Total pages in book: 401
Estimated words: 390373 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1952(@200wpm)___ 1561(@250wpm)___ 1301(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 390373 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1952(@200wpm)___ 1561(@250wpm)___ 1301(@300wpm)
My head jerked up to find Holland watching me. “Did my—did Isbeth know what the Joining could do?”
He was quiet for a moment and then said, “Isbeth knew many things. She knew that one of her daughters would be powerful. But this? She could not know what we could not understand fully ourselves.”
Was that why she’d been so surprised when I called for Seraphena? She’d said it wasn’t time. I had thought she was talking about my Ascension, but now I wasn’t sure what she meant by that.
“Isbeth was many things, Poppy, as I’m sure you know.” Something close to empathy shone in Holland’s eyes, and I looked away from it. I didn’t want to see it. “What she desired and what those who aided her wanted were two very different things. She may have realized that if she had not been blinded by vengeance and wrath.”
My heart stuttered. “What do you mean?”
“All he can say is that her fate was sealed long before you were born.” Lirian pushed off the window. “Her choices ensured that.”
I wanted to ask what choices, even though I already knew, but it was like some childish part of me still couldn’t reconcile who she was to me at one time with who she truly was.
My chest tightened as a ball of messy, conflicted emotions lodged there. She was my mother, even if I hadn’t known that for most of my life. And she was a terrible person. I didn’t know what to think or feel about her in general, let alone about what Holland had just said. Like how I’d told Casteel that my good memories of Wayfair no longer felt real, the same could be said about my memories of Isbeth.
But now wasn’t the time to allow myself to get swept up in all that. Especially not when I saw that Lirian was watching me a bit too intensely.
“You still don’t realize it, do you?” he asked quietly, but I heard the strain in his voice. “What you are.”
I held his stare until Holland spoke.
“Every new life, every new being, has to start somewhere and with someone,” Holland said, drawing my gaze to his. “And you are that someone. You are the start of a new pantheon.”
Me?
The start of a new pantheon?
I could feel a slightly crazed-sounding laugh bubbling up my throat.
Lirian scoffed, the sound almost mimicking the one I’d made earlier. “That is yet to be seen.”
It also sounded absurd to me. “How am I the start of anything? There’s just me.” The moment those words left my mouth, I felt like a fool because the how was obvious. “I am so not planning to have children anytime—”
“While I’m relieved we will not be dealing with a newly Ascended Primal with child again…” Holland stated blandly.
I frowned. Again?
“That’s not what I’m talking about,” he continued as Thorne poured himself a drink. “You were not the only one to Ascend.”
Immediately, my mind flashed to Cas and the changes he’d spoken of—the changes I saw myself. The breath I took went nowhere.
Casteel and Kieran had Ascended. But into what? No answer came. Maybe it was because I was too close to them. All I could do was take an educated guess. “So, they are…Primals?”
Lirian made that huffing sound again, this time ending it with a low, mocking chuckle.
Control of my temper slipped because I’d just about had it.
My head swiveled to where he stood. “Did I say something that amused you?”
The pinpricks of eather in his eyes flared, streaking through his irises like lightning as a muffled laugh came from the direction of the other two Ancients. “Actually, you did.”
I faced him fully then, my hands balled into fists at my sides. “Then you should share exactly what that was.”
“And you should mind your attitude,” the Fate shot back.
Without looking away from Lirian, I laughed—and it wasn’t a nice one. It sounded like one of Isbeth’s scathing and dismissive laughs but colder and more shadowy. “Now, that is humorous.”
Silver light lit up the veins beneath Lirian’s eyes as he stepped forward.
“I like her,” Thorne remarked.
“That’s enough,” Holland barked. “We don’t have time for this nonsense.”
I raised my brows at the Ancient, and the look he gave me said he wanted to flay the skin from my bones. Slowly.
Holding Lirian’s glare for a few moments longer, I slowly turned my attention back to Holland.
“Now I see Seraphena in you,” Holland remarked with a faint, fleeting grin.
The almost passing comment startled me, and I wanted to ask if he saw more of her in me. I wanted to know—
“If you’re done antagonizing Lirian,” Holland continued, “I will answer your question.”
I swallowed my additional inquiries and nodded.
“They are Primals,” he said.
I shot Lirian a smug look.
“I wasn’t finished.” Holland glanced down at his glass as if he wished it was something stronger than whatever he was drinking. “The first Primals were created from the very essence of the realms. They were not born. Instead, they Ascended in a way similar to a vampry or a demis.”