Chapter 5 Evander
EVANDER
NOTHING BEATS THE first flight after a kill. The knowledge of a job well done is better than ichor wine. Better than sex.
Well, sometimes. Depends on the job, depends on the fuck.
The Shroud shimmers ahead, a veil of starlight over the jagged peaks of the Duehavn Ridge. I slice through it, magic sparking across my skin as the protection wards flare and recognize me. Reality splinters, and Vartena disintegrates until I’m nowhere, suspended in that terrifying emptiness until—
The world snaps back together.
Scillari’s forests spread out below, broken by the ruins of old territories jutting up through the dense canopy.
Trees emerge through crumbling throne rooms, towers are snared in the crush of vines, and ancient palaces of long-dead Eternals lie vacant and dilapidated.
Nature is patient. Doesn’t matter how grand your territory—give her enough time, and she’ll turn your monuments to rubble.
Rivers of starlight snake through the valleys of Asteria, Alexios’ territory. And past that, water thunders down a massive cliff face, misting the Osbu Sea’s glassy surface.
I ride an updraft toward the Tokle Mountains.
Sheer walls of granite and basalt rear up to meet me, their flanks shrouded in fog.
Alexios’ palace resembles a crown of black glass nestled in the crags.
It’s a sprawling complex of spires and bridges, barracks and pleasure gardens.
Every part is built from dark opalescent stone native to Asteria.
During the day, when the sun hits just right, all that black rock glows with red and orange inner light.
The palace is one of only two Eternal strongholds still standing.
It survived because of its position—too high for human armies to reach, and too well defended if they tried.
For a time, it served as a refuge for demis who had lost everything but the clothes on their backs.
But now it’s back to housing the elite in the Court of Storms, the assembled descendants of past Eternals who live alongside the reigning god-king.
The garden stretches across the front of the property. In summer, it blazes with colorful blooms visible for miles. But now, during winter, only pale blossoms and glittering frost remain.
I close the remaining distance to the landing plaza, wings spreading wide as I land in a crouch.
Upended chalices and abandoned garments litter the grass—telltale signs of a revel. Not even the cold is a deterrent when the court wants to party. When I inhale, the scent of ichor wine hits me, mingled with the musk of sex and sweat.
“About time you showed up,” comes Elias’ familiar voice. “We were starting to think you’d found yourself a different group of degenerates.”
I turn to find the king’s other Enforcers in various states of undress and sobriety.
Elias lounges against the fountain’s edge, white wings spread beneath him, shirt long gone.
Gabriel stands with his typical stern expression.
I swear, it’s like someone shoved a stick up his ass and he’s determined to keep it there out of spite.
Arcadia casually tosses one of her knives, silver wings rustling behind her as she snatches it from the air.
And Vespera… she just watches me with shadows coiled around her fingers.
“You’d all die of boredom if I weren’t here to keep things interesting.” I kick at a discarded silk robe with my boot. “Starting the orgy without me, though? That’s rude.”
Arcadia’s face scrunches. “You smell like an abattoir fucked a sewer. Clean it off, and I might consider extending an invitation next time. No one here wants to use blood as a lubricant. We have standards.”
“Standards are overrated. Just ask Elias.”
Elias laughs. “Ignore her. I think the whole ‘savage beast fresh from a kill’ look works for you.”
His power brushes my skin in a subtle tendril of lust. Warm. Insistent. Not unpleasant, if I’m honest, but after centuries of this shit, I’ve built up a tolerance.
“Cute,” I say, shaking it off. “Save it for someone who hasn’t seen your dick.
” A rumble of thunder draws my attention to the palace proper, where storm clouds are gathering above the highest spires.
That can’t be good. “Do I want to ask what crawled up the king’s ass and died? He says he wants me to kill someone.”
Gabriel rubs at the bridge of his nose. “No idea. Nearly took my hand off earlier when I tried to give him my report on the border patrols. Apparently, we’re all incompetent children who couldn’t find our own asses with both hands and a map.”
“Any volunteers to go in with me?”
Elias barks out a laugh. “Pass. I like my face the way it is. You’re on your own with this one.”
Everyone agrees.
“Cowards,” I say.
