Chapter 8 Kane #2
“I was everything my father ever wanted. I inherited all his traits. I was cruel, vindictive, merciless—even from a young age. And I worshipped him.” I glance away.
“I thought he was a hero. I glorified his actions, his ruthlessness. I wanted to be him.” I shake my head, the words feel so hard in my throat.
“When he suggested taking over the remaining realms—to rule all three under one power, the power of darkness—I was his biggest supporter.”
She heard me, I know she did. But she looks at me like she hasn’t. Her lip doesn’t curl in distaste, her eyes don’t narrow in disgust. They still glisten.
“When he left with his army to the Realm of Light, I was too young to follow. I wouldn’t have survived the Light. So I was left behind. And that… that was when my descent began.”
It has to be said. Even if it drags me back with it. Centuries have passed, hundreds of years, yet remembering this part of my life… telling her…
“There were swathes of demons vying for my attention. Desperate to gain favour with my father, hoping to become part of his sacred inner circle, climb the chain of command—don a green cloak.”
Jasmine tenses, almost imperceptibly. She’s connecting it now. The pieces. The past and the present. My father’s legacy.
“They may be new to you,” I add, “but they’re an old enemy to most. A tale from a dark, dire past. They called themselves The Order.”
She swallows, and I wait for her to ask—“What did they do, Kane?”
Not Why did my father create them.
Not Why didn’t I tell her sooner.
She asks what they did to me.
I forgot how kind she is. Kind enough to look past her own pain. Kind enough to choose mine. Too kind.
Especially for someone like me.
That’s when I look down. It’s the only way to contain it—this thing clawing up my throat. The memory. The shame.
“I was his proclaimed protégé. I was their way in.” I twist the ring one way, then slowly the other, staring at the tiny obsidian rocks placed within the grooves.
“I was so young. Na?ve. Alone. I didn’t understand what was happening.
I thought these creatures cared for me. That this was what… love looked like.”
“No,” she whispers.
Somehow, that one word, soft and shaken, is more agonising than any blow. I feel it deep, deep in my bones.
I can’t look at her, but I see the way her fingers clasp the edge of the table.
“Tell me they didn’t—tell me you weren’t—” Her voice breaks, and another quiet, painful, dreadful sound ends her words.
It cuts into me, makes me physically wince. But I have to keep going.
“My darkness grew, and deep down, I knew something was wrong. But I was lonely, and these women… they made me feel wanted. Needed. I believed them when they said it was love. I didn’t know I was just a tool. A way to get closer to him.”
Her breath stutters, and flickers of heat lick across my knuckles.
“Even when my father returned, it didn’t stop.” I stare at the ring. Twist it again. “They became cleverer. Visited me under false pretences. Said things I didn’t understand.” I push my thumb against the edge of the ring. Hard. “Touched me when I didn’t want them to.”
A cold sensation floods me. Then there’s more of those soft, awful sounds—each one hitting harder than the last.
Jasmine is… she’s crying.
I’ve made her cry.
How can noises so quiet be so horrific? Because that’s what this is.
The sound is small. Contained. But it carves through me.
I grind my teeth. Stare at the table. I need to tell her the rest. She has to understand why I’ll never be worthy.
“And I let them,” I say. “I told myself it was love. That this was what love felt like.”
Jasmine doesn’t speak, but her darkness does. It brushes over my hands in soft touches. The warmth easing the cold, the ache, the memory.
When it curls around my thumb, I stop pressing. I clear my throat, and relax all my fingers.
“Then, one day, when I was an adolescent, my father wanted to show me something. He took me to a place called The Divide.” Her darkness still touches me, but I can’t look at her.
“It was formed when my father destroyed the Light Realm and created a tear between realms. A direct link between Dark and Light—no Earth Realm between them. Unstable. Horrific. But somehow, it allowed all beings to survive there. Even those of light—just.”
I shut my eyes, drag another memory from deep within. For just a moment, I feel it again, the warmth of light brushing my cheek.
“When I saw them—what he’d dragged back from the light, two of them. Angelic, ethereal beings of light in a place that shouldn’t exist… It was the first time I ever questioned anything he’d done.”
I don’t hide my grimace.
“Children of an angel. My half-siblings. Hidden for over a decade. They’d lived peaceful, content lives in a realm barely touched by darkness. Until my father sensed the flickers within them. Destroyed their home. And dragged them down.”
