The Crown of Gilded Bones (Blood and..

“Her hair was a silvery blonde.”
“I can’t think of any of the gods that resembles her, but
maybe she was one of the Primals Nyktos spoke of.”
“Maybe,” I murmured.
We’d also spent the time using our mouths and tongues
to speak words of the flesh. I enjoyed each thoroughly and
equally.
But Casteel didn’t feel as if the trip was a waste. While I
found Nyktos’s parting words to be generally unhelpful at
the end of the day, Casteel took them to mean that I would
one day rule both Solis and Atlantia. But those words made
me think of what the Duchess had claimed.
That Queen Ileana was my grandmother. That was
highly impossible, but it was the only way I would have a
true claim to the throne—succession instead of conquering.
Or maybe Nyktos meant that we would take the Blood
Crown that way? I didn’t know, and the pressure to convince
the Blood Crown in our upcoming meeting was even greater.
We couldn’t let this become a war including these
Revenants. I had a horrible feeling there would only be one
way to stop this. Maybe that was what Nyktos had meant.
That I had the power in me to stop this.
Icy fingers drifted across the nape of my neck. I’d heard
those words before, spoken by the little girl who’d been so
grievously wounded, but when she’d spoken them, they had
struck a chord of familiarity in me. Over the last several
days, I’d tried to remember, but they were like a dream you
tried to retain hours after waking.
Passing the entrances to the busy kitchens, I rounded
the bend in the hall and nearly walked right into Lord
Gregori. I took a startled step back. The dark-haired
Atlantian wasn’t alone.
“My apologies.” A slight frown appeared as he noted the
absence of my crown.
It did not go unnoticed that he didn’t acknowledge my
title. Neither had Lord Ambrose when I passed him the other