A Shadow in the Ember

“To do what? Explain yourself? It is unnecessary. I know all that I need to. You were willing to do anything to save your people. I can respect that. I can also…respect how far you were willing to go to fulfill this duty of yours. But for what purpose? Love has never been on the table.”

“It is far easier to be lied to than it is to acknowledge that you have been lied to.”

“I am known as the Asher. The One who is Blessed. I am the Guardian of Souls and the Primal God of Common Men and Endings. I am Nyktos, ruler of the Shadowlands, the Primal of Death.”

“It’s not your palm I want wrapped around my cock right now. It’s you I want. Tight and wet and warm. And if you keep touching me like that, that’s what’s going to happen. I’m going to get inside you, and it won’t be my fingers you’ll be fucking. I think you know that.”

“Once you are introduced as my Consort, only the most foolish of gods would go after your family, as they would become an extension of mine.”

“I remember how you showed me the way you like it. I play that over and over in my head. I could write a fucking tome on it by now. When I’m fisting my cock, I remember how you held my hand against you at the lake.”

“You feel like silk and sunshine. Beautiful. That’s it, liessa, fuck my hand.”

“Look, it was clear—to me at least—that you didn’t want to do what you believed you had to. That doesn’t mean I agree with your actions or that I’m not disappointed. You seemed to make him…Anyway, it’s not like we don’t have explicit experience in carrying out terrible deeds because we believed we had no other choice.”

“I don’t know the circumstances that led to your arrival, but what I do know is that I trust no one in either realm more than Nyktos, nor would I feel safer anywhere else.”

“All I think about when I’m trying to sleep or eat or am doing anything is how I was the Maiden and found unworthy by the Primal of Death.”

“You’re not unworthy. You’re not a curse or anything like that. You carry the ember of life in you. You carry hope within you. You carry the possibility of a future. You don’t know what the Primal of Death thinks.”

“You are sitting next to me, gloriously naked, and I am intentionally staring.”

“He’s a monster. He’s always been a monster. Our…our father knew that. Everyone knows that. He is, as you said, of little significance.”

“And you, liessa, are very brave. But, sometimes, one can be too brave. To the point it borders on foolishness. And you know what I’ve found about the foolishly brave? There’s a reason they often rush to greet death instead of having the wisdom to run from it. What is your reason? What drowns out that fear and pushes you to run so eagerly toward death?

“I know one thing, liessa. A monster wouldn’t care if they were one.”

“You may not be Chosen, but you were born into this realm, shrouded in the veil of the Primals. A Maiden as the Fates promised. And you shall leave this realm touched by life and death.”

“Because now here we are. You’re in the Shadowlands. And soon, you will be known as the Consort. My enemies will become yours.”

“There are many ways you can be taken out. Thousands. And I’m well acquainted with all of them. Your options are endless. Some painless. Some quick. This way won’t be either.”