My fingers clasp together. Tight. “This part… it belongs to Ezekial. Not me. But what he endured in The Divide was worse than anything I ever faced. I do not deserve your sadness. But Ezekial...”
I still can’t look at her. But I don’t have to.
I feel it—the sharp twist in her warmth. Not quite anger, but disappointment. Not at what I said, but at what I believe.
So I return to the only thing I know how to give her. The truth.
“With my father’s immortality, his cruelty only deepened. But something had shifted in me. One look into the light was enough.
“He made me return to The Divide, again and again, to build my tolerance to the realm, strengthen my pain threshold. And every time, I was cruel to the angels.” I bite my tongue. I’ll never forget the things I said, the way I looked at them. “But the more time I spent with them, the more I saw.”
I press my thumb harder into the edge of the ring, and a flicker of heat brushes my hand again.
“They cared for each other, protected each other, loved each other. Truly.” My voice lowers.
“And they never tried to use me, never even asked for help. It’s almost like they knew I too had no power.
And over time, after every visit, after the things I witnessed, I realised something was wrong.
With this realm, with the dark. With me. ”
And I still believe it.
I feel her warmth blooming, touching more of me. I don’t think she realises what she’s doing, but I selfishly allow it.
“I swapped out the crueller demons when I could. Spoke with my father, tried to understand what he was planning. But by then, his immortality had consumed what little compassion he ever had. He barely acknowledged me anymore.”
I exhale slowly, forcing the building ache back down. “He became obsessed with The Divide, convinced he was a god because he’d made a realm, and he believed he could create a more powerful being next.”
I glance down at my hands, at the ring.
“And whilst I tried to help them in the small ways I could, I was… struggling. I was becoming older. My body was changing. And the women became… possessive, greedy, insatiable. They knew that soon, my age would no longer be seen as taboo—”
“Kane.”
“—That carrying my child would open unlimited doors.”
“I can’t—Kane—” Her voice splinters, and a gut-wrenching sound escapes instead.
I can no longer refuse myself, can no longer ignore her sounds or the breath strangled around my name.
I look up.
Hearing her cries is one thing, but seeing her cry... I stare at her, transfixed upon the silver lines tracking her flushed cheeks that she hastily wipes away.
Even now, she is the most beautiful creature I have ever seen.
And I cannot have her.
“But I was stronger now. My darkness had grown. I’d seen light. I’d seen what love could be.” I glance at the sliver of shadow curling along my wrist. “This time, when one of the women came for me, I killed her.”
Jasmine’s eyes never leave mine, unknowingly grounding me as pieces of the memory pierce through.
“Come here, Kane. I just want to make you feel good…”
“She was the first,” I say quietly, staring hard at the darkness shivering across my knuckles. “One of the worst.”
“This is for you, Kane. Shh, don’t cry, there’s no need to cry…”
I try to push the memory back, but all I see is her on her knees, vile face leering up at me—
“No? Oh Kane, you think anyone else would ever touch you like this?” she laughs.
“Everyone else is scared of you. Yes, yes they are. That’s why you have no friends, that’s why you’re always alone, because no one else cares, no one gives a shit about you, not even your daddy cares.
He does? Well, where is he now, Kane? Hmm?
Where’s your daddy? Exactly. Because daddy doesn’t love you, no one loves you, no one will ever love a pathetic, weak, little boy like—”
“I snapped.” A shadow curls around my fist, cutting the memory away and replacing it with burning red. “My darkness wrapped around her throat and I kept squeezing and squeezing. Even when she begged me to stop. Even when blood poured from her eyes. Even when the bones cracked.”
The sounds echo in my mind, slowly fading out until it’s replaced by the soft slinking of shadows, and Jasmine’s quiet cries.
“She was the first creature I’d ever killed. There was no remorse, no guilt, only a sense of relief. Of freedom. Of my darkness growing. And I remember my first thought after that, my only thought: go to The Divide—to them.”
If only I’d gone sooner. If only I stopped being a coward sooner.
“But when I arrived at The Divide, I was too late.”
I close my eyes, forcing myself to relive the moment. To remember what my years of cowardice had done.
“I saw Ezekial holding his dying sister.”
This time, I don’t look away as Jasmine’s tears fall.
I want to stop immediately, to end the pain I’m inflicting upon her, but Jasmine shakes her head slowly, as though knowing my thoughts.
My darkness slithers around me, grounding me, obeying her.