Cursed By the Dawn (Shadow Weaver Duology #2)

Prologue

Mithras felt like celebrating.

He took a long drink from a jewel-encrusted chalice, balancing a second, equally ornate cup and a bottle of the kingdom’s finest red wine in the crook of his elbow.

He’d been told that the wine was over a century old, infused with honey and roses.

It was inferior to wine in the Dream Realm, but part of him enjoyed the simple physicality of tasting something real.

Imperfect as that taste might be.

The toast would be a preemptive celebration, of course—the real celebration would come much later, after he and Erebus secretly purged the Nocturne of its demonic infestation—but his father would surely welcome a drink now.

Even if Erebus wouldn’t approve.

Tower bells chimed from high above, their melody a rich, familiar vibration in the late summer air.

Mithras shouldn’t have been surprised it was already noontime, but he was surprised that he hadn’t run into his father yet.

He took a second swig from the chalice, flinching when a few droplets slid past his lips toward the ivory silk adorning his neck.

He hastily wiped at his chin but missed part of the stream, which slipped under his collar, wet and vaguely rose scented, and stained the silk red. A minor annoyance; he’d change later.

Six hours left.

This hell was nearly over.

King Gabriel hadn’t been in his chambers, the throne room, the banquet hall, or the courtyard, so Mithras predicted he was in the tombs.

His father rather enjoyed visiting with the Weavers prior to a Revel, and this event would be no different.

Revels were filled with thrilling surprises and carefully planned secrets, and the king delighted in knowing them firsthand before the rest of the kingdom did.

The entrance to the tombs was deep in the belly of the citadel, so Mithras backtracked until the air smelled like a cellar and the stone floor grew cool under his booted feet.

He contemplated leaving the gilded chalices and the velvet-wrapped wine bottle behind but thought better of it.

King Gabriel Tethebrum, much like his only child, was known to appreciate a bit of liquid encouragement.

And, Maker be good, Mithras needed all the encouragement he could get.

If all went to plan, in just a few hours the evil sullying their kingdom would be crushed in one fell swoop.

The sins of the past would finally be healed, and Noctis could begin anew.

And when Mithras became king one day, his kingdom would not be cast in rot and despair but, rather light and prosperity. He quite liked the sound of that.

Mithras rounded the final corner, expecting to see a small retinue of his father’s favored guards. Only the most esteemed knights in Noctis protected the Weaver tombs; the Weavers were simply too important.

Oddly, however, the iron doors were unguarded. For a moment, Mithras stood quietly at the entrance. He half expected the guards to materialize from the shadows cast by a few flickering candelabras. Had the Weavers already been summoned to the banquet hall?

Mithras almost turned to depart.

The laugh, identical to his father’s, boomed deep from behind the tomb doors.

“So you are here, after all,” Mithras said smugly.

The images of seven beasts were carved into the iron doors: a wolf, a dragon, a stag, a hawk, a bear, and two entwined serpents—one of water and one of fire.

Each beast symbolized a Weaver, and each had a lock that opened with a single twist of Mithras’s signet ring.

With the final lock opened, stairs unfurled below his feet, spiraling deep underground.

Only the occasional candelabra along the path provided any light.

The farther he descended, the colder the air became.

Mithras thought he heard his father laugh again. King Gabriel was in a fine mood, it seemed.

Good.

“Father,” he called out. “What has you in such a rare form? I thought we’d share a drink—”

A scream cut him off.

Mithras froze on the next step, certain his mind was playing tricks on him.

But then there was a second scream, a third, a thud, a crash of metal on metal.

A sickening squelch. A bone-chilling crack.

Suddenly, a knight was at his feet, clambering up the stairs on all fours.

Wait, no—not all fours. He was missing an arm. And half a leg.

Mithras’s hands slackened. The bottle and chalices rolled down the stairs, disappearing into the dark.

“Prince Mithras,” the knight gasped, reaching for his prince’s boots. It was Richter, an honorable man from his father’s retinue. He’d been serving the kingdom for decades. “Run.”

Mithras tried to help the man stand, but the knight shrugged him off.