Their voices chase me across the plaza. Elias shouts something about kissing my mangled corpse. Arcadia and Vespera place bets on which gate would look best adorned with my severed head—the west gate has a certain dramatic flair, but you can’t beat the east gate at sunrise.
The ladies have taste, I’ll give them that.
I’ve barely crossed into the foyer when Alexios’ power slams into me. Dark. Turbulent. Like facing down a hurricane. I breathe it in, letting that electric bite sear my throat.
The palace buzzes with noise. Everywhere, clusters of demis draped in silk and jewels block my way.
Snippets of gossip whisper past me, slipping between languages—Gaufian and Uruk, the singsong cadence of Fér.
I track the noise to the central atrium and step onto the balcony.
A hundred pairs of eyes lock on me at once. There’s a collective intake of breath.
What can I say? I make an entrance. All artists sign their work; blood is just my signature.
Their whispers trail me as I descend the grand staircase.
“… blood everywhere, all over his hands and wings. Looks like he bathed in…”
“Tore through an entire village, I heard. Ripped them apart with his teeth.”
I flash the scandalized speaker a lazy smile. “If you ask nicely, I’ll demonstrate.”
The demigod shrinks back as if I might rip his throat out. Which I wouldn’t. It’s poor form to kill guests in the throne room. The thing is, though—they’ve got the basic facts right. There’s always a village that won’t be showing up on any maps anymore. Plenty of them over the years, actually.
Death is my craft, and I’m nothing if not a master artisan.
Alexios lounges on his throne at the far end of the chamber.
His massive, dark wings stretch almost lazily, red feathers catching in the light.
His chin is propped in his hand, shoulder-length black hair loose and framing a face that rivals Elias’ for beauty.
The Eternal of Asteria has cultivated the appearance of a bored, pleasure-seeking king.
But when his scarlet eyes find mine through the press of bodies…
There he is. The predator beneath the facade—a god shaped for battle, ready to eat the world whole and pick his teeth with the bones. That look right there is the difference between a king and a demi in this realm.
We don’t build dynasties on birthright in Scillari.
Power isn’t passed to whichever squalling infant is pushed out of the right cunt.
You want to rule here? Better be prepared to bleed for it.
To kill for it. To have the realm crawl inside you like a parasite, working its way into your bones until you either ascend or die trying.
I was five hundred when it chose me. The youngest ever blessed with the magic of an Eternal—and it nearly killed me.
Alexios is far older. That time, the realm selected a ruthless, calculating monster. And it picked well. When everything went to shit during the war, he and the Dark King were the only reason Scillari didn’t fall to human armies.
“Clear the room,” he says, voice soft but carrying to every corner of the chamber.
The courtiers move swiftly at the king’s command. Within minutes, it’s just the two of us, the silence shattered by the boom of thunder outside.
Alexios studies me. “I see you enjoyed yourself today, Wolf.”
“I did. They didn’t.” I give him a smirk. “Funny how often it shakes out that way.”
“Anything useful?”
The stench of the shop wafts through my memory. The piss-reeking heap of offal that had once been the proprietor.
“Got an address from the apothecary before I cut his throat. Silk Street, beneath the old tannery in Hellevig. Could be nothing, could be a solid lead. The buyer also mentioned fleshtraders working the docks.”
His jaw tightens. “Which docks?”
“Valchek. But they were sourced from elsewhere. I’ll brief Zephyr on what I managed to torture out of him and have her keep an ear to the ground while I handle Silk Street,” I say, referring to Alexios’ spymaster. “It’s urgent.”
“Define urgent.”
I take a breath. This is the part that’s going to make him lose his shit.
“The apothecary knew that consuming our kind gives mortals temporary access to our abilities. He wasn’t just pushing demi parts as a high.
He had a whole setup—back room, display cases, regular buyers.
Professional operation. If he knew, the network knows. ”
Alexios stares at me. But I feel the storm building—that pressure change right before lightning strikes.
Then his power detonates.
Lightning tears through the chamber. It ricochets off the marble walls and shatters a column to my left, leaving smoking black trails across stone that has survived centuries of immortal tantrums. The stink of ozone floods my nose, sharp and metallic, mixing with the smell of burnt stone.
Then, as suddenly as it started, it stops.
Alexios uncurls his fingers from the throne. “Did you find anything else?” he asks, the words soft. Like he hadn’t just lost control. “Any other relics?”
