Page 282 of Born of Blood and Ash

Shooting forward, I willed the eathertoward him. Primal mist poured out of Kyn. The realm split open, and streaks ofeather whipped out, slicing through the thick mist.

The essence slammed into nothing as Kyn shadowsteppedback to Iliseeum.

I turned to Embris.

A thin, silvery line tore open behind the Primal, and he shadowstepped. He was fast, but my rage wasunending—madness pouring from a bottomless well deep inside me.

I rushed forward, grabbing Embris’sarm just as Lasania fell away. Violent power torethrough the empty air with a scream, collapsing the mist swirling around Embris’s legs.

I fell from the sky into a field of corn, landing on myknees. I didn’t feel the pain as I rose, though. Looking around, I saw thegreen, rolling hills of the kingdom of Terra.

Ahead, stalks of corn shuddered, and Embrisstaggered to his feet. He whipped around to face me. I prowled forward, and theenergy ramped up, building as stalks of corn bent sideways.

Embris shouted, and the air openedbehind him once more, this time revealing the stunning violet cloudssurrounding the lush green hills of Lotho.Staggering, high-pitched draken calls could be heard.

The ground cracked under my feet, golden wisps of essencerising from the fissures. Eather as brilliant as the summer sun streaked out,searing the ground. The eather stretched between us,closing the distance between Embris and me. Essencerose, wrapping itself around his legs.

The tear in the realm flickered and then sealed, silencingthe draken calls.

Embris’s head jerked around, hiseyes widening. “You can’t do this!” he roared, flesh thinning. Tendrils of eather snapped around his wrists, stretching his arms outuntil his back bowed. “You can’t—”

I lifted my hand, silencing him with a twist of my wrist,shattering his jaw. “You will die in this realm.”

My words set fire to the corn, and the hills lit with anorange glow. The sky above me cracked open just as my heart had done when I sawEzra’s face. Eather rushed down my arm, crackling and spitting.

All around me, the realm screamed, and I thought I heard myname in the loudest of them.

The valley shuddered when I rose from the ground, gripping Embris’s boyish curls. I twisted his head back and thenstruck, sinking my fangs into his throat.

The Primal shouted, and his energy lashed out at me,stinging me through my shirt and breeches. But I didn’t care. I drank deeply,taking in his blood—the very essence of the realms. I didn’t care that I hadnever really spoken to this Primal. I drank until I felt him weakening, felthis breaths becoming labored, and his heart falter. Only then did I tear myfangs free.

Silvery eather lit Embris’s veins, but it quickly turned golden. Blood leakedfrom the Primal’s ears, nostrils, and mouth, thenseeped from his pores.

“You will not pass into Arcadia.” My lips brushed his cheek,peeling layers of his skin back. I dragged him into the air and away from thetrembling walls surrounding Masadonia, the capital ofTerra. I took him as far from the city as possible—from the bells I now heardringing within the city’s walls. “There will be no long rest for you. No peace.You deserve nothing. You will cease to exist.”

The flesh of Embris’s throat hadbegun to flake off, golden eather flooding the restof his body. I forced him to his knees.

“I am the One who is born of Blood and Ash, theLight and the Fire, and the Brightest Moon, the true Primalof Life and the Queen of the Gods and Common Man. I will give you whatyou deserve,” I whispered, but all in the realm, from the west to the east,heard my words. My skin tightened as I lifted my right arm. “I condemn you tothe final death.”

Lightning erupted from the sky, striking my right palm. Ajagged bolt formed, as hot as the Pits of Endless Flames of the Abyss. Guidedby instinct, I jerked his head back and slammed the lightning bolt through theunderside of his jaw.

The end of the Primal of Wisdom, Loyalty, and Duty wasn’tinstantaneous.

Embris’s flesh tore away, and whatwas left of his blood fell to the ground, boiling until it eventuallyevaporated and his muscles and tendons dried out. He experienced thedisintegration of every fucking inch of his body, starting with his lower half.I left his head—his eyes—for last, making sure his very last second ofexistence was just as terrifying as Ezra’s and Marisol’s had likely been—as mymother’s, the servants’, the guards’, and all those who were now gone were.

I let go, and his head shattered into a cloud of shimmerydust that spread across the cornfield.

Embris was gone.

And it did nothing to assuage my rage or sorrow. It onlygrew.

I stepped back as particles of eatherbegan pulsing and expanding where Embris once knelt,coming together to form a ball of softly glowing energy.

Something was happening.

Tiny hairs rose all over my body, and energy pressed down,forcing me to move back even farther.

The ball of energy drifted into the sky and climbed until itwas among the stars, throbbing all the while.

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