“No, please,” Richter insisted, pushing Mithras back with the last of his strength. Mithras stumbled, grasping at the stairwell for support. “Save yourself—get help—”

But then something grabbed them both by the legs, dragging them down the staircase. By the time Mithras staggered to his feet again, the screams had stopped. Richter was face down, unconscious or dead, and the narrow hall leading to the Weaver tombs was littered with bodies of more knights.

“My son,” greeted a ghoulish, low-pitched voice.

King Gabriel stood in the center of the passageway, holding one of Mithras’s chalices.

He swirled the glass between swollen fingers, rings clinking against the sides.

He wore white silk and red velvet, his formal attire.

The only armor on his body were gold pauldrons carved to look like lions chasing the sun, and tall metal boots.

“Father,” Mithras gasped, not understanding. His hands clenched uselessly at his sides. He had no weapon. Neither sword nor shield to defend himself. “What have you done? What is this?”

“So quick to condemn,” his father said, words echoing with the terrible, grating undercurrent of something inhuman. “You interrogate me like I’m a monster lurking in the shadows of your bedchamber. A pity.”

Mithras’s heartbeat thrummed madly in his ears. His father didn’t sound like his father; gone was the charismatic, booming voice of Noctis’s revered king. No, his mouth had instead become a fetid crypt.

And his eyes were twin pools of blood.

Gabriel’s teeth grazed the glass, grating against the rim in a chilling squeal.

He was a ghost of his true self, a deviant king with stringy blond hair, an unkept beard, and skin the pallor of a corpse.

Guilt rose like bile from Mithras’s stomach, clawing up his throat, but he shoved it down.

He had worked tirelessly alongside Erebus to destroy the errant demons that haunted Noctis.

Countless hard-fought battles. Endless nights of strategizing.

Long days searching the most abominable corners of the Dream Realm. But in the end, it had been useless.

The demons had outmaneuvered him, infesting his own father while he was distracted.

The demon reached for the sacred entrance to the Weavers’ tombs, hand hovering over the golden gate.

Mithras’s breath lodged in his throat. If he ran, if he shouted for more knights, they wouldn’t be quick enough.

And then he’d be leaving a monster to roam the Weavers’ tombs unchecked.

And if the Weavers were sleeping, their supine bodies would be ripe for the demon’s depraved ideas.

He’d have to handle this alone.

“Step away from the tombs,” Mithras demanded, carefully drawing Richter’s sword as he took a step forward. It felt as though he were wading through the dregs of some terrible nightmare, his legs far too heavy and numb for the horrors that stood before him. “You aren’t welcome here.”

The demon’s head rolled back in triumph. “I’m the king, boy. I go wherever I please.”

“You’re no king. You’re merely a demon masquerading as one.”

“Am I?” The demon chuckled. “Would you like to hear the terms of our bargain? Your father was quite eager to make it.”

“Out of his body, demon,” Mithras snarled. “Father, are you in there? Can you hear me?”

“No.”

The chalice slipped from the demon’s fingers, crashing to the floor. The wine spilled out, mixing with the blood of the dead guards at his feet. Suddenly, the demon was in front of him, brandishing a blade of his own. Mithras held his ground; it took everything within him not to flinch.

“Your father bound me to the mortal world for five hundred years. A mere blink for a powerful demon such as myself,” the demon inside Gabriel rasped.

“And once five centuries have passed, I will consume him body and soul, ruling both the Dream Realm and the Kingdom of Noctis with an army of demons at my side.”

“Lies. My father would never bind himself to a devil. He is far too honorable.”

“Honorable?” The demon’s lips tilted up in a garish mockery of the king’s smile. “Humans always consider themselves honorable. Claim that they’d never make a deal with the wicked. But when a sword is at their throats and death is rattling their sanity, they will beg for just about anything.”

The demon swung his blade up, pressing it hard against Mithras’s throat. The movement was fast—faster than he’d ever seen his father move. Richter’s sword crashed to the ground, useless.

“Tell me, what will you beg for, little princeling?”

“I will never beg,” Mithras choked out.

“Your father begged. He felt death grabbing him by the skull and decided he did not want to surrender.” The demon dragged the blade up Mithras’s neck, stopping it just underneath his jaw. Mithras whimpered, hating that he even allowed the sound to slip out. “So he asked for immortality instead.”

“Five hundred years is not immortality.”