Chapter 15 Lord Imas
LORD IMAS
The dagger in my hand is not just steel. It is a conduit. It is a question.
The serrated edge, slick with the memory of Varon’s blood, hovers over the fragile cage of Leora’s ribs.
I can see the frantic, bird-like flutter of her heart beneath the pale skin.
One strike. One downward thrust, and the silence will shatter.
The Serpent will flood back into my veins, a roaring river of Chaos that will drown out the ache, the weakness, the terrifying humanity that has taken root in my chest.
Strike, The Serpent whispers.
The voice is not distant anymore. It is right behind my ear, a lover’s murmur, wet and seductive.
Strike, and become a god. Strike, and I will give you the world.
My hand trembles. Not with fear, but with the sheer, agonizing force of the war being fought in my muscles. Every instinct I have honed for five hundred years screams at me to finish it. My duty as a Khuzuth Lord demands it. My ambition demands it. My survival demands it.
But my soul… my soul is screaming no.
I look down at her. Leora is bound, helpless, stretched out on the altar like an offering to a hunger she cannot comprehend. Her eyes are open. The sapphire blue is clear, unclouded by the Purna blackness.
She is not fighting. She is not begging.
She is seeing me.
And through the connection that binds us, she pushes something into my mind. It isn't forgiveness. Forgiveness is cheap; it implies I have done something wrong that can be absolved. This is heavier. This is colder.
It is understanding.
It hits me like a sledgehammer to the chest, stealing the breath from my lungs. She understands why I brought her here. She understands the weight of the legacy crushing my spine. She understands that I am a creature made of knives, and that to ask me to be soft is to ask a fire not to burn.
She accepts the monster. She accepts the blade.
Do it, her eyes say. If this is what saves you, Imas, then do it.
A sob tears from my throat, raw and ugly.
"Why?" I gasp, the word scraping against my teeth. "Why do you not hate me? Why do you not scream?"
"Because you are in pain," she whispers. Her voice is steady, a calm anchor in the storm of my disintegration. "And I know what it is to be trapped."
The empathy floods me. It is not the sweet, cloying warmth of before.
It is a searing, white-hot light that illuminates every shadow in my soul.
It burns away the excuses. It burns away the pride.
It leaves me standing naked before the altar, a man holding a knife over the only thing in the universe that has ever looked at him without wanting something.
I tighten my grip on the dagger. The leather of the hilt creaks.
I want the power. I want the safety of my caste. I want to be the Master of Night, feared and untouchable.
But I want her more.
The realization is a catastrophe. It is the collapse of a mountain.
I lower the blade an inch. The tip grazes the silk of her robe, right over her heart.
Kill her! The Serpent shrieks in my mind, a sound like tearing metal. Kill her or rot!
"I can't," I whisper to the god I am betraying.
I lift the dagger again. My arm shakes so violently the muscles spasm. I am fighting my own body, fighting the years of conditioning that tell me mercy is death.
"Imas," Leora says softly.
I look at her one last time. I memorize the curve of her jaw, the dark sweep of her lashes, the terrifying, beautiful acceptance in her eyes.
I cannot unmake this. If I let her live, I am dead.
And I choose death.
With a roar of pure, agonizing defiance, I hurl the dagger.
It flies from my hand, spinning through the dark air of the chamber. It strikes the far wall with a spark of flint and steel, clattering uselessly to the stone floor.
The sound of its impact is the sound of my life ending.
I collapse.
My legs give way, and I fall against the altar, sliding down until I am kneeling beside her. The connection to The Serpent snaps. It doesn't fade; it breaks. It is akin to an amputation, a severing of a limb I have used to walk my entire life.
Pain explodes in my chest. I retch, my body convulsing as the last dregs of Chaos magic are ripped from my blood.
I weep.
They are not the tears of a man. They are thick, red drops of blood leaking from my eyes, staining my cheeks like war paint. I am crying my soul out, emptying the vessel so that there is nothing left for the god to claim.
"Imas," Leora whispers. She struggles against the straps, trying to reach me.
I can't breathe. I can't think. I am hollow. I am Dfam.
But I am here. And she is alive.
I force myself to move. My hands are numb, clumsy blocks of ice. I reach for the buckles on her wrists. It takes an eternity to undo them. The leather is stiff, resisting my weak fingers.
I fumble with the straps on her ankles.
She sits up, rubbing her wrists. She reaches out, her hands framing my face, her thumbs wiping away the bloody tears.
"You're alive," she says, her voice thick with wonder.
"No," I rasp. "I am ruined."
I look at her, really look at her, seeing her not as a slave or a sacrifice or a poison, but as the architect of my destruction and the only thing worth saving from the wreckage.
"I am nothing," I whisper.
BOOM.
The world shakes.
Dust rains down from the vaulted ceiling. The stone floor beneath us lurches, throwing us against the altar.
A sound like thunder rolls through the bedrock—not the voice of a god, but the very real, very physical sound of an explosion rocking the foundations of the estate above.
Malek is here.