Chapter Twenty-Three #2
The man who had killed Einar’s parents and destroyed so very many lives.
He was flanked by strangers who pulsed with magic, but Einar could barely see them.
Time seemed frozen as he stared at the man who had shaped his entire life.
He’d seen Sorin from a distance once, during the battle where Sachielle had defeated him, but in the aftermath, Dianthe had dealt with the fallen Emperor, and Einar had respected her order—phrased as a gentle request—that he stay away.
But there he stood, no more than a dozen paces from Einar.
It seemed impossible that this could be the man who had blithely caused the suffering of millions.
Not because he was handsome—Einar had seen evil wrapped in beauty far too many times to be surprised by Sorin’s elegant features and pretty smile.
His well-defined muscles were not a shock, either.
Unlike the many useless nobles in Gwynira’s court, Sorin had always valued work above all else.
The strength of his body was unsurprising in the man who had built many of the Sheltered Lands’ most impressive landmarks with his own two hands.
It was his eyes—eyes that surveyed the room with all the casual pleasure of a man who had just arrived at a celebration to embrace his oldest friends.
There was no hint of malice there, and no anger.
No sign of the cruel conqueror of Einar’s childhood nightmares, or the monstrous god who had terrorized an entire continent.
Ash’s voice drifted through Einar’s memory.
He still believes that what he was doing was in the best interests of the world.
Einar had heard Ash say that to Dianthe after they had imprisoned Sorin beneath the Siren’s keep.
The dragon’s voice had been laced with a terrible sadness.
It is not rationalization. It is beyond delusion.
He believes in his soul that he must protect the world from us. Still, even now.
Sorin turned that eerily pleasant smile on Aleksi. “Hello, old friend.” He bit off the words with a disdain that turned them into a lie.
Aleksi stared back at him, grave and unmoving. “Sorin.”
Sorin’s gaze swept across the room, but it was as if everyone else was insignificant—even Gwynira and Isa, who he had created from his own twisted dreams. He didn’t stop until he found Inga, who was still kneeling next to Tilly, who had begun to stir groggily.
“Oh, Inga,” he said, his tone affection edged in condescension.
“Always up to your elbows in someone else’s blood. ”
Her eyes—edged in a furious pink glow—looked murderous. “Usually because you made them bleed.”
Sorin shrugged one shoulder, as if he couldn’t argue but did not particularly care. “You saved my life once, do you remember?”
“I remember,” she ground out. “Everyone makes mistakes sometimes.”
“It was a building accident. I believe I was helping to design your palace at the time.” Sorin smiled at her with that terrible parody of affection.
“I will return the favor. This is not your fight, my dear. Go back to your forest and play with your flowers. You’ve never had the stomach for battle. ”
Einar had seen the Witch at war before. He’d watched her tend to wounds so horrifying, even the most hardened of soldiers would have lost their supper on the bloody battlefield.
He’d seen her pull that pain into herself without hesitation, taking their agony onto her own shoulders with a fearlessness that few could match.
Sorin might have called the High Court his family, but he truly did not understand a single one of them.
Inga proved it as her face locked down into a cold mask. “I saved your life once,” she said quietly, and Einar saw Sorin’s death in those glowing eyes. “Unlike you, I learn from my mistakes.”
Sorin shrugged and turned away, dismissing her as if she no longer existed. Aleksi was clearly the only person left in his world, the only one who mattered. “You have been surprisingly irritating, you know. Especially for a man whose only real talents are drinking and fucking.”
“You see what you want to see, Sorin. You always have.” Finally, he smiled, though the expression was full of more inevitability than humor. “It’s your fatal flaw.”
Sorin had shrugged off Inga’s words, but Aleksi’s seemed to dig beneath his skin. That friendly mask broke, something harsh and evil showing through.
Then Naia shifted behind Einar. The movement caught Sorin’s attention, his gaze swinging to her like a predator who had caught the scent of prey. A wildness bloomed in those eyes that set Einar’s heart to racing.
“There you are,” Sorin murmured, reaching over his shoulder.
The giant hammer he pulled free had a handle of dark polished wood and a broad metal head that looked like steel folded with midnight.
