Chapter 50
CHAPTER FIFTY
M y homecoming was commemorated with bloodshed.
With more orders to carry out my father’s vengeance. More villages to burn and executions to perform as retribution for the few moments of bliss I had stolen with my wife.
Punishment for my father’s insanity.
I drew my swords up in an arc before slicing them through the neck of yet another of his convicted traitors . The man’s wife sobbed next to him, her eyes locked on the head that was separated from his body while I offered her the same end.
Today’s massacre was particularly brutal because the alleged rebels were brought to Bear estate where their deaths could be witnessed by the clan.
Fifty-seven men and women who were deemed too depraved, too vile to become Besklanovvy , were chained and carted like cattle to my home.
One by one, I severed their heads from their bodies, watched as the life bled from their eyes, watched as their spilled blood joined the veritable ocean of death that filled the courtyard.
My father and Ava, along with the lords and ladies of court, observed from the balcony, while the soldiers lined up around the edges of the bailey so that everyone had a clear view of my father’s executioner at work.
On days like this, I wondered how far the reaches of his sanity went. If he was slipping further into the madness that had haunted him for years, or if he knew exactly what he was doing when he gave me these orders.
If he knew the cost it took on my soul after finally having known a moment of peace. If this was punishment for having the audacity to carve out a space in the ether where I existed for no one other than her.
Blood was everywhere, staining the cold gray stones on the ground, the black fabric of my trousers, dripping from the obsidian steel of my new sabers.
Crimson like the curls that spilled onto my bare chest in dawn’s early rays in a life that felt like someone else’s.
The days had passed with an interminable slowness, marked only by the blood I spilled for my father.
One corpse after another was added to the list of lives I’d taken while I remembered jade eyes and a mischievous smirk. While I thought about the sound of her laugh or the feel of her perfectly bowed lips.
It was familiar, at least—the act of taking a life—the feel of slicing through skin and bone. The feeling of blood on my hands while I slipped further into the recesses of my mind.
It was the price I paid for her safety. A price I would willingly pay, over and over.
For now, at least, she wasn’t here to witness it all. If I could calm my father’s bloodlust before she arrived, maybe she would never have to see exactly how much blood was on my hands.
I comforted myself with the fact that I wasn’t fighting a war on more than one front, for the time being. While I had expected more fallout from the other clans—Wolf, in particular—there was nothing.
It was as if every clan in Socair was holding their breath for my upcoming wedding. As if that would be the determining factor for whatever was set into motion next. Or perhaps they were too busy bowing to their new king to be bothered making plans that didn’t align with his.
I thought of the extra patrols stationed at the border. The random inspection of all goods coming in from Lochlann. The distinct lack of communication between the clans and the eerie silence from my spies throughout the kingdom.
Another sweep of my blades, another spray of blood.
Was there a part of my father that regretted backing Iiro’s petition to be king? Was that part of the reason his hunger for death had become so intense? Or had my alliance with his greatest enemy been too much of a betrayal?
I met his hardened gaze as I stepped up to the next villager. Whatever shred of humanity my father had possessed had died the day my mother did.
With another sweep of my swords, I added another head to the pile. As much as I hated my father more with each arc of my blades, I couldn’t silence the question echoing in the cavern of my mind.
Were his soulless eyes a window into my future? Would I crave death and vengeance with the same fervor if I lost the only source of light in my life? The one person I loved more than anything else in the storms-damned world?
By the time I delivered the killing blow to my fifty-seventh person today, I didn’t have a good answer. All I knew was that I would do whatever it took to keep Rowan safe.
Even if it cost me the last broken piece of my soul.