Chapter 45 Fight for Love
SOUNDTRACK: The Serpent by Besomorth
~ MELEK ~
Sometimes Gall ran because he was afraid. I wanted to give him a chance to run off some of his tension. But the closer we drew to the great banquet hall in the palace, and the more he ignored the fights we passed, not even calling for assistance, the more concerned I grew.
When he sprinted around the final corner into the massive corridor lined with double doors, into the banquet hall, I was pushing to keep up with him. I didn’t know how Lucifer had done it, but my son was stronger and faster than he’d ever been.
The implications worried me a great deal.
Gall shoved through the closest set of doors to the banquet hall, and tore inside.
I slid on the parquet floor as I entered and turned to follow him, almost losing my feet.
Luckily he hadn’t thought to take that corner and wait for me where I might be off-balance.
He ran straight to the opposite wall, leaped onto the massive, empty table, and tore one of the shining halberds—an axe on a long handle with a spear blade rising from its tip—from the wall where it was mounted, crossed with a spear.
With another leap to the floor, Gall whirled to face me, swinging the weapon’s axe head in a wide arc, his chest heaving after the run, but his eyes bright as he silently dared me to come closer.
Needing to catch my own breath, I silently considered how to reach the shield and buckler on the wall, before Gall reached me with that axe.
I raised my hands. “Gall, that isn’t necessary. I’m not going to kill you.”
“It doesn’t matter,” he roared, teeth bared and letting his weapon slip to his side. But I saw the flash of fear in his eyes, right alongside the fury he was building to give himself courage—and it just galvanized me. My son was still in there. I was sure of it.
“Of course it matters. I’m not your enemy, and you’re not a bloodthirsty—”
“Leave.” Gall muttered.
I blinked, but he didn’t stop. “Leave. Not just this room. Leave this palace. Leave this city—leave Ebonreach. Leave!” he shouted. “Leave this nation, because it belongs to me, and this is your last chance. If you want to live, you leave. Be over the mountains before dawn. Or I will kill you.”
“Gall—”
“I am not a child! I’m not the weak, piddling puppy you knew! I’m strong now.”
“You’ve always been strong, Gall. That’s why I’m here. Because I know you’re strong enough to beat this.”
“The only thing I have to beat is you.”
“This isn’t you, Son,” I said calmly, still showing him my palms, but slowly inching in a circle so I could get closer to that shield in case he came at me. “I know you. I know this isn’t how you want to live.”
“That’s where you’re wrong,” he hissed.
My spine locked when Gall smiled, and there was nothing of the sweet, innocent boy I’d known, and only Lucifer in those malicious eyes. Then he hefted the halberd. “I’ll use this to cut off your head, and deliver it to Grandfather,” he declared, panting and swallowing.
“No, you won’t.” It was risky to defy him outright, but I had to keep him talking. “I know you’re still in there—my son. My beautiful boy.”
“I was never your son!” he snarled. “Your boy is now a king! He is strong! He will father the next king! I know why you’re here, and it’s not going to work!”
“No, Gall, it’s not going to happen. You’ll never be safe with him. You don’t understand—”
“Don’t tell me I don’t understand!”
“Resist the devil and he will flee, Gall,” I quoted through gritted teeth. “He must. He can’t make you do a damn thing. That’s why he’s not the one here holding the blade. If you believe the truth, he can’t touch you.”
“Of course he can touch me,” Gall muttered. “He touches me. He finds me. He has Istral. He keeps us both… He shows me the way—shows me how it will be if I don’t follow.”
I was sure he did—full of fear, shame, and manipulation. I wanted to roar myself. But I needed Gall to listen.
“It’s lies, Gall. Manipulation. He can’t force you to do anything—he makes you fear and convinces you—”
“I’m not afraid!”
“—that you have no other choice. It’s wrong.
It’s untrue. And he loses his power when we stop believing him.
If he was so strong against me, he’d be here.
He’d have killed me himself. He doesn’t.
He can’t. He is a created being, and he was never given that right.
Stop listening and living in fear. Trust me! ”
Gall went very still, glowering at me, his knuckles white on the handle of the halberd, then his upper lip pulled back.
“I will never trust you,” he hissed, then swung that wicked blade towards me with more speed and skill than I’d ever seen him demonstrate in his short life.
It was only a desperate leap over one of the tables that saved me. Gall hadn’t accounted for the blade lodging in the wood, and it took him three yanks to pull it loose—which gave me precious seconds to leap for one of the wide braced shields, and a small metal buckler on the wall.
“I’m not going to fight y—”
A whirring noise was the only warning I had that he’d swung again. I darted aside, keeping one of the tables between us.
“You don’t have to do this, Gall—”
“Stop talking!”
“I won’t. I know—”
He swung that long handle again, this time remembering to keep the head flat so it would sweep over the table, rather than into it when I successfully evading the swing.
He needed to get closer than the table would allow, and he knew it. I saw him eye me, then the bench and table, readying to leap over it and I backed away another step—but now I had the wall at my back.
“I know my sweet, loving son is in there somewhere,” I said calmly, but urgently. “Fight, Gall. Resist. Stop believing his lies. Come with me, and let me show you how powerless he is if you stop believing his lies.”
To my dismay, Gall sprang from the floor, one boot landing squarely on the table, swinging that gleaming axe again as he rushed me.
A part of my heart quavered. Not because he was armed. But because my son wanted me dead. In that moment, his eyes told the tale—his fear and sense of power had overridden his heart. He wanted to give Lucifer what that Fallen fuck wanted.
Plus, that Fallen fuck had somehow strengthened my son.
As I brought the shield up just in time—grateful that Gall lacked Jann’s precision—to deflect the handle and send the weapon up and away, my body groaned with weariness.
But it was my heart that ached. Not because already I’d taken a spear to it once this night.
But because I knew that my son had been so hurt and traumatized and shamed, that he couldn’t see any other way out anymore. I ached for him.
“I won’t hurt you, Gall,” I said, as quietly as I could while fleeing and defending. “We’re going to keep doing this until you’re willing to trust me again.”
“Shut. The fuck. Up!”