47. Kyros
Chapter forty-seven
Kyros
It was only a matter of time before the darkness of this world claimed what little was left of my soul. Leave it to Phaedra to be the one to affirm possession of it. As long as Astraea and the others are out of harm's way, I can live with the consequences.
“Oh stop sulking, would you? It’s ruining the mood.
” Phaedra’s voice drags out, bored with her dinner companion.
I look up from the plate of food that was laid out in front of me, which could have been an hour ago, for as much as I’ve been paying attention.
Though the steam still rising from the plate tells me it hasn’t been nearly as long as I’ve imagined.
I haven’t eaten since I was last with Astraea.
How could I have an appetite considering my company?
Even if the scent of the Creshian balm Phaedra had slathered on hadn’t assaulted my nose the moment she sat down, I still wouldn’t eat the meal with her.
Still, the smell does serve as a reminder to what happened back in Diemos.
My eyes skate along her exposed and newly reddened skin.
The burns from the black flame Astraea had conjured are clearly taking much longer to heal. The fact of which I revel in.
Phaedra has changed since we arrived once again in Eathian.
The charred remnants of the blue dress she wore didn’t tell the story of a victory she wanted, so she quickly bathed in the Creshian balm and replaced the singed fabric for new attire, of which I imagine is supposed to be seducing.
Her breasts are free of any binds, and her nipples are pert, brushing the line of exposure in the lighter blue fabric.
A color I see she's taken a fondness to here in Eathian.
The look of this dining hall she's demanded I eat with her in has the color draped everywhere.
In the flowers that adorn tables in ceramic vases, the pillows are thrown in corners, creating a space for lounging.
Even the drapery hanging from the large open-faced windows are a multitude of a similar shade alongside the crisp whites and tans that Connard had previously adorning these halls.
The castle that should feel like home feels nothing of the sort.
Nothing about this place reminds me of my childhood or of the woman who has come to mean so much to me.
It feels barren without Astraea and completely wrong with Phaedra’s touch painted across the stones that make up what should have felt like—me.
Several handmaids and serving boys come in, bringing with them more food and drink.
A trembling younger boy fills my goblet with a deep red and sickly sweet-smelling wine.
My lip curls back in distaste. Even though the boy keeps his eyes trained on the ground, I recognize him as the young boy from the stable I had cast to sleep before my last meeting with Phaedra.
I wonder if he recognizes this creature I’ve become from that night.
He swallows audibly before quickly scampering out of the room.
He’s smart to be afraid. They would all do well to realize that I am not the man I once was.
I have given up everything I’ve ever cherished making this oath.
Being afraid is safer for the people in the palace, this kingdom.
The innocents that don’t need to be around when I finally unleash my wrath on Phaedra for all she has done.
Though the reminder of the oath does give me a moment of pause as I think about how I should feel…
Would there be a shift in the presence of my soul?
Would the heat that lives in my chest be replaced by the ice that is Phaedra’s?
When I don’t say anything to her, she continues to stare at me, as though doing so would coerce the soul I’ve lost when I became oath bound to her into bringing whatever emotion she’s seeking from me.
Phaedra lets out a frustrated sigh and plops a wedge of cheese into her mouth dramatically when she doesn't get it. She will never get it.
“You know, you may as well embrace this.” She gestures up and down my body, and I feel my muscles tense under her gaze.
She takes in every inch of my new otherworldly shape.
I could barely look at myself when I was told to prepare for this dinner.
I took one look and shattered the mirror into a thousand pieces with my new shadow-dipped fist. What I would give to use these razor-like claws now extending from my fingertips to rip her throat out instead.
It’s only a matter of time. “You have always been my dark prince; now the title is just that much more fitting.” She continues chewing around her words. It makes me sick.
She smiles again, keeping her eyes dancing along my body where I sit straight-faced and silent on the other side of the table.
I eye her back. We both know that we are playing a game of wills.
Who is going to break this facade of calm first?
I’m honestly surprised I have been able to keep as calm as I have so far.
If not for the fact that I need to know more about what exactly she was after from Astraea, I would have just done it already.
Her smile stretches wider, making me think she knows exactly what I’m contemplating.
She taps a long painted nail on the surface of the wood table before eventually clicking her tongue and pushing out of her chair. The legs screech across the floor, startling several of the handmaids in the room. They all stand at attention at her abrupt movement.
“I’ll give you a day, maybe two, to acclimate to your new situation, but Kyros?
” She pushes the chair in and leans into the high back as she glowers at me.
Her whole demeanor changing. “I suggest you get past whatever it is keeping you silent. We will be announcing the tie of two kingdoms very soon, and you will be at my side when that happens.” She pauses, bending at the hip, and she brings her eyes level with mine over the table.
“What were the terms? I will replace his fealty with my own. ” Everything about the wildness in her eyes pushes me to react.
My lip twitches with the urge to curl it, to bear the new fang threatening its sharp tip, and to let out the snarl that wants to break free, but I must resist—for now.
Instead, I lift my chin in defiance. She narrows her eyes speculatively before sighing as she stands up straight and brushes her hands down the front of her dress.
She turns and casually saunters her way to the doors.
Should I even be able to defy her? With an oath of fealty?
“It appears he needs a lesson in respect.” She calls over her shoulder without looking at me, then snaps her fingers.
In a whirl of shadow, the nightmare creature who I had fought before from Astraea’s nightmares suddenly appears.
Summoned with the snap of her fingers. His burning ember eyes meet mine, and for the first time I actually see more than the terror he evokes.
I see a reflection of myself. Lifting his skeleton-like hands and long sharp fingers, he lets his arm drop down suddenly.
As it does, a weapon I’ve never seen before unfurls and hangs sinisterly along the side of his body, snapping against the floor.
