A Fire in the Flesh (Flesh and Fire, #3)

“Or are you as skilled as your father was?” Kolis sneered. “Able to project thoughts to those he carried a token of?”

Rhain was starting to turn a chalky, bluish-white. He couldn’t answer, but Kolis wasn’t really giving him a chance. He gripped the front of Rhain’s tunic, where the scrolling brocade came together, and ripped it down the center, revealing a small, black pouch hanging from his neck on a smooth, black rope.

“Just like your father.” Kolis laughed, grabbing the pouch. The rope snapped with one tug. “Hid the tokens the same way.”

Kolis tossed Rhain aside. The god rolled across the floor, stopping a foot from the cage.

Shaking his head, Kolis tugged the laces on the pouch and turned it over. As Rhain rolled onto his side, Kolis dumped the contents onto his palm.

I saw it then. The token.

It was the thin, delicate silver chain I’d seen Aios wearing and always fiddling with.

“Who does that belong to?” Kyn demanded.

Rhain’s leg curled as he shuddered. “I…I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Kolis turned to him, his head tilting.

It was like invisible strings had been attached to Rhain’s shoulders. He rose into the air. I stepped back when his back bowed, his mouth open in a silent scream. The veins of his throat started to glow with eather.

“It’s mine!” I shouted.

Kolis looked at me.

“It’s my necklace. It was given to me years ago,” I lied, speaking in a rush. “I don’t know why he has it. I didn’t even know he could do the thought-projecting thing.”

“My dear,” Kolis purred. “Come now.”

“That’s the truth! I didn’t even know that was a thing.”

“How could you not know?” Kyn bit out.

“You didn’t even know,” I snapped, and his eyes filled with a pulse of eather. “And it’s not like Rhain would share such information with me. He doesn’t even like me.”

Kolis frowned as the eather retracted from the veins of Rhain’s mangled throat.

“He doesn’t!” That was another truth.

Rhain managed to turn his head toward me, then Kolis said, “And why is that?”

“Probably because I stabbed Nyktos,” I reminded him.

“You stabbed Nyktos?” Kyn asked.

I ignored him. “I’m also mouthy. I cuss too much. I’m temperamental. I start arguments. I’m pretty sure I threatened him—”

“I get it,” Kolis said, glancing at Rhain. “I would agree with many of those things. Especially the mouthy and cussing-too-much parts.”

I fucking prayed to the fucking Fates that he fucking died a slow, miserable fucking death.

But I sincerely didn’t think Rhain had been attempting to feed information back to Aios regarding me. He’d been hoping to learn Ash’s location.

I took a deep breath. “Maybe he thought to communicate with me, but he hasn’t. And what would be the point of him attempting to talk with anyone else about my location?” I rushed on. “I’m sure everyone already knows I’m at Cor Palace.”

“That’s the thing, my dear,” Kolis drawled. “You’re not at Cor Palace.”

I blinked. “I’m not—?” That didn’t matter. “Rhain didn’t try to communicate with me.”

Kolis eyed me closely. A heartbeat later, Rhain dropped to his feet. He stumbled but kept himself from falling, then bent over, wheezing.

“So why did he have this?” Aios’s silver chain dangled from Kolis’s fingers, and I hated seeing it.

I swallowed. “Maybe he’s not as good as you think.” I forced a shrug. “And Rhain needed the necklace to do it, thinking I could tell him where Nyktos is.”

“As if you wouldn’t have,” Kyn accused.

My head whipped to him. “No one asked you, asshole.”

Kyn stiffened, and eather crackled to life along the flesh of his cheeks.

“My dear.” Kolis laughed. “Didn’t I tell you not to engage those here?”

“Then he needs to stop engaging me.” I took a deep breath at the rise of Kolis’s brow. “I’m…I’m sorry. As I said, I have a bad temper.”

Rhain blinked his one good eye at me.

“But I’m not lying.”

“I believe you,” Kolis said, and before I could even feel relief, he turned to Rhain. “And because of that, your death will be quick.”

“No!” I shot forward, grasping the bars. Sharp, hot pain stung my palms. I gasped, jerking my burning hands back. “You don’t have to do this.”

Kolis raised that brow again. “I don’t? In case you missed the part of the conversation about avoiding the Shadowlands’ forces, he is part of that open rebellion. And that is treason, a crime punishable by death, even in the mortal realm. He was also caught attempting to gain information. In other words, he was spying. Yet another crime punishable by death—”

“He is only loyal to Nyktos,” I interjected, my neck muscles tensing as I heard Rhain’s voice in my thoughts again.

“He should only be loyal to me!”

Shit. That had been the wrong thing to say. “I only meant that he is worried about Nyktos. All of them are. And you should be thrilled by that.”

The Primal of Peace and Vengeance sighed loudly, almost overshadowing Rhain’s voice inside my head—him repeating my name, reiterating what he’d said earlier.

Kolis frowned. “Why would I be thrilled by that?”

“That’s a good question,” Kyn muttered.

If he didn’t shut up… “Because those who serve in the Courts of your Primals should care for the Primal they serve. If they don’t,” I continued quickly as Kolis opened his mouth, “how can they care for their King?”

Kolis stared at me.

So did Rhain from his one good eye.

“If they’re not loyal to the Primal they serve,” I went on, my heart pounding. I heard Rhain in my head again. “They cannot be loyal to you.”

Kolis’s brow knitted as he cocked his head. “I don’t think that’s how loyalty to one’s King works.”

“It’s exactly how it works,” I exclaimed. “In the mortal realm, the people are loyal to lesser nobles, which proves their loyalty to the Crown because those nobles are extensions of that Crown.”

The false King had returned to staring at me.

“And when the people react based on their loyalty to those nobles, they shouldn’t be punished—”

“They should be rewarded?” Kolis interrupted.

“No.” I willed my temper to calm, then continued spewing utter bullshit. “I was going to say they shouldn’t be punished by death. Or,”—I stressed—“torture.”

“Then how are they punished?” Kolis demanded. “With a smack on the hand?”

Kyn snorted.

“They are usually sentenced to a reasonable length of time to think about how they should’ve handled the situation better,” I explained, knowing that sounded absolutely ridiculous, even though it would be a better punishment than what was typically carried out in most kingdoms.

The look on Kolis’s face said he thought it was ridiculous, and my fear for Rhain increased as I heard him too clearly.

It’s okay, he said. I’m prepared to die.

But I wasn’t.

I knew if I couldn’t convince Kolis there was an alternative, Rhain would die, and it would be a horrible death.

It would also be another drop of blood Ash would have to ink onto his flesh.