Chapter 28 #2
The Architect’s eyebrows flicker up in momentary surprise. “He’s dead,” he responds, low and dangerous as he stares at me for a few long breaths. His attention moves back to Xeni, eyes wild and voice climbing with each word.
“He is supposed to be dead!”
His fury fills every empty space, and the loss of composure unleashes a wave of power so oppressive it closes my windpipe. He charges forward as Xeni releases his own power and meets him step for step, and they collide with a force that shakes the air.
There’s no oxygen left in the room. My throat is full of sand, and my lungs are heavy as concrete. My head swims, but I don’t dare look away.
The Architect grabs Xeni by the wrists, unblinking as he pushes them almost nose to nose. “Stand aside,” he commands, and the force of it coasts over my skin like ice.
Xeni’s body quivers as he fights the magic. His arms jerk as he takes a half step back, but he doubles down with a howl that sounds pained and pours even more of his power into the room.
“No,” he grits through clenched teeth, his feet inching forward despite the strain. “Get out of here and let us go. Leave.”
The Architect laughs, a droplet of crimson blood dripping from his nostril as he leans closer.
“You dare to think you could ever overpower me? You are nothing more than a cheap imitation of what you could’ve been.
We could’ve had the entire fucking world, Xenesis.
Together, they wouldn’t have stood a chance against us, but you wasted every opportunity.
The child of a king who gave everything up for his human mate. You are pathetic!”
The world slows to a crawl as his words hit me, and my eyes dart between the two of them standing off before me.
Grim satisfaction crosses The Architect’s face as he notes the surprise on mine.
“He never told you who he really is, did he?”
Xeni snarls as he shoves him back a step, but the older Cavese is unbothered as he flashes another of those familiar smiles.
“It would seem my son has been keeping secrets from us both, wouldn’t it?”
So many things make sense in that moment.
Unanswered questions and half-truths. Excuses that brushed me off or distractions that changed the subject. His words flash through my mind, my heart breaking further with each memory.
Please understand that when I say I didn’t have a choice, I mean it.
Watching you go changed me, Bash. It fucking destroyed me, but I did it for you.
Don’t throw me away. I just wanted to protect you.
And the one that grinds the last intact pieces of my heart to dust. The promise he made when we were curled up together in those sheets, as tightly woven as two people could be.
The vow as I slid a ring onto his finger.
You are my forever, Sebastian. The great love of my life. If you ever doubt that, remember us right now in this moment. Remember that I would go to any lengths to protect you, and nothing in this world could ever change that.
I doubted, despite my oath to remember, and that doubt was poison.
I made him less when he had always been more.
He had always been everything.
“Bash.” Xeni twists his head to meet my eyes with a searching plea for forgiveness.
It should be me groveling.
Should be me on my knees.
The lapsed attention costs him, and his grasp on his father slips as Xeni is knocked aside. He stumbles and collapses, palms hitting the ground too hard as he fights to hold himself up. Ragged gasps fill his chest as tremors rack his frame, the exertion too much for his weakened body.
A hand wraps around my neck, so much warmer than it should be given the iciness of its intention. It squeezes until my breath rattles in a desperate struggle for air, fingers firm as steel bars.
Cato rushes closer, but Xeni’s father lifts his free hand in a silent, commanding gesture, and Cato freezes in his tracks.
“How did he hide you from me?” The Architect demands, his face so close our lips nearly touch and his breath hot against my skin.
I fight to recoil, to pull away and run, but my body betrays me and melts into his grip as my muscles go slack under the insidious lure of his power.
“No one knew,” I grit, my lips trembling with the struggle to keep the words inside. “We didn’t tell anyone.”
“How long did this deceit last?”
I fight, biting my lip until it bleeds, but he is unyielding, and I am powerless against the compulsion.
“Three… years.”
Fury contorts his face again as he squeezes harder, and my skin heats as blood pools in my cheeks, trapped by his iron grip. My mouth opens in a silent plea, but no sound emerges.
I can’t gasp for the oxygen my body so desperately craves, and my vision pulses in a field of white static that threatens to swallow me whole.
“Let him go,” Xeni demands in a voice I’ve never heard from him, unnaturally deep and echoing in multitudes that come from every corner. The grip on my throat loosens, and I suck in a gasping breath that burns all the way down.
The Architect whirls to face his son. “You dare to use my own powers against me?”
The sheer volume makes my head swim, and Cato stumbles to my side to hold me up.
“Pitiful,” The Architect spits as the hand that bound my neck closes around Xeni’s instead. His thumb swipes over Xeni’s cheek in a motion that feels almost affectionate as he leans closer.
“I sensed it when you were born, you know. That weakness. Your mother tried to love you, but it was just such a fucking chore, and she grew bored of it soon enough.”
Another swipe of his thumb lingers on the edge of Xeni’s eyepatch before he shoves him away. “What a waste.”
Blood pools in Xeni’s nostrils as he sets his jaw. “You’re the weak one,” he grits through clattering teeth.
His body quakes as he forces his knee to lift, and his foot drops to the ground as though it’s encased in cement, heavier than what should be possible.
Xeni tilts his head, and a droplet of blood rolls down his lip as he sneers. “Look at what you’ve become. A king who lost his kingdom. Nothing more than a washed-up old man who can’t face the fact that he’s obsolete.”
