Attes swore as he shoved a hand through his hair in a way that reminded me so much of Casteel that I had to look away.

  Turning, I faced the colonnade. I didn’t close my eyes. I forced myself to see the bodies hanging there as I did what I said I would. It wasn’t easy—it was like trying to gather tattered clothing in a windstorm. But I had to. I was desperate to do so because I had to end this, and I was willing to do whatever was needed.

  So, I did what I swore I would never do again. I took a deep breath and did what I was forced to do when I donned the veil. It wasn’t real. I wasn’t slipping anything over my head, but I could feel the weight of the golden chains. I forced myself to become nothing so I wouldn’t feel anything. Not the anger, the disgust. Not even the sharper, suffocating emotion that hid itself behind the rage. I didn’t just shut it down. I cut myself off. I changed. Adapted. For the last time, I became the Chosen. And when I opened my eyes, I was able to see past the bodies just as I had seen past the Ascended’s lies.

  “Poppy,” Attes said softly.

  “I’m level.” I started to walk and climbed the steps. “Are you coming or not?”

  Attes didn’t answer, but he followed. In the very recesses of my mind, I acknowledged that I knew he wouldn’t leave me.

  I passed the bodies, aware of Attes behind me. I turned my attention to the doors. Unease prickled the nape of my neck as I lifted my gaze to the entrance’s double doors. It was unguarded.

  I arched a brow, a bit insulted by the fact that not even one guard greeted us. Glancing at Attes, I found him eyeing our surroundings with a frown. “I guess we just let ourselves in?”

  Attes’s gaze moved to the doors and then to me. He nodded, and then, somehow, he ended up in front of me. Pushing open the doors, cool air rushed out to greet us. We walked into the wide hall that branched off into several smaller ones. The sound of distant…laughter came from somewhere ahead of us.

  “Come on.” Attes stalked forward.

  Wondering who the fuck could be laughing, I followed. I kept an eye on the halls we passed. Even though Kolis’s presence choked out the sense of anyone else, I knew there were many gods here.

  The laughter increased the farther we traveled into the surprisingly clean manor. As did the sound of…

  My back stiffened. “Please, tell me I’m not hearing what I think I am.”

  “Unfortunately, you are.”

  Moaning.

  I heard soft moans and deep, harsher groans.

  The laughter was hard enough to comprehend, but the sounds of sex? What in the actual fuck?

  Attes abruptly veered to the right, and I almost walked into his back. “Sorry,” he muttered. “I think we’re where we need to be.”

  I turned my head. Two men stood at the end of the hall, in front of the closed doors to what I assumed was Seacliffe’s Great Hall.

  Their faces were painted like Callum’s and Millicent’s had been, in the shape of wings that extended from the hairline to the jaw. But these were a deep, dark red.

  The laughter and moans continued and echoed from the Hall, the sound grating on my nerves and stretching my patience thin. Not only did Kolis know we were coming, there were also hundreds of bodies in the bay, and dozens hanging from the colonnade. And this was what was occurring? A sex party?

  A tear in the veil formed.

  Something like this couldn’t be okay.

  The eather pulsed but I quickly stitched the tear before the anger, unease, and thin threads of fear buried under everything else could rip me from the nothing.

  The Revenants moved to open the doors, but I beat them to it. Lifting a hand, I summoned the eather and blew the doors off their hinges.

  I may have donned the veil, but I had not become the Maiden.

  I prowled forward as the heavy wooden doors crashed against the walls with a loud crack that drew startled shouts from those inside the chamber. All I saw were flashes of crimson and skin—lots of skin. I didn’t look long enough to see anything else. I couldn’t the moment my eyes landed on him.

  Kolis.

  He sat in a lazy sprawl at the other end of the Hall on the dais, one leg draped over the gleaming red arm of a throne—a throne made of rubies and maybe garnets. Its seat was wide, and dark-red wings stretched out on either side.

  The only source of light was artificial. Windows were blocked by crimson curtains. The dome had been constructed of stone, and I suspected we were surrounded by Ascended, but I knew there were gods here.

  Many.

  I could feel them in my blood.

  The Hall had gone quiet except for the heels of my boots as I walked down the short set of steps. My eyes narrowed on the figure who remained seated, golden hair shining under the bright light of the chandelier. He was looking left, so I only saw the profile of one broad cheekbone and half of a sculpted jaw. But it was enough.

  I recognized him.

  Maybe from stasis. Perhaps from before. It didn’t matter. The fucker was still looking to his left. I sent a quick glance in that direction. A woman stood before him, draped—unsurprisingly—in crimson silk. Her arms were stretched above her, back bowed to pull the material taut against her nearly exposed chest. She appeared to be dancing. And she wasn’t the only one in the wings of the dais. Others were dressed the same, their skin displaying the pale and smooth quality of the Ascended.