Chapter 1 #3
Darius grinned, knocking his cup lightly against Cedric’s. “Oh, Cedric,” he murmured. “You wound me.”
Cedric’s gaze drifted again—always, inevitably, betraying him—to Darius’s hair, mahogany strands gilded by lantern light, tousled just enough to seem effortless.
A dangerous lie. Nothing about Darius was effortless.
Every glance, every word, every move was honed for maximum effect.
Cedric knew this, had always known this.
But still…
He knew the exact curve of Darius’s brow when scheming, the way his lips thinned during lectures—but this?
The softness of his smile now, the quiet, almost disarming warmth behind his eyes?
That was a far crueler weapon than any sharp remark or veiled threat.
That was the trap Cedric had walked into too many times before.
And would walk into again.
Cedric’s pulse stuttered.
Stop. You’re drunk on idiocy.
“Did you do this?” Cedric asked, too abruptly. The hall’s din swelled around them—lutes twined with laughter, goblets clinking like discordant bells—but Darius’s reply cut through cleanly.
“Happy birthday. This will be a night you won’t forget.” Darius lifted his tankard in a toast. Cedric’s cheeks burned, and not from the drink.
Darius refilled his tankard without asking, the drink cascading in a golden stream.
Cedric drank anyway, letting the sweetness blur the edges of his wariness.
The warmth spread—first in his belly, then his limbs, loose and weightless.
He caught his parents’ distant conversation, their faces crinkled with pride, and for a heartbeat, the world softened.
The tapestries rippled like living things, their embroidered hawks soaring in the candlelit haze.
Even the stone floor beneath his boots seemed to sway, as if the castle itself had taken a drunken lurch.
By the time Cedric stumbled into the corridor, the buzz in his skull had sharpened to a hive’s roar. Cold air struck his face, a mercy after the hall’s suddenly unbearable heat. He braced a palm against the wall. His mind felt like wool soaked in honey.
Somewhere behind him, Darius spun the treasury minister’s daughter in a whirl of silk, his laughter trailing like smoke. That sound—rich, smug, too much—threaded through Cedric’s mind, leaving a strange, aching tightness in its wake.
He blinked, trying to steady himself, but the floor swayed beneath his feet. I need to sit. Just for a moment.
When Cedric pushed himself upright, his legs buckled, and the thought shattered. He caught himself awkwardly, the world tilting around him.
He hadn’t had that much to drink. Had he?
His chambers loomed ahead, the oak door swimming in and out of focus. He made for it with grim determination, shouldering it open and stumbling inside. The fire had died down to embers, casting the room in dim smudges of charcoal and ash.
He fumbled off his shoes—one disappearing under the bed—and collapsed onto the mattress with a groan. The sheets were cold against his skin, but he barely noticed.
The pillow smelled of lavender. Or maybe that was the drink still twisting his senses. Gods, it was still clinging to him, coating his tongue like a spell meant to muddle his mind. His fingers clenched in the fabric beneath him.
Gwenna’s grin flitted through his mind. Then his mother’s laughter, bright as harp strings. Then…Darius.
His intoxicating, effortless grace. The way his eyes held galaxies of unspoken promise. The heat of his arm slung around Cedric’s shoulders. The ghost of his smile, curling like the rim of a goblet, like an invitation Cedric should never, ever take.
You did something to that drink, he thought hazily.
Cedric groaned and dragged the pillow over his stomach, pressing down, as if he could shove the nausea back. As if he could shove Darius back.
And then his gut heaved.
He rolled sideways, swallowing bile. The garderobe. He needed the garderobe. But when his feet hit the rug, pain erupted. Not the dull throb of too much drink, but a thousand needles searing through muscle and bone. His legs buckled. Cedric crashed to his knees, a raw, strangled cry tearing free.
His breath hitched. His fingers curled against the floor—except they weren’t fingers anymore.
Talons.
Long, curved, gleaming wet in the low light. His nails were gone, peeled away like shed leaves. The bones of his hands cracked, stretched, reshaping as golden scales bloomed across his knuckles, pushing through flesh with a sickening pop.
He pressed his shaking hands—claws—against the cold stone floor, as if doing so might somehow halt the impossible changes wracking his body. His gut soured, and for a heartbeat, he thought, This can’t be real. This isn’t happening. But the searing pain crawling up his spine told him otherwise.
He sucked in a desperate, jagged breath. “No…”
The sound that left him was wrong. Too deep. Too monstrous. His hand shot to his throat, but the skin there was already shifting—bubbling, hardening, elongating. A scream tried to claw free, but what tore from his chest was a roar.
A sound he had never made before. One that didn’t belong to him.
He was changing. Warping. Losing himself.
A sob tore free as he crawled toward the door, clawing at the stone, at himself, at whatever was happening to him. He had to stop it. He had to get help.
And then, through the searing haze of his mind, a single thought cut through: Mom.
His breath hitched. His hands—claws—dug into the floor. She always knows what to do. She always helps. She always—
A sharp pop cracked through his spine. His vision whited out. But he kept moving. Because if he could just get to her… If he could just reach her…
She’d fix this. She’d fix him.