Chapter 26 #2
The rest of them turned to us as we pounced on the last two guards.
Pop! Pop! Their guns fired. I dropped down, slamming my fist into a sentry’s crotch.
Groaning, he leaned over in agony as I jumped up, my elbow smashing into the back of his neck with a crack, flattening him to the ground.
The final guard crumbled under Warwick’s fatal blow.
Istvan’s eyes widened in fear as Warwick prowled for him. Scrambling back, he grabbed a knife, making the box with the nectar in his arms tip, the item inside tumbling to the dirt between us.
A breath. A blink. Time stopped as Istvan and I stared at each other. And just as fast, it broke.
Surging for it, Istvan’s boot kicked it out of my way, driving the blade into Simon’s skin. The little boy cried out in pain and shock.
Warwick and I froze.
My gaze snapped up to the knife edge cutting into Simon’s neck, the blood trailing down, soaking into his t-shirt.
“Back up! Touch it, and I kill him,” Istvan snarled, desperation shaking his hand wrapped around the knife, his movement more frantic. “Don’t for a moment think I won’t.”
“You do . . .” Warwick’s body vibrated with untapped fury, his teeth clenching together. “And I will tear you apart bit by bit, making sure you feel every single moment.”
“I said back up,” Istvan yelled, pushing the blade in deeper. Simon gulped, as he tried to hide the terror, struggling to be stoic like his uncle.
Warwick stepped back, his nose flaring.
“You have been a thorn in my side from the moment I took you in.” Istvan adjusted Simon, inching closer to the nectar. “Little did I know the real truth your father was keeping from me.”
My attention snapped up to Istvan, something in my chest curling with dread.
“I thought it was the pills making you different. That changed you . . . but it wasn’t.” He sneered. “Benet knew what you were all along. Is it why he was in alliance with Povstat, his brother Mykel?”
I sucked in, my shoulders going back at hearing Istvan reveal my uncle’s identity and relation to me.
Of course. “Tracker.” My lip lifted. “Wise to trust someone who so easily turns on his last leader?”
Istvan’s head went back in a laugh. “You think I didn’t know the whole time about Mykel? Who he was?” He tilted his head at me in pity. “Oh, Brexley, so na?ve. I knew your father, even unbeknownst to Andris, was working with fae and fae sympathizers, starting a coup against me.”
“What?” I jolted.
“I had Kalaraja follow your father, found the secret cabin he had in Godoll?. How do you think we were so prepared to attack you the night you went there?”
Realization dropped in my stomach, burning like acid.
“Your father gave up everything for you. Turned his back on his morals, his people . . . me.”
That was what Istvan hated the most. My father no longer wanted to follow him, no longer thought Istvan was a capable leader.
A sneer came up on Istvan’s face. “So, I killed him.”
The world stopped on a pin. No longer could I see or hear anything around me.
“What?” I whispered, my breath going in and out, barely touching my lungs.
“I was the one who sliced his throat on the battlefield that night. His last image as he choked on his own blood was my face. So easy. Everyone assumed he was killed by fae, which only made the troops more bloodthirsty to destroy the fae. It worked out perfectly.”
He killed my father. He destroyed my entire world.
Everything I believed in was set on fire, burning me up with unbridled grief and fury. Every day I lived with Istvan, he looked at me and knew. Every tear I shed for my father, the heartbreak and grief . . . it was all because of him.
The level of betrayal had no bottom, an endless pit of rage and hate, bubbling up like black lava, scorching everything in its wake.
“Kovacs . . .” Warwick spoke low with no emotion, only warning.
Everything around me felt far off, as if I were in a snow globe, shielded from the world. The call to the nectar laced and weaved through me, tangling me into it, giving me no choice. Singing into my veins like a siren, the song lured and drew me into its power. To destroy him. To level everything.
All the pain I had hidden away and ignored roared up with a vengeance.
Suffering, agony, sorrow, pain . . . Istvan had caused so much of it.
Even now. Through my lashes, I gazed over the area around the Elizabeth Lookout Tower.