Everything happens so quickly, it leaves me very little time to react.
The whip made of pure bones comes flying from him, the end of it tapered to a sharp point.
It wraps around my wrist with the move, and he tugs on it with brutal force.
My body crashes to the table, shattering glass and spilling the remnants of the dinner that Phaedra laid out for us, and I grunt with the impact.
Pulling again, my body is jerked even further forward, and I slide across the table with a hiss.
The sharp edges of broken dishes cut into my skin.
I pull back on the spinous whip, using my new, even more hulking figure to bring the creature closer to me.
If you want a fight, asshole, then let's fucking fight. Before I can strike, I notice something glint along his wrist tucked within his robe that gives me pause. I attempt to reach for it, thinking it could be a weapon, but he wraps those bony fingers around mine first. Then I feel the cold bite. The awful heaviness weighs down on everything. My magick, my body, even my tongue. My heart thunders in my chest as I look between the cuffs now on my wrists and the creature who put them there. My chest is too tight, my heart erratic in its need to escape. Every upper hand I thought I had is gone. The same metal I had seen on his wrists a moment ago now decorates my own. I try to force my body to move, to do anything at all, but I can’t.
I—my control is gone. Just like the brief moment in the throne room when Phaedra had ordered me to kill Astraea.
The creature blinks down at what he’s done, and it's almost as though I can feel his remorse, but that can’t be right.
Phaedra’s laugh echoes through the chamber, and it takes me by surprise.
I thought she had left, but of course she would stay to witness this.
She snaps her fingers, and I am forced to turn and face her.
Narrowing her eyes, she shakes her head, her fingers curling around the large door, and she stares back at us wildly.
“I thought I needed that bitch to have the power I wanted.” A manic smile pulls her mouth wide.
“It turns out the gods left us all the means we ever needed to both destroy and to control your kind. Even though I was born a bastard with no magick of my own, I have the wit and the determination to outsmart every last one of you. Now I will rule over both of these godforsaken kingdoms. It will be you who gives me the power I need to do it. If you wish to be silent—fine; I don’t need your voice.
” Phaedra was a bastard? She snaps her fingers, pointing to the floor before her, and my boots drag across the rough stone even though my body remains rigidly unmoving until I am standing right where she pointed.
Her smile is sinister as she looks at me possessively.
“I just love spelled Tsalalerian steel! It makes for a wonderful means of control when it comes to the Senka and Kres-born. Especially for those in their terrifyingly seductive shadow forms. A fun little thing your friend Shayd allowed to slip so many years ago.” She whispers the words in my ear like a lover.
My mind snags on her mention of Shayd… But the situation in front of me takes precedence.
I want to scream, to bellow every foul thing I can think of at her in this moment, but I can’t say anything.
My mind is my own, but my body isn't. Even my tongue won’t move to form the words I wish.
She smiles wider, knowing full well what she’s done.
Her hand lays over my chest, over the thunderous muscle that seems to be the only thing neither of us has control over.
Her eyes flick to mine as I look down to the matching ring that circles her wrist, tying me to her. Yet another way that links me to her.
“You may have only a moment of freedom. I will allow you to speak freely once. How you use it will determine how things go next.” She snaps her fingers, releasing me from whatever hold she had on my body.
The moment she does, my body moves before my mind has caught up.
I feel my muscles coil, and then I lurch forward.
My dark claws wrap firmly around Phaedra’s neck as I shove through the doorway she stands in front of.
Her head and back slam so hard into the unforgiving wall on the other side of the hallway, I’m surprised she stays lucid.
Her eyes bulge and guards gawk at what is unfolding, too scared to move against me on a normal day.
Much less when I’m wearing the skin of a demon who walked straight from the pits of Zameil and the cloak of vengeance of a man with nothing left to lose.
She claws at my forearms, and I press harder.
Dark veins protrude along my arms, and I finally allow the monstrous snarl out of my throat and reveal the long, sharpened canines that scrape my lower lip.
“I am going to fucking kill you. I will find a way out of this oath and these fucking chains, and you will have to answer for what you’ve done!
” Spit speckles her cheek as I growl the last of the words into her rippled and reddened skin.
Her hand breaks from my arm for just a second.
A snap of her fingers; a command I’m too late to stop.
Then pain, so white-hot it takes my breath away, strikes across my back.
My grip loosens, and she sucks in a ragged breath.
Again, the whip strikes my back, robbing me of my strength.
My hold on her fails, and she sputters to get her breath fully into her lungs as she falls to her knees.
Another hit across my back causes my spine to bow with the impact.
Blood heats my skin as it seeps from the flayed pieces of flesh.
Another crack through the air, then another. Each one feels harder than the last.
“No Kyros, I don’t think you will.” She says hoarsely as she pushes up to her feet and watches me fall to my knees.
She rubs her neck as she stands there watching me breathe heavily, trying to endure the pain searing at my back.
Slowly, she takes a step closer and nods.
I can't hold it back anymore. I call out in pain with the next crack of the bone whip, dropping my palms to the floor at her feet.
She shoves her fingers into my hair, wrenching my head up so my eyes lock with hers.
“You see, that oath you just gave, it was a promise—to serve me until your death.
The only way out of it is just that. You won't be the one dying, though.” She leans in closer, whispering.
“Not today anyway.” She smiles, but it looks more like an animal baring its teeth in a snarl.
“That is only a future I wish to see for that perfect little niece of mine, and you will be the one to sink the blade into her heart. Just like her father did to her mother.”
Her smile turns wicked as she looks over me to the apparition at my back.
Everything in me turns to ice as she releases her hold on me with a shove and stands to her full height.
With another snap of her fingers, my skin splits again as another crack of the whip comes down on my flesh, but I don’t feel much as darkness claims my pain, my vision tunnels, and I collapse to the stone floor.