The first thing I noticed was there was no slumbering stone draken. “Where is….?”

“There.” Kieran’s steps slowed as I followed his gaze to the Temple stairs. A man with black hair streaked with silver stood in the center of them, dressed in black pants and nothing else. “You think that’s Nektas?” he asked, his voice low. “In his mortal form?”

“Maybe.” Shards of diamonds crunched under my boots.

“The wolven is correct,” the man spoke, and my brows lifted. The draken’s hearing was extraordinary. “You have returned several members less than the last time. That does not bode well.”

I stiffened as I stopped many yards from the Temple.

“If you are seeking Nyktos, you are not in luck,” Nektas continued. “He has joined his Consort once more in sleep.”

“I’m not here to see Nyktos,” I said, taking in the fine ridges all along his back. They looked like…scales.

“I understand.” A heartbeat of silence. “Or is it that you now understand the power you wield?”

Wanting to know how the draken was aware of my epiphany, I glanced at Kieran. He sent me a look that said he knew I was about to ask a rather irrelevant question.

I fought the urge and won. “I understand.”

His head tilted, but he still did not look at us. “Before you speak, you must be sure, for these words cannot be rescinded. Once you summon the flesh and fire of the gods, to protect and serve you, to keep you safe, they will be cast in fire and carved in flesh.”

My mouth dried. “I’m sure.”

“What makes you so sure?”

“The Blood Crown took what is mine. They took everything from me, and they will continue taking everything.”

“And?” he queried quietly. “You seek to use us to take everything from the Blood Crown, then? To destroy them, the cities they protect themselves in, and those who stand between you and them?”

I pressed the marriage imprint against the pouch that held the toy horse. “I seek the aid of the draken to fight the Revenants and the Ascended—to fight beside Atlantia. I do not seek to destroy the cities or kill those caught between them and me. For the most part, the people of Solis are innocent.”

“You seek to fight with the guards of the gods at your side, but you do not expect cities to fall?” He barked out a short laugh. “You are not ready for war.”

“You misunderstand,” I stated carefully. “Or I misspoke. I do not seek to do those things, but I understand that they may be necessary. I am ready for war. I would not be here if I wasn’t. But I do not plan to soak the lands with blood and leave nothing but ruins behind.”

There was a beat of silence. “Then you plan to take what is owed you and bear the weight of two Crowns?”

I forced my hands to loosen. “Yes.”

His head bowed slightly. “And will you help bring back what was ours to protect? What will allow the Consort to wake?”