Chapter 32
Daed
The stone is cold as ice beneath my cheek, drenched with rain that pelts down like it means to drown the world. I lie sprawled on my stomach, hands bound tight behind my back, face turned just enough to catch a glimpse of the brilliant, full moon burning in the storm-wracked sky.
We’re in the sparring courtyard. I’d know this stone anywhere, by its sharp edges, by the hollow sound of water striking its surface like a drumbeat of memory.
Boots march past my face, splashing in puddles gone black with blood.
I track one pair, sluggishly, until my gaze finds Reon collapsed to my left, his mouth slack against the stone, unmoving.
Orios lies next to him, then Solena. All of them soaked through.
All of them bloody. Faces swollen and half-unrecognizable from the beating.
“Brother,” Zyphoro murmurs, her voice raw beside me.
I force my head to turn. Even that small movement grinds pain through my skull.
Look what they’ve done to her. Raven hair plastered to her face, soaked in blood.
Her hands are bound like mine, the ropes biting into her wrists.
Through the curtain of rain and the blur of my bruised, half-shut eye, I can barely see her.
“Can you hear me?” she asks.
I nod, or try to. “Do not show them fear. That’s what they want.”
She smiles, but it’s a grim, crooked thing. “Fear was burned out of me long ago.” Her gaze shifts upward then, mouth tightening, her expression draining of all color. “Let us hope our father found his courage before the end.”
I follow her eyes and wish I hadn’t.
The thick wooden pole rises into the night.
I see the lashed feet first, bruised and bare.
Then legs flayed to the bone, and a chest carved open.
His neck slashed so deep I see tendon. His arms limp at his sides like broken branches.
Then his face. Or what remains of it. Once marble-smooth.
A face that could command a court with nothing but a single, frigid glance.
Now it’s a butchered mangle of torn flesh, unrecognisable to anyone else.
But I know him.
I would know him anywhere.
Even faceless.
Even dead.
Father.
I’d seen centuries with him. Fought by his side. Bled in his name.
And now the rain washes over his corpse as if it means to cleanse what’s left. But no blood pours from his wounds. No color clings to his skin.
“How long?” I rasp, my voice hoarse and barely louder than the storm. “Ilyra! When did they…”
But the words die in my throat as my gaze shifts.
Another pole. Another body.
Long, pale limbs exposed to the elements. Blonde hair tangled and soaked red with blood. Lady Ilyra. Butchered like my father.
I freeze. Ice crawling down my spine.
Because just then, something brushes past. The shimmer of silk, the swish of a gown’s hem dragging through puddles.
I look up and I see her.
Ilyra.
Alive.
Yet her body still hangs above, eyes wide and staring, and that’s when realization hits me.
The pieces slide into place with a sickening click, and if I hadn’t already had the shit beaten out of me, I’d do it myself for being so fucking blind.
“Which one are you?” I groan through cracked lips, the taste of blood thick on my tongue. “Vashar… or Vasheeth?”
The figure before me cocks her head. Slowly her form begins to ripple, silk and satin dissolving into worn leather and filthy furs, soft blonde waves receding until only a slick, bald scalp remains.
She drops into a crouch before me, leathers creaking, then she fists my hair and yanks my head up, forcing me to look her in the eye.
“I’m wounded you don’t recognize me, Your Highness,” she hisses, lips curling back to reveal rows of needle teeth. “I am Vasheeth. At your service.”
And then she slams my head back toward the ground.
I catch myself inches before my face meets stone.
“How long have they been dead?” I spit, my voice gravel.
She rises slowly, letting her gaze drift to the poles looming behind her. “Days. Weeks. I stopped counting,” she says with indifference, almost boredom. “There were so many to play with.”
She steps back and lifts a hand in a sweeping arc and I realize there are dozens of poles. Maybe hundreds. Bodies strung up like trophies. Blades, Reapers, Servants. Anyone who had once served House Mordorin.
Their flesh hangs in ribbons. Eyes hollow. Necks twisted at impossible angles.
My warriors. My brethren. My house.
Butchered.
Lightning rips across the sky, casting the courtyard in a harsh, momentary glare, and there stand the Fae of House Mor’Thravar, lined in ranks.
Modok stands at their head, tall, wiry, and still, his shoulders hunched, his long, rust-colored leather coat flapping in the wind, eyes fixed on me with pure malice. Beside him is his sister, Nyraxes, her gaze no warmer.
She steps forward, rain dripping from the curve of her brow, her mouth forming a smile that doesn’t reach her eyes.
“Welcome home, Daedalus.”