He kneels before his father, a cruel smile pulling on his lips as he gives a mocking bow.
“All hail King Zadeus, ruler of nothing.”
His father reaches for his neck, but Xeni catches his wrist and holds fast, fingernails clawing at the leather of his uniform to pull himself to his feet.
“Xeni!” I shout as I rush forward to help him.
Zadeus’s head whips toward me with his eyes illuminating the dark.
“I said don’t look at him!” Xeni bellows.
The power of his voice booms through the room in a wave that knocks me back a step. His father’s face contorts, twitching and jerking as he turns to face his son again.
Xeni trembles from head to toe, and I’m helpless to do anything but watch.
“Pathetic,” Zadeus spits, the veins in his neck bulging and his body shaking to his very bones as he tries to look away.
Xeni doesn’t allow it.
Blood forms rivers across his face as it pours from his nostrils and ears, and the entire floor quakes as his feet move, impossibly heavy.
“Leave,” Xeni commands. “Walk… away.”
His father takes a step back before opening his mouth in a shout that sends tremors through the walls. Dust scatters and a crack splits the ceiling as he charges, breaking free from Xeni’s hold.
He doesn’t rush his son, though.
His anger is directed at me.
It’s a slow-motion bullet barreling in my direction, one that’s impossible to stop and no longer meant to taunt or maim.
A kill shot, locked on its target.
I blink as I watch it happen, my breath a hurricane in my ears as my heart thumps once, then again. Rage like I’ve never seen lines his face as he gets closer, and my arms fall to my sides, useless.
My eyes shift to Xeni’s. “I love you,” I whisper.
His lips part, not a response, but a command.
One word.
“Move.”
Fuzziness overtakes my body as my limbs obey, moving with a speed I shouldn’t possess as this slow-motion world catches up to real time.
Without me there to stop his momentum, Zadeus stumbles. In the split second he takes to correct his balance, Xeni rushes to Ego and snatches a throwing knife from her belt.
Zadeus whirls, furious, as the blade slices the air.
His eyes grow unnaturally wide as it pierces the side of his neck, and the next sound that leaves him is a rasping inhale. Shock lines his face as his fingers trace the weapon, and as he yanks it loose, blood gushes down his uniform.
He slaps a palm over the wound and tosses the blade to the ground with a clatter as he stares at his son.
“This isn’t finished,” he rasps, then bolts from the room.
The quiet is crushing.
A thud breaks the silence as Xeni collapses to his knees, trembling as he fights to stay upright. I run over, hitting the concrete with a jolt that barely registers through the haze of adrenaline and fear. I wedge myself under his arm, and he leans on me as he wavers.
Every line of his body carries the toll of what he’s just done.
Bloodshot and too heavy, his eye lifts to mine. Dark rings have formed above his cheekbones that are stark against his pale skin, and his veins stand prominent in sharp relief, pulsing visibly beneath the surface. Sweat and blood mix to streak his face and neck in gruesome rivulets.
He opens his mouth as if trying to speak, but only ragged gasps for breath escape.
“Shhh,” I soothe as I push away the hair stuck to his skin with fingers that are numb from shock. “It’s alright. It’s all going to be alright, but we have to go. We have to leave, okay?”
The enormity of the situation presses heavy in this room, the air thick with the metallic tang of blood and the lingering echo of power that still crackles faintly around us.
We’ve left a trail of bodies in our push to reach him, and now the most dangerous High Commander is wounded by his own son’s hands.
A wound that will demand vengeance on a scale we can scarcely comprehend.
He’s seen all of us. Knows our names and faces in intimate detail. We’re soon to be the most hunted people in the city, if not the world.
“I promised,” Xeni whispers.
It’s so quiet I barely catch the words, his voice faint and dragged from the last of his strength.
“To protect you,” he continues in a slow murmur. “I promised.”
He risked everything to keep that vow, and my heart breaks all over again.
He clutches at my shirt, growing more desperate. “I… I used my powers on you… I’m sorry…”
“Don’t apologize for protecting me,” I say, fighting to keep my composure for his sake. “You were amazing, okay? You were perfect.”
I attempt to scrub away the blood on his face with the sleeve of my shirt, but it only smears across his skin in fresh streaks as new drops trickle from his nose.
His fingers are cold and slick with sweat as he takes my hand, and he's on the edge of fading consciousness.
“Did you mean it?” he murmurs.
“Mean what?”
He stumbles as I lift him to his feet, heavy as he falls against me and leans into my support. His throat dips in a labored swallow.
“That you love me?”
“Of course I meant it, princess. I never stopped.” The confession carries the truth I’ve hidden from for years, and a tear slides down his cheek as he closes his eye.
He wavers on his feet, body swaying, and I glance to where Ego is collecting her blade from the ground with a grimace. Cato and Sakane flank her, faces etched with the same urgency.
My arms bind tighter around his waist as I nod at the door. “He’s losing consciousness, and we have to go. The entire fucking army will be after us.”
The others fall in line as the weight of what we’ve done settles over us like a shroud.
It’s one thing to leave a trail of bodies behind in an obvious attack on the military’s stronghold, but to wound, and nearly kill, one of their supreme leaders?
“Let’s go.”