Page 58 of Born of Blood and Ash

“I don’t either.”

“You’re different, liessa.”He reached up and gently pulled Jadis’s claws free of his hair. “You’re thetrue Primal of Life. This is how they honor you whenever you enter the samespace as them.”

“I’m not different.” I threw up my hands in frustration andturned to them. “You don’t have to do this—wait.” I spun back to Ash. “Are theysupposed to do this every time I enter a space?”

Jadis let out an angry screech.

“Yes,” Ash stated, catching Jadis’s hand as she made to gofor his hair again.

“Oh, no. Nope. We are not doing this every time I enter achamber,” I told them, horrified. “I will lose my mind.”

“Please, don’t do that,” Saion said. “We’ve already dealtwith one supreme ruler who wasn’t quite right in the head.”

Someone who sounded an awful lot like Bele chuckled underher breath. My narrowed gaze swung toward the dark-haired Primal goddess.

“You know,” Ash drawled from behind me, “all you have to dois command that they don’t.”

I opened my mouth.

“But perhaps you should give them permission to rise first,”he tacked on.

I slowly turned my head to him. “You couldn’t have remindedme of that at the beginning?”

“Perhaps.” He once more tugged Jadis’s hand free of hishair.

“I hope she pulls out every single strand,” I hissed.

“Godsdamnit,” Rhahargroused.

“You know what I always say,” Saion replied, each wordrolling off his tongue with an unmistakable undertone of amusement. “A wise mannever makes the same bad wager twice.”

My mouth dropped open. “You two bet again on howlong it would take before Ash and I started arguing?”

“More like Saion is stealing money from his cousin again,”Bele retorted.

“Oh, my gods.” I pinched my brow, briefly closing my eyes.“Why are you all still bowing?”

“You haven’t given them permission to rise,” Ash commented.

“For fuck’s sake,” I snapped.

“Language,” Ash whispered as he passed me, stepping onto thedais. He placed Jadis in one of the chairs at the table. “There are younglingspresent.”

“How about you go—?” I cut myself off as two wide,sapphire-blue eyes appeared above the back of the chair.

Clutching the sides of the chair with incredibly small,clawed hands, Jadis chirped, and I heard something that sounded like…wee.

“Can the true Primal of Life get tension headaches?” I askedof no one in particular as Ash motioned for Reaver to get down. “Because Ireally think I’m getting one.”

“It’s not likely,” Bele answered, her voice trembling withrestrained laughter as Reaver pushed off the credenza, extending his wings toslow his descent. “But not impossible.”

“Can we rise yet?” Theon asked from where he remained,kneeling beside his twin sister.

I sighed heavily. “Yes. Please. You all may rise.”

“Thank the Fates,” Saion muttered.

My lips pursed. “And I command that none of you bow to mejust because I enter a chamber.”

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