Mykel’s army clashed with HDF as more inmates and HDF soldiers spilled from the tunnel.
Simon sucked in as Istvan tipped the blade deeper into his throat, snapping me back to Markos, his eyes wild. Desperation made people unpredictable. Dangerous.
But I was the most dangerous thing of all.
Moving, I gave neither one of them time to react as I swiped up the nectar, the power instantly pulsing in my hand. Power shot up from my gut as if the nectar summoned it, rage taking over as my howl impaled the sky.
Wind wailed through the trees, breaking the branches, twisting in the sky like a hurricane. Thunder rolled; lightning crackled in the clear evening sky.
“Kovacs!” I heard Warwick yell at me, like he was trying to pull me back. Hold on to what was left of my sanity.
I had none left.
All I felt was wrath.
“I love you so much, Brex.” The memory of my father’s voice spoke in my head. “There’s nothing I won’t do for you. You are my entire soul.”
The picture that sat on Istvan’s desk, the strain on my father’s face, came back to me with more clarity. Did Istvan keep the picture as a cruel taunt to me? A sick memento of my father? All the times he made snide remarks about my father’s loyalty.
“Know if anything happens, I will always look out for you. There is nothing I won’t do to keep you safe. Your uncle is watching over you too. We will all protect you.”
My father knew. He understood what might come for him.
Not fae, but Istvan.
Wrath rolled through me, impaling and devouring, the weight around my neck a tiresome burden, which was supposed to keep me contained. Though it was nothing to me. A burdensome ornament. A decoration.
My fingers curled over the goblin metal collar. Muscles flexing, I yanked on it, the metal groaning under the stress.
“What are you doing?” Istvan jerked back, throat bobbing. A loud grunt strained my vocals and face as I pulled harder. The choker snapped, clanking to the ground. He yelped, stepping back.
Wind whipped at my strands, lightning zipping across the sky, kissing the tips of the trees. I feared the power, the magic I felt bubbling inside for a long time. I had kept away because I was afraid to fully accept it. To test the limits of my magic.
What a dark Druid and light Seelie queen could create. Not good and bad, only gray.
I wasn’t afraid anymore.
There were no limits.
I was everything and nothing. And nobody in the world, present or past, was the same as me. I was born in war, created from magic, constructed from a queen, and conceived from a curse.
I walked the line of life and death.
Took life and raised it.
I was The Grey.
The wisps of ghosts from afar heeded their queen’s call, ready for combat and to defend me.
The nectar in my hand seared through my nerves.
The highest high burned with bliss as it overtook me.
Power consumed and devoured. Every broken piece inside me forged together, standing stronger against the flames, never bending to others.
My gaze went to Istvan. Terror opened his eyes wide, his fear tasting like candy on my tongue.
He killed my father.
I never got to say goodbye.
He took Andris from me.
The deep betrayal, grief, and anger carved into my chest. He destroyed the best part of me.
Took my family, my security, home . . . love.
Ling, Maddox, Nora, Albert, Zuz—he took them all by his hand or mine by force.
So much death, torture, and agony originated from him.
He conditioned me to become the very being he trembled in front of now.
All the pain and misery I had been stuffing away erupted, spilling out in waves of grief. I felt every death and loss over again; the emotions piercing me so deeply, my insides twisted as if they were burning into embers.
“Kovacs!” I heard Warwick’s voice break through, the intrusion only pissing me off more. Slamming the door closed between us, the screams and cries of more being hurt around me exploded inside me. One of those screams could be Mykel or Eliza . . . someone else dead because of Istvan.
A bolt of lightning cracked down close to Markos, the wind howling louder.
“Brexley, no!” Another voice bellowed; Tad’s bowed figure hobbled up into my eye line. Ignoring him, I squeezed down on the nectar, dropping any barriers to it.
It rushed inside me, filling me with so much power time no longer existed. White light burst from me, the ghosts taking an order I no longer had to speak.
Attack. Kill.
They acted quickly, my invisible soldiers reaping souls, reveling in the pained and scared screams from the victims they claimed, cut down by unseen hands.