It pulsed with the Void—a thing that should not have been possible if Sorin was indeed still a mortal.
And it wasn’t possible—as Sorin lifted the weapon, Einar could see that simply gripping it was burning the flesh of his hand.
Sorin ignored it, a dreamy smile curling his lips, and there was the monster who had terrorized the world for centuries beyond telling.
Einar could see Naia’s death in the man’s eyes, a death he would savor in the moment and swiftly forget, because each stride this man took was on the bones of those he’d slaughtered and then erased.
Every muscle in Einar’s body tensed. Sorin took a single step forward.
The stillness in the room shattered into chaos as everyone moved at once.
Flames raced along the walls. An invisible force swatted at the furniture, forcing Arktikos to roll out of the way as the couch skittered toward the far wall, which exploded into a shower of stone shards that had Gwynira throwing herself over a dazed Isa.
Inga rose from Tilly’s side, pivoting gracefully as her hand flashed through the air.
Einar had seen her pull candy and wine and butterflies from nothingness before, but this time a sleek sword appeared in her grasp.
She tossed it in the same movement, already turning away as it completed its glittering arc, and Aleksi plucked it from the air and spun toward the blonde woman to Sorin’s right with the grace of a dancer.
She raised both hands, and power sparked between them, a shimmering pressure that exploded upward when she flung her hands wide. The ceiling above Aleksi cracked ominously, forcing him to retreat as several ceiling tiles cracked and crashed downward.
The ceiling groaned, but in the next moment Naia was there, hands upraised. The buckling stone held. Face tight with rage, the woman lifted both of her hands. Angry shimmering power gathered there, the pressure of it like a storm rolling in on the horizon.
But as she flung her hands wide to release it, Naia shook her head. The woman’s arms moved, as if controlled like a marionette’s, and crossed over her chest. The power rebounded, throwing her back and through the hole in the wall.
Sorin paused, his hammer resting on his shoulder, and seeing death in his eyes had been better than this. He watched Naia as if he’d seen a wonderful prize he was desperate to claim. “Fascinating,” he whispered. Then he jerked his other hand. “Kill the rest of them. Leave her.”
Einar lunged for him, only for that unseen force to slam into him, sending him hurtling backward with dizzying speed. He crashed into the table covered in bottles, giving thanks for his tougher demigod skin as glass shattered all around him.
“My prince!” One of the kitchen boys scurried out of the shelter of a doorway, a carving knife clutched in one hand. Einar looked past him to see more servants piling through the doors, running toward danger—toward their goddess and their would-be king.
Recklessly, wonderfully brave. Stupidly brave.
They would be nothing but hostages and collateral damage in a war between gods, and they must know it.
But still they pressed in, the guards with their weapons unsheathed, the stable boys and maids clutching fireplace pokers and knives and any bludgeoning object they could put hands on.
The intruders saw them, too. A woman with flame-red hair laughed as fire sprouted from her fingertips.
It dripped toward the debris-scattered floor and raced across it, heading for the battle-axe who ran the kitchens—Hilja, who had created Naia’s fabulous ball gown and then gleefully taken on the challenge of making Einar clothing to fit his new body, as if fitting clothing to a giant with the shimmering silvered skin of the deep was an honor.
She stood at the front of the crowd, a meat cleaver large enough to take off a man’s arm in one swipe clutched in one hand, and stared down the oncoming flames as if she would fight them with willpower and devotion to the goddess alone.
Einar rolled into their path, ready to test his demigod form against fire. “Hilja! You have to get the others to safety!”
“But the goddess—”
“Your goddess wants you alive!” he barked as the hungry flames surged toward him.
He braced for the pain of heat. Instead his fingertips felt the burn of winter as the marble floor around him froze.
Ice formed in front of him in fantastical fractals, beautiful and deadly.
It sizzled where the fire touched it, and for a moment the two elements hung in stasis, battling for dominance.
Across the room, Gwynira extended her hand, hair disheveled and eyes furious.
Then she closed her fingers into a fist, and fire shattered, turning to impossible twisting flames of ice.
The cold raced back across the floor, frigid and deadly as it wound up the legs of the flame-haired woman and forced a scream from her suddenly blue lips.