My gut twists. I know what he’s asking. What he’s been driving himself half-mad hunting for.
He wants to know if I found his sister.
“No. There was nothing else. I’m sorry.”
And I am. I understand his grief as intimately as my own. I still wake up sometimes thinking I’m back three hundred years, desperately digging through the ruins of my homeland, searching for bodies.
That kind of wound doesn’t heal. Not really. Might scab over if you’re lucky, but underneath? The rot keeps spreading. Working deeper. Eating you alive from the inside until one day, it finally reaches your heart.
When Alexios speaks again, his voice is flat. “Keep me updated.” He stands, his wings flaring wide. “Walk with me. This involves Hellevig. I have something to show you.”
He guides me through the palace corridors to the great Eternium vault—god-steel, they call it.
The bones of immortals broken and reforged into an impenetrable shell.
Whorls and runes of power score its face, the metal seeming to drink the light.
Ancient wards burst to life beneath his touch.
With a groan, the vault opens to reveal the Eternal’s private sanctum.
And there, at the chamber’s heart, is a pool.
We stop at the edge. My reflection stares back, and then the surface changes, settling on the interior of the temple in Hellevig. But something is wrong. The marble altar stands bare and neglected—and most damning of all, the offering channels are dry.
The breath leaves me in a rush. “So they’re not making the tithe.” I glance up at him. “Want me to decorate the walls with their insides? Rip out a few spines? Between this and the possible fleshmarket in their capital, seems they need a reminder about honoring agreements.”
“Not yet,” Alexios says, shaking his head.
“Destroying Hellevig would damage the Shroud beyond repair. I can redistribute the remaining tithes as a temporary measure, but the foundation is already compromised.” His fingers drum against the pool’s rim.
“The problem is their youngest. The masses worship Bryony Devaliant. Get rid of her before we deal with the fleshtrade.”
My head snaps up. Fragments of memory flood in: violet eyes, the blood from my thumbprint stark against her pale skin, her voice steady.
Treat me like an equal.
“She’s your Anchor, Alexios. I can’t fly into Hellevig and take her head without a damn good reason.”
If all three Devaliants die, the Shroud falls. No barrier means no protection. No protection means Scillari is wide open to fleshtraders.
The god-king’s expression goes colder. “I forbade the princess from making her tithe yesterday. She was an oathbreaker the moment she left the temple. And you know what we do to oathbreakers, don’t you, Wolf?”
I raise my brows. “You manufactured a violation of the Accords? That’s impressively cold, even for you.”
“I used the tools available to me,” he corrects, like that makes it any better.
“The Accords prevent me from direct interference in Devaliant rule—Amalthea made sure of that. If I’d had my way, you’d be perched in their throne room, ensuring they govern with a bare minimum of competence.
But this?” He gestures to the pool, mouth twisting.
“The Claim is all the leverage I have left. It’s mine to give and take away through whatever loopholes I had the foresight to hide in that agreement. ”
“And killing her for being too popular seems like the best use of that loophole?” I try a different angle. “Idris is supposed to enforce the tithes. If you’re looking for someone to punish, he’s—”
“She’s being worshipped.” Alexios cuts me off with a sharp look.
“Do you have any idea what that’s like inside my skull?
Thousands of voices chanting her name? The combination of oathbreakers and Shroud rot?
Punishing Idris won’t change the fact that the veil is failing because people exalt her above the duty that keeps our realms stable.
The risk of keeping her alive far outweighs the potential consequences of eliminating her.
” Lightning dances between his fingers. Thunder booms beyond the windows, responding to his emotions.
“So the girl dies, or I’ll remind you exactly how tight I can pull your leash. ”
I clench my jaw at the reminder. “Send Bastien. He’s been dying to put a Devaliant in the ground for centuries. Let him have this one.”
“Bastien has the subtlety and restraint of a battle-axe. I want a surgeon for this, not a butcher.”
And for better or worse, I’m a god of my word. I made the girl a promise.
If it comes down to it, I’ll make it a good death.
“I’ll handle it,” I tell him.
Lightning arcs over the ceiling. Alexios smiles. “Good. Don’t disappoint me.”
The pool’s surface ripples a final time. I swear I see Bryony Devaliant’s violet eyes before the water goes dark.