The Crown of Gilded Bones (Blood and..

not have had anger-management issues?” A strangled laugh
parted my lips. “As if I have no autonomy and am just a
byproduct of what is in my blood?”
“That may sound unbelievable to you now, Penellaphe,
but you’ve just entered into the Culling. Sooner or later, you
will start to show the same chaotic and violent impulses as
they did. You are dangerous now, but you will become
something else entirely eventually.”
An image of the strange woman with the moonlight hair
flashed before me.
“Worse yet, at the heart of you, you are mortal—far
more easily influenced than an Atlantian or a wolven. And
because of that mortality, you will be even more prone to
impulsive choices.”
The woman faded from my mind as I stared at him.
“You’re wrong. Mortals are far more cautious and protective
of life.”
He arched a brow. “Even if that was the case, you
descended from the ones born of the flesh and fire of the
most powerful gods. Your abilities are strikingly reminiscent
of those who, if angered, could quickly become catastrophic,
their tempers all-consuming. Families were decimated
because someone offended one of them. Towns laid to
waste because one person committed a crime against them.
But all paid the price—men, women, and children,” he told
me, and unease grew under my anger.
“Then they began turning on one another, picking each
other off as they fought to rule Atlantia. And in the process,
they eradicated entire bloodlines. When the descendants of
Saion were killed, the ceeren rose against the deities
responsible. They didn’t die because they fell into
depression, nor did their bloodline simply become so diluted
that it eventually died out. Another deity killed them. Many
of those bloodlines died at one deity’s hand—the one that
so many believed was different.” Anger tightened the lines
of his mouth. “Even I did at one time. How could I not