Prologue
The mountain breeze tugged a lock of silver hair free from Zadione’s braid. Her gossamer dress flowed around her ankles. Moonlight whispered around her wrists.
Below, the screams of the dying echoed.
They scratched and clawed at her, just like the beast raging for freedom beneath her skin. And she let them, because she deserved it.
The wind gusted again, the cloying scent of blood and death rising with it.
So much death; it sang to her—to the power and might gifted to her long ago. Death was her domain, her crown wrought from bone and sinew, her throne built on peaceful decay.
Death was hers, and yet she hated it.
Ever since the day she was reborn as this being of silver and death, she’d felt unbalanced. Off kilter. Like she was missing something vital, something crucial. It left her hollow and empty.
She felt better when her sister was near. She’d always felt better when she was near, even before her immortality began. Qhohena, though, was often pulled elsewhere, just as life was so often cleaved from death.
In the space left by her sister’s absence, Zadione was pulled to Kol.
His warmth and fire filled something cold and hollow in the pit of her soul. Her molten moonlight and his burning shadows went together as if forged in the same darkness. She craved him more than she thought possible.
She craved him so much, she hadn’t seen the cage come down around her until it was too late.
Kol hadn’t always been this way. But something had changed during the early millennia of their immortality. Perhaps he had simply hidden his ambition well—his desire to rule over all the world and the gods, a supreme being of might. Hidden it until he’d already laid the foundation and left Zadione too powerless to stop it.
Her cage wasn’t physical, but her love for him kept her trapped—kept her from leaving that mountaintop and joining the battle raging below, all silver teeth and molten breath and slashing claws.
It did not keep her from watching and forcing herself to experience the true depth of her failures, of her prison.
Kol fought beside hismudae, his creations of blood and malice. They’d been men once; they’d deserved an afterlife of peace but instead were met by only more death and decay.
Themudaecurdled her stomach but not quite so bad as thereykrdid.
They still appeared as men, but the shadows they wielded were more than just a gift from a god. And the bonds they shared with Kol, inciting obedience and perfection, spoke of something far fouler. Something that broke Zadione’s heart each time she saw coils of darkness arch across the battlefield.
She suspected some of the weakerreykrwere a generation or two removed from the origins of their power. But the strongerones, the commanders of the shadow legions—there were only two ways for that kind of magical strength to exist in a human.
She was sure Kol hadn’t permanently given away his grace to any of them.
Hischildren. That’s what Kol called them. While he could bring new life into the world with his power alone, Zadione knew many had been fathered in the true meaning of the word.
We are gods, he’d said to her when she’d discovered his betrayal.We are beholden to no one, not even our Consorts.
Not even those we love.
Factions of humans also fought beside Kol and his army of demons and shadow-wielders. Weaker humans, desperate humans, easily corrupted humans who, with a smoothly whispered promise of power, abandoned everything they held dear. Just for a chance at controlling anyone who might be left.
As if Kol would ever truly share in his rule.
The wind whipped around her, as if in agony at the dying below. Zadione shifted her gaze to the other army battling on the plains.
The army that, despite the three great dragons fighting in its midst, was losing.
Rulene, Callamus, and Krilene battled fiercely beside the forces led by Xara, the young upstart human commander. Flames and teeth and claws tore through the legions ofmudaelike they were made of ash. But where onemudaefell, ten more took its place, as if their corrupted blood spawned more from the pit Kol had crafted.
The pit Kol had crafted with Zadione’s help. Fed by the souls of the dead she was meant to keep safe.
Priam should have stopped her. He was responsible for delivering the souls to her for safekeeping in the first place. To ensure the first part of their journey was as peaceful as their rest.