Another lightning strike hit the ground, leaving charred marks in its wake, energy impaling out of my body like daggers heading for Istvan, for anything in my path. The nectar seared me from the inside, burning its way through every vein and muscle, cauterizing what was left of my pain.
It scorched.
It destroyed.
And it felt amazing.
“Brexley, stop!” Tad moved in front of Istvan and Simon, his arms up, his voice throwing out a spell.
Before I could stop, my magic slammed into him.
I watched it hit the old man, funneling only to him as if he had directed it to him, taking the brunt of my power, avoiding Simon and Istvan.
The force flung him up in the air like a doll, pitching him back into the dirt.
His body spread out on the ground, just as my mother had done twenty years before, twisting his body with black magic.
Like a slap, the trance I was in shattered into pieces, breaking over me with awareness and horror. What was I just about to do? Simon was an innocent child, and I hadn’t even thought past my hate for Istvan. Tad protected him.
“Tad?” I whispered his name, his form not moving.
Inching closer, air locked in my lungs. His eyes were open, but they did not blink. They stared vacantly at the sky.
“Oh. Gods. No. Tad!” I heard myself cry out, my body no longer able to hold me up, the nectar falling from my hands in a dull, charred lump. Crawling over the ground to him, I knew already. I felt it.
Emptiness.
“No!” Warwick bellowed behind me, and I twisted enough to see him, Istvan already escaping into the forest with Simon, Warwick disappearing after them.
I could no longer feel Warwick. The connection was scorched, leaving me empty. Cold. Floating in darkness without an anchor. Full of guilt, rage, devastation, and terror.
Staring down at Tad, his empty eyes gazed blankly up at the sky. Absent of life. Of the power which was woven in the earth, his life older than the trees next to us. He had lived thousands of years. My friend. My companion in Halálház.
Now he was gone.
Because of me.
He saved Simon’s life, protected him.
From me.
I killed him.
“Oh, gods . . .” I scrambled back on my feet with a sob, devastated at the truth of what I had done, what I was capable of.
Sounds drew my attention up. Only handfuls of people still stood, staring down in shock at the dead bodies scattered across the terrain. My attention fell on dozens and dozens. I recognized one of the dead near me. Jan, the grumpy coffee guy at Povstat. Dead. Without a mark on his body.
My hand slapped over my mouth as I stepped back in utter horror.
My call to attack didn’t discriminate. I gave no order as to who.
They killed on both sides. My magic didn’t decipher between guilty and innocent.
There was a mix of HDF soldiers, Povstat soldiers, and inmates slain over the ground.
Some were dead from gunshot wounds, but most were not.
I had killed them.
The hundred souls I had taken swirled around me, adding to my undead army.
Terror gripped my throat like fingers, my eyes dropping back down again to the body at my feet, comprehending what I had truly done.
My magic took a hundred innocent lives, and it was potent enough to murder one of the most powerful Druids in the world.
I had almost killed Simon.
The gut-wrenching shame burned a sob in the back of my throat, Andris’s warning murmuring in my head.
“Brex, it’s beyond dangerous. This tiny substance is the most powerful thing in the world. The damage it can do. Do you know what could happen if people found it? What if Istvan discovered it?”
It wasn’t Istvan he should have been afraid of.
It was me.
I was the monster.
I had no control and no idea how much more damage I could do. My heart and brain couldn’t come to terms with my crimes, with what I had done. What I was capable of . . .
I stared down at the lifeless nectar, empty of magic. But I knew it wouldn’t be long before the power came back. And I wanted it to. Like a drug, I had tasted the high . . . the power. I wanted more.
I didn’t trust myself to be anywhere near it.
Scanning the area, I saw some grieving over their loved ones or thinking of the young men whose parents back at HDF would learn their child was no longer alive.
My feet retreated a few steps, the panic and need to run jarring my bones. I was too dangerous. I no longer walked in the gray . . . I had fallen into the darkness.
The threat, the danger.
Little did I know the whole time . . .
I was the villain.