“It does.” I frowned. “This Rev said it was made of the bones of the Ancients and that it could incapacitate a Primal.”
Kieran’s stare shot to Poppy. “Ancients? Like the Primals?”
“I don’t know, but it did fuck me up. I couldn’t move. It was like the blade severed all control of my body the moment it penetrated my skin,” I said. “I couldn’t move until this…this power filled me. I’ve never felt anything like it. It tasted like ash and felt like ice in my veins.” I swallowed, wiping the blood from my chin with my other hand. “Then I was able to move. I pulled the dagger out, and I don’t even know how, but I…I shifted.”
Kieran came forward, his gaze searching mine. “When you shifted back to your normal self, it looked just like her father when he shifted.” He looked down at Poppy, and when he spoke again, he sounded awed. “It has to be the bond forged during the Joining. It connected the three of us, somehow giving you the ability to shift like me.” His brows knitted. “But then wouldn’t you have shifted into a wolven?”
“No.” I started to reach down and touch Poppy but stopped when I saw the blood and gore smearing my hand. “Her father shifts into a cave cat. My ability to shift might’ve come through the connection with you, but it was her eather. That’s what I felt. Primal eather,” I said, but it had felt like more. Like it had been something inside me, always there. Waiting. But that made no sense. “I bet that was what Nektas was referencing.”
“Makes sense,” Kieran murmured. He was quiet for a moment, and then his gaze shot to mine. “Then wouldn’t that mean Poppy can shift…?”
A slow grin spread across my lips. “She’s going to be so excited when she realizes that.”
Kieran laughed. “Yeah, she will.” Another laugh left him. “Gods, you two are going to be obnoxious with your abilities to shift.”
“You can count on it.” Something occurred to me as Kieran disappeared into the bathing chamber and returned with a towel. I took it, quickly wiping away as much blood as possible. I turned, picking up a pair of breeches from a nearby chest. There wasn’t time to clean up. “You heard my thoughts, didn’t you?”
Kieran nodded as I pulled the pants up. “You heard mine, too. After Emil left, I wasn’t speaking out loud.”
Surprise rippled through me. I wanted to see if that was something we could do in this form or if it was like what Poppy could do with the wolven. I wanted to know if this bond had changed Kieran somehow. There were a whole lot of things I wanted to know—that I wanted to sit down and dwell on for a bit. Because I’d just shifted into a godsdamn spotted cave cat, but there were more important things that needed to be handled.
Starting with the current mess that was the chamber.
I didn’t want Poppy to wake up to whatever horror show a Revenant regenerating themselves from pieces would end up being.
“I don’t know how the fucker is going to come back from this,” I said. “And it might be a good idea to see if we can find Millicent to ask about that, but I’m guessing we should gather up the pieces and put them in one of the cells below.”
Kieran’s lip curled. “How about we just toss them into the sea? Or burn them?”
“I would love to, but I need him alive.”
“Is that up for discussion?”
“He was saying the messed-up rhyme—fucking singing it. And the Rev said he had been waiting a long time for what was his. I know he was speaking of Kolis and…” Anger tightened my gut. “And Poppy.”
Tension poured into Kieran’s jaw. “Absolutely fucking—”
A rumble came from below, rattling the floors and walls. Something toppled over in the bathing chamber as Kieran’s gaze flew to mine. “That can’t be another god waking up.”
I didn’t think it was.
The back of my neck prickled as a sudden charge of power hit the air, raising the hairs all over my arms. Kieran’s. too.
The sound of stone cracking came from the floor. A thin fracture appeared on Kieran’s other side, rapidly spreading in a circle around us—around the bed. Another fissure appeared on the floor at the foot of the bed, at the head, and along both sides.
Kieran stepped back as another shallow rift cut through the floor beneath the bed. “What the—?”
Silvery light sparked, racing across the ruptures in the stone. Moonlight pulsed and held, revealing the shape of a circle with an overlapping, pointed cross in the center. A symbol in old Atlantian—no, it was two symbols. The circle and the line through the center were life. The one from the top represented death.
Life and Death.
Blood and Bone.
The intense bright light faded, and the rumbling stopped. We both turned to Poppy.
A glow appeared beneath her flesh, lighting up the delicate network of veins throughout her entire body with…with eather.
“My gods,” Kieran whispered.
I swayed, hope and fear I’d kept in check since she went into stasis crashing together.
Poppy would know herself.
She would recognize us.
I said that over and over like a prayer to the gods I knew no longer slept. “Please,” I whispered, voice cracking.
The light in her veins faded. A streak of silver appeared, and then shadows gathered like pulsing storm clouds beneath her flesh. They slid together down her chest, over her arms and legs, a kaleidoscope of light and darkness—the power of life and death reaching her fingertips.
Poppy’s fingers twitched.
I dropped to my fucking knees beside the bed, went right down on them as Kieran lurched forward, planting his palms on the bed. Time seemed to slow to an infinite crawl, every second passing too quickly yet not fast enough as the powers whirled together beneath her skin.
Her arm spasmed. A knee bent slightly. Her toes wiggled, then stretched.
I picked up her hand and shuddered like a godsdamn leaf. “Her skin is warm. See?”
Kieran folded his hand over ours. “It is,” he exhaled roughly.
I felt fucking weak with giddy relief as her left arm jerked. Then her chest rose with a deep breath, and I swore to the gods ours did the exact same thing. Her brows tensed. Eyelids twitched. Lush, rosy lips parted, and then the eather slowed under her flesh, slowly disappearing. She inhaled deeply, and it was the most beautiful sound.
“Poppy,” I whispered, pitching forward. Her hand squeezed mine, and Kieran squeezed both of ours. I felt dampness gathering in my eyes. She was going to open those lids and know herself. She would recognize—
Thick lashes fluttered, lifting to reveal eyes that held no trace of dewy green. Eyes that weren’t even those of a god. They were the pure molten silver of churning eather as they locked with mine. They were the eyes of not just a Primal.
But the Primal of Life and Death.
Of Blood and Bone.