Chapter 14 The Night Prince #2
“I defeated him,” Declan cut in even as he teetered at the edge. “Once. That I can remember. And I… I heard your voice back then. In my head. Telling me to–to let go.”
He remembered that alien, cold voice in his mind. It was the same. Yet not. Weirdly, that had seemed less personal than Vex’s did now.
Vex blinked. “Did you? Ah, I thought I was dreaming. But it was not a dream. I learned of her treachery soon after, but… but my soul must have known yours was out there and gone to… to comfort you.”
“To give me strength,” Declan admitted. “To give me the will to fight. You told me that Vulre was wrong. That I was not worthless. That I could defeat him. And I did.”
“Once?” Vex asked, studying him intently.
“That’s all I remember. A single training session. A meeting with her afterwards. And then he–Vulre–jumped me,” Declan growled.
He remembered the wrongness of it. The fact that an adult would do that to a child.
But, more than that, Vulre was a full Blood Knight.
As hard as Declan had fought, he had been no match for Vulre back then.
Especially without magic. Vulre had known this, but had attacked him from behind anyways simply to–to what?
Get back at an orphan? Get even with someone who had a tattered blanket to sleep under?
Who got the least of the food and none of the warmth of the fire?
What sort of man was that? What sort of warrior?
“He wasn’t a warrior,” Declan found himself muttering. “He was a bully. A coward. Garbage. I’m just surprised he didn’t kill me when he had a chance then.”
“Why didn’t he?” Vex asked, but Declan had a sense that he knew why.
Declan shrugged. “I–I don’t know. Maybe he came to his senses?”
Vex lifted an eyebrow.
He grimaced. “No, likely not. Maybe some other students appeared?”
That eyebrow was lifted higher. Evidently, Vex knew what the apprentices at the Venomthorn were like.
Another grimace. “They wouldn’t have gone against him. Not for me anyways.”
“No, not for you, because they thought you jadir and magicless,” Vex’s voice was so soft. His red eyes were distant as if he were looking at something far away, but still very there.
Declan wondered if Vex was thinking back to something unpleasant in his own childhood. Ashryn had said Vex was without magic for a long time too, only to become the most powerful mage that ever existed. Godlike.
“Lady Ashryn could have returned. That must be it,” Declan said finally. “She’s the only one that could stop Vulre, that he would stop for. She was the only one who cared.”
“No, she was not there,” Vex answered quietly.
Declan frowned. “How do you know? Part of your dream?”
“No, I was awake by then and she… she was in the palace,” Vex murmured. He was gazing out at the crater. “Do you know how I found out about you?”
Declan almost opened his mouth to say something like, “The usual way? My mother told you when she discovered she was pregnant?”
But then he stopped himself. He’d been so stupid. So very stupid. It had never occurred to him. But really, had he thought he’d sprung from Vex’s forehead like Athena had out of Zeus? No, there had to be a mother. And she was who Vex was referring to as having died here. As him having killed.
He thinks I killed my birth mother. Here. With magic.
“Were you married? Did you… you love her?” Declan found himself asking. He could feel the wind at his back. The crater’s edge was so close.
“I loved Ashryn, but we never married. It was not like that between us. And I… I will never take a queen,” Vex answered, not turning towards him, but his eyes did flicker to Declan and away. “I am the one and only leader of the Kindreth.”
Declan stared into that handsome, but somehow alien visage. “Ashryn? Lady Ashryn Zinsadoral… no, she’s not my mother.”
“Because she told you that you were an orphan? Because she let Vulre abuse you? Because she kept you at the Venomthorn as jadir? Alas, my son, she is your mother. Knowing these things, I do not wonder why you did kill her when you discovered the truth,” Vex answered sadly.
He did not back up, however. He kept Declan pressed to the very edge of the crater.
A full body shudder went through Declan. From the top of his head to his toes. Cold sweat broke out afterwards. “No, that can’t be true. She wouldn’t… wouldn’t… she wouldn’t do that to me. She loved me. If I were her kin–her son–she wouldn’t have left me in that place!”
“But she did.” Vex flashed too white teeth. Two fangs, almost vampire-like. “I believe she likely thought she was keeping you safe. She couldn’t very well claim you as her own. I was her only lover. And I would know my son.”
Declan almost took a step back. He felt air beneath his heel and caught himself.
“I believe when Vulre attacked you, your magic activated for the first time,” Vex told him, almost dreamily.
“I felt it, you see. I felt… you. Everyone did. A ripple across time and space and… So she had to attack me before she was ready. It all went badly, of course, and then she had to flee. You, her and Vulre. You must have come here.”
Declan hardly heard the words. His mind was in some ways blank, but in others stuffed with memories of Lady Ashryn.
The way she smiled at him. Softly. Tenderly.
Her occasional touches on his arm or his back.
A rare hug. Her desire to heal his wounds.
She hadn’t known–he didn’t think–the full extent of what happened to him at the Venomthorn, but maybe she hadn’t looked very hard either.
She must have known what type of man that Vulre was.
Vulre said I was a threat to her. To all of them. Because Vex was my father? Would he have killed her for keeping me secret from him? But why would she do that in the first place?
“You didn’t know about me until then?” Declan finally found his voice again.
“No, and I should have. But maybe I hid it from myself,” Vex murmured.
The breeze ruffled his white hair. His red eyes glowed in the darkness. His skin–at least that untouched by tattoos–glimmered like starlight in the dark. He was a being of nightmares and dreams. Beautiful and terrible.
“Why?” Declan asked.
“The same reason she hid you from me. The same reason she formed a coup to kill me. Not to take over leadership of the Kindreth for its own sake. Though that would be a worthy thing in itself. But no, she had no desire to do that,” Vex murmured, more talking to himself than to Declan at that moment.
“That’s why I trusted her. Allowed her to stay so close to me.
For a long time. Too long perhaps. She’d once wanted the crown.
To be my queen. But not for the power, but for the acknowledgement of her special place in my heart. ”
“But you wouldn’t give her that,” Declan guessed.
The wind was roaring now up the back of the crater. It threatened to catch him and drag him off the edge.
“I am the one and only leader of the Kindreth. The Night King. There is no Night Queen. There never will be,” Vex answered in a cold and unfamiliar tone. But then he reached for Declan. One hand curled around Declan’s cheek without touching him. “So a Night Prince? How could I allow that?”
Declan slowly blinked. Ardreth and Krith burned on his body, wanting to both leap into his hands. “Why did you bring me here?”
“I told you.”
Declan closed his eyes. “Why did you come here at all? Back to Illithor?”
“Oh, that.”
Declan braced himself. “It’s been over a decade since I came to Earth. Over a decade since I last saw Lady Ashryn or Vulre. Over a decade since you discovered I existed.”
“A decade? Is that supposed to be a long time, Rahven? I suppose you feel it to be so. But for me? It is the difference between dreaming and waking,” Vex answered.
Declan opened his eyes. “And now that you’re awake, Father, why did you come here?”
Vex slowly smiled. “I suppose to make a decision.”
Declan didn’t wait to hear what that decision was or what it was about. He already knew. If there could be no Night Queen, there could definitely be no Night Prince. Declan took the only escape route that was open to him. He threw himself off the edge of the crater into the darkness down below.