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Eyes: Silver with streaks of gold.
Body type: Muscular.
Facial features: Bronze skin with shimmers of gold. Strong, carved jaw. Sharp cheekbones. Lush, wide mouth.
Distinguishing features: Golden band encircling biceps. Voice carries a sharp, bitter edge.
Preternatural features: As the Primal God of Death, he could see and summon souls (unknown if he still can). Can shift into a golden hawk.
Personality: Reckless. Wild. Entitled. Competitive. Reserved. Cold. Prefers solitude. Deceptively charming when he wants to be. Manipulative. Jealous.
Habits/Mannerisms/Strengths/Weaknesses: Hates Nektas for abandoning him. Loves the color gold. Prefers redheads and blondes. As the Primal God of Death, he claimed souls if people pissed him off. Views other Primals as annoying, whiny, sniveling brats who’ve forgotten the ways. Keeps his favorites in gilded cages for ages. Believes mortals should be in service to the gods. Has loyalists amongst the Courts.
Other: Sigil of his Court is a circle with a slash through it.
Background: He used to be the Primal of Death until he stole his twin’s embers and switched fates, becoming the Primal of Life—all because of an infatuation. Murdered Halayna. (More background is detailed below).
Family: Twin = Eythos †. Nephew = Nyktos.
KOLIS’S JOURNEY TO DATE:
As the Primal God of Death, Kolis ruled alongside his twin brother, Eythos, for eons. During a trip to the mortal realm, Kolis saw a young woman picking flowers. He watched her and instantly fell in love. As he stepped out of the trees to speak with her, she got startled and ran, plunging to her death from the Cliffs of Sorrow.
After, Kolis begs his brother to restore Sotoria’s life, but Eythos refuses to pull a soul from the Vale. He says it’s wrong and forbidden and tries to remind Kolis of that. When that fails, he adds that it isn’t fair to give life to one and refuse another of equal worth.
Kolis spends the next several decades attempting to bring Sotoria back from the Vale. As the Primal God of Death, he can’t visit her there without risking the destruction of her soul. After years of searching and growing to despise his brother, he takes revenge by killing Eythos’s Consort, Mycella, while she’s pregnant, then destroying her soul. He believes his brother should feel the same pain he has in losing the one he loves. When he realizes there is only one way to do what he desires, he takes action to find a way to become the Primal God of Life and switch places with his brother.
Executing his plan, Kolis manages what he set out to do—we assume with the Star diamond he received, possibly from a Fate. He swaps destinies with his brother, making himself the Primal God of Life, and Eythos, the new Primal God of Death, then destroys all evidence of how things were. Eythos knows why his twin did it. Still, he warns Kolis that bringing Sotoria back to life is unnatural and would upset the fragile balance of life and death, not to mention she won’t come back the same—it has been too long, and she’s at peace in her next stage of life. Kolis doesn’t listen and pulls her from the Vale. As Eythos warned, she isn’t the same. She’s morose and horrified by what he did.
When Sotoria dies again, Eythos and Keella intervene, marking her soul and ensuring Kolis can’t find her. Still, he looks for her. Given what he knows about what was done to ensure her reincarnation, he knows she will be reborn en caul, so he searches the mortal realm for any who are.
After he takes his brother’s place in Dalos, he summons Nektas’s mate, Halayna, at some point and murders her to punish the draken for not sticking by his side.
The night Sera is born in the mortal realm, her father, King Lamont, summons Kolis and tries to make another deal to save his child and best the deal that King Roderick made with Eythos after he became the Primal God of Death.
Kolis retained some of the embers of death in him, just like Eythos retained some of his embers of life. And it’s enough power for Kolis to capture and hold a soul. So, he does with his twin.
While Kolis’s control as the Primal of Life wanes, his innate power does not. He is the oldest and the most formidable of the Primals. He can kill any Primal, but then what? A new one can’t rise. Not without life. And he has lost that ability. That doesn’t stop him from going about his cruel rule. While draken generally are bonded to Primals by choice, the bond can be forced, and Kolis does that often.
He also takes great pleasure in selecting favorites and putting them in gilded cages. He provides them with everything they want and need—except for their freedom. However, when he grows tired of them, he revels in their torture and death.
When Gemma enters the Land of the Gods as a Chosen, Kolis takes to her. He keeps her close to him and talks about the power he’s felt, almost obsessing over it. He tells her he’ll do anything to find his graeca—an old Primal word meaning love and life—though he never speaks of it as if it’s a person, something living and breathing. He leads Gemma to believe it’s an object, a possession. He never tells her what he plans to do with his graeca once he finds it, but she knows he’s doing something to the Chosen. Many of them disappear and come back…not right. Different. Cold and lifeless. Some stay indoors, only moving during the brief hours of the night, and their eyes change, becoming the color of shadowstone. We know the others have eyes almost leached of color. They’re as terrifying as Kolis is, and he calls them his reborn, his Revenants. He says they’re a work in progress and that all he needs is his graeca to perfect them.
Kolis hasn’t set foot in the Shadowlands since he switched fates with Eythos, though it’s unknown whether he can. Still, it’s assumed that he knows about the embers of life and thinks he can use them. It’s also presumed that he knows about Taric and the other gods Nyktos dispatched, and that Bele’s Ascension has unsettled him and the other Primals.
Kolis sends Attes to the House of Haides to let Nyktos and Sera know that he disapproves of the coronation, and orders them to come to him in Dalos when he issues the command.
The day Sera arrives at Cor Palace, Kolis enters the atrium, followed by the stench of stale lilacs. Gold-laced eather spills across the floor and collapses, coiling like a viper around his feet. He orders everyone to sit—everyone but Sera. He shadowsteps to her and tries to force her with eather to look at him.
He remarks that she doesn’t feel like a godling as he’s been told and notices she’s been warded with a charm. He calls Nyktos clever. When he tries to touch Sera’s hair, Nyktos blocks and threatens him. Kolis tells Nyktos that he pleases him but warns him to release him immediately.
Kolis claims to be hurt that Nyktos didn’t seek his approval for his union and asks if Nyktos knows why they’ve been summoned. Hanan speaks up, and Kolis scolds the Primal for talking without permission, flexing his power.
As the discussion turns to the Ascension that’s been felt, he confirms that he is the only one who can restore life and Ascend a god, knowing that’s not true. He turns his attention to Hanan again and chastises the Primal for his lack of faith, ordering him to leave and not return until summoned. He then apologizes to Sera.
Kolis brings forth Dyses, his Revenant, and remarks that Attes and Nyktos seem surprised by him. He then asks if they have the same doubts and lack of faith as Hanan does. They both simply say that it’s been a long time since the Primal of Life restored life. Nyktos adds that he was shocked by the dakkais, too, and Kolis says the attack was punishment for his nephew’s failure to seek approval.
He adds that he will not let Nyktos’s disrespect go unpunished. Sera says it was her fault, and Kolis calls her brave. He then turns his attention to Nyktos and says Sera must earn permission the same way he would.
