A Fire in the Flesh

Sera sees a god feeding on one of the Chosen servants. When she responds with horror, Kolis says that the servant seems to be enjoying herself. Sera reminds him that a bite from a god or Primal can provoke that response involuntarily. Kolis insists that the two know each other, but even with this assurance, Sera is unsettled by the power imbalance. He asks what she would do if the woman had not consented, and Sera replies that she would have killed the god. 

Kolis then turns her attention to another god, Evander, who is assaulting Jacinta, a different servant. He challenges Sera to act on her statement that she would kill anyone who violated another, offering her a shadowstone dagger to uphold her promise. Despite suspecting that the Primal has ulterior motives, Sera cannot stand by while Jacinta suffers. She approaches Evander, forcibly removes the woman from his grasp, and stabs him through the heart with the dagger.

Jacinta, the Chosen whom Sera believed she was rescuing, screams and cries after Evander collapses. Sera realizes that Kolis tricked her. When several of the gods and draken move to attack Sera, Attes intervenes and returns her to Kolis’s dais. Kolis accuses her of acting impulsively on incomplete knowledge. Sera learns that Evander served in Keella’s court and that Kolis had used her to punish Keela for her early insubordination.

As Kolis begins to hold court in earnest, he sentences a god to death over a petty dispute with another. When Sera questions his cruelty, Kolis punishes her by forcing her to sit on his lap. He also threatens her about her continued defiance, reminding her of the deals she made regarding Rhain and Nyktos. As Sera fights to control her growing panic, she sees Veses approaching.

Sera struggles to contain her rage at the sight of Veses, nearly tapping into the embers’ power, but reins herself in at the thought of Kolis’s warnings about using them. When Kolis questions Veses, she claims to have stopped a coup in her court rather than telling the truth about being imprisoned in the Shadowlands. Kolis tells her that she failed him due to not paying close enough attention to Nyktos and not telling him about Sera. 

When Veses implies that Kolis is only using Sera, he compels her to apologize before condemning her to be their “entertainment” for the evening. He orders Kyn to sexually assault Veses in front of the court. When Sera tries to intervene, Kolis escorts her back to her quarters. Inside the gilded cage, he puts shackles on her, telling her that he is doing it because he loves her.

After Sera endures painful hours suspended in the chains, Callum visits her. He believes that punishments such as hers and Veses’s are beneath Kolis, reminiscing about how he was different before Eythos’s death. Callum suggests that Kolis knows deep down that Sera isn’t Sotoria, which is why he continues to treat her this way. He also reveals that Eythos killed Sotoria, which shocks Sera. Callum stops talking and begins his guard duty. Sera is left to grapple with the implications of the news.

When Kolis finally returns, he releases Sera from the chains and apologizes as he holds her. He summons some of the Chosen to bring water and then carries her to a bath, promising that things will get better. He tells her that he stopped Veses’s torture when he returned to the great hall, and Sera begins to laugh hysterically.

Despite her pain, when Sera wakes up, she apologizes to Kolis for her behavior, which earns his approval and an invitation to join him outside the cage. During their walk, Kolis says that he wants to prove to her that he can do more than just death and summons a Chosen named Jove. Sera tries to intervene, but Kolis tells her that this must happen. 

She watches in horror as Kolis drains Jove’s blood. Though Sera’s begging does lead Kolis to not let Jove feel any pain during the process, she continues to be disturbed by Kolis’s justification of the ritual as necessary to maintain the cosmic balance. When she questions his reasoning, he tells her that the Ancients decreed the roles of the Primals of Life and Death. As the Primal of Death, Kolis is required not to become attached to those he would need to shepherd to the afterlife. He also notes the need for life and death to sustain the equilibrium. His explanation leaves her with the realization that Kolis cannot be killed since his existence, like hers, is critical to maintaining the world.

After her realization, Sera questions the purpose of her training and the Arae’s plans for her. She remembers the Star diamond, made to hold a Primal’s embers, and realizes that it may be the key to her problems.

Veses arrives and approaches Sera in her cage. She taunts Sera for her attempted intervention in the court and insists that she enjoyed the punishment. When Sera expresses doubt, Veses says that it wasn’t the first time Kolis punished her in such a way. Sera asks how Veses freed herself from imprisonment in the Shadowlands, and Veses replies that she chewed her own arms off. They are regrowing, thanks to the magical healing abilities of the Primals. She warns Sera that Kolis will eventually discover her love for Nyktos, with devastating consequences for them both.

Later, Kolis joins Sera in her quarters and says that he wants to sleep with her again. She hesitates, and he says that he has remained sexually abstinent since he met Sotoria out of “faithfulness” to her. With no more arguments and no choice, Sera is forced to endure sharing a bed with him once again and retreats into fantasies of vengeance against Kolis and Veses to cope.

Sera suffers from fatigue, headaches, and bleeding gums, signs that her Culling is progressing and that time is running out. She fears that if Kolis gains the embers during her death, he might attempt to Ascend her.

Kolis invites Sera to walk with him through Dalos, the City of the Gods. She asks about the Revenants, and he explains that they are without wants or emotions, serving only their creator in an imitation of life. While he praises their lack of needs, Sera is disturbed by their inhumanity. She questions why Callum is different, and Kolis explains that Callum is an exception due to the emotions Kolis felt during his creation, but he cannot replicate the outcome. 

They go up to a terrace, and Kolis shows Sera a view of the Carcer Mountains, where Nyktos is being held. Sera questions why the city is so empty. Kolis tells her that it was an attempt by the Arae to right the balance. He took command of the city once he usurped his brother and killed all dissenters, but the Arae killed the rest of the population in retaliation.

Kolis admits that he wishes Sera were more like the Sotoria he remembers. She responds in disgust, and he offers to give her something to make amends for offending her. Sera asks him for the Star diamond, and he reveals that it was on the roof of her cage, disguised the whole time. He uses his powers to turn the cluster of diamonds back into its true form.

When Kolis allows Sera to hold the Star diamond, its energy surges through her and triggers a series of visions. She witnesses the diamond’s creation through dragon fire and the confrontation between Kolis and Eythos. In this memory, Kolis kills Eythos in a fit of rage and jealousy, believing his brother’s love for him to be conditional and insincere. Sera surfaces and realizes that Kolis is keeping Eythos’s captured soul inside the diamond.

Kolis takes the diamond from Sera and demands to know what she saw. Sera draws on the embers, and he changes into his skeletal form before pinning her down and telling her that she will be punished for disobeying him. In response, Sotoria speaks through Sera again and demands that he get off them. 

Sera unleashes blasts of energy that destroy her cage, much of the chamber, and beyond into the Carcer Mountains. She senses the moment Nyktos is freed, as does Kolis. Sera taunts him with the knowledge that he is a hypocrite—he killed his brother because he didn’t believe he loved him. She stabs him with the shattered remains of the cage, built from the gilded bones of the Ancients, putting him into stasis. Afterward, Sera senses Nyktos carving a bloody path through Kolis’s guards to reach her. She collapses from exhaustion, but Nyktos arrives just in time to catch her.