The words are a blade, sinking slow.
“It’s only fitting you hang on a pole of your own, don’t you think? Your warriors will be comforted, I’m sure. With their commander beside them. It might please you to know they died well. Swore loyalty to their prince until I cut their tongues out.”
Her smile widens.
“But loyalty,” she whispers, “is just ash in the wind.”
She turns, lifting her arms to the storm above.
“There is only one true power in this world,” she says. “Us. The Fae. House Mor’Thravar. Fear is the fire that burns long after loyalty crumbles to dust.”
Modok reaches for his sister’s hand, fingers outstretched. Nyraxes gazes at him with reverence, as if he is something sacred and righteous. She clutches his hand, and he lifts it to his lips, brushing a kiss across her bloodstained knuckles.
“Well said, Nyraxes,” he murmurs. She dips her chin, demure as a blushing bride, though there is nothing soft about her.
“Now,” Modok continues, turning back to me with a grin that shows too many teeth, “all that remains is to show the Fae that House Mor’Thravar is the power in the Sundered Kingdoms. And to do that?
” He spreads his arms wide, the rain slicking over his leathers, over his fury.
“We hang the last heirs of House Mordorin. Then all will kneel.”
“Fine,” I rasp, blood sliding down my throat. “Do what you will with me. But let my companions go. They are nothing to you. They have no part in this.”
Modok’s smile vanishes. He lunges, storming forward, kicking water in my face as he closes the distance.
“Of course they do!” he roars. “They bore the mark, sword and wings, same as you and I do not doubt for a second they would die for you. That kind of loyalty, that kind of devotion to a failed line and a pathetic excuse for a monarch… it spreads like a sickness. I cannot, will not, let it fester in my Sundered Kingdoms.”
His foot rises, pressing against the crown of my skull.
“I will burn your memory from this realm like rot from a dying tree,” he breathes. “But not before I rip your heart out and squeeze the life from it in front of you.”
Then he steps down.
My face smashes into the stone. Pain flares, and I hiss through clenched teeth.
“I’ll have her soon,” Modok says. “That mortal you chose. The human girl you defiled your bloodline for. I’ll string her up first. Strip her to the bone.
I’ll peel her apart, layer by layer, scream by scream, until there’s nothing left but meat and guts and you will watch. Every slice. Every tremble.”
My chest heaves. Rage roars beneath my skin.
“If you're going to kill me,” I grind out, “then do it now. Quickly. Because every second you delay is another I spend plotting how I’ll escape this place. How I’ll cut my way through your disgraced fucking house until your head rolls and your soul howls.”
I look up at him through the blood in my eyes. “Your punishment is long overdue, Modok. You betrayed your Fae blood long before I ever did and I swear to every cursed star, I will see my people avenged.” I swallow. “I will see Zema avenged.”
His boot crashes into my face again, harder this time. My lip splits. I spit blood into the stones, vision tilting, a red haze swallowing the edges.
“That’s always been your weakness, Daedalus,” he sneers. “Sentiment. You never had the spine to do what was necessary. Never had the courage to watch the world bleed to make our kind strong. You let love soften you.”
He crouches, his voice dropping to a hiss. “Zema haunted you, didn’t she? All these years. Her death. Your guilt. Do you want to know the truth?”
He leans closer, his breath a hot whisper against my ear. “I barely remember her. But sometimes in my sweetest dreams, I’m reminded of how wondrous her face looked after I smashed it against the rocks.”
A snarl claws from my throat as I writhe against my bindings, the cord biting into my wrists.
Modok laughs.
“Easy now. Be patient. Vashar should return any moment with your beloved in tow. And then,” he straightens, his smile feral, “then the real fun begins.”
My heart hammers against my ribs, each beat a brutal thud echoing through my chest.
No.
Not Amara.
I led her straight into this trap.
How long has it been since Modok took Baev’kalath? Since he murdered my father and Ilyra?
The last time I heard from her spies was just after I found Amara. She must have still been alive then. And I… I hadn’t thought much of the silence that followed. I was too consumed with my wife. With our child. With foolish hopes of normality.
Why didn’t I check in?
Did she call for me?
I look up at her body, and the thought rips through me. I left my ally isolated. Exposed. She is dead because of me.
My gaze drags across to my father’s corpse.
He is truly gone and with him any hope of redemption.
He will never find the salvation I once, in my weakest moments, wished for him. Never atone for his ambition, for the carnage he wrought in the name of the Father Below, for the love he bore Lanneth, who murdered my mother and stole my sister into shadow.