Chapter 2
Wolfe
“All Things Hollow Come Calling”
The rebel’s scream ricocheted off the dungeon walls, a raw, anguished cry torn from his bloodstained chest.
Looming over him with a sadistic sneer, I twisted my knife, still buried deep in his gut. The resistance of flesh gave way and another tormented cry fell from the Fae male’s lips.
He coughed blood, spluttering it onto the front of my golden armor.
I bared my teeth, scowling as I assessed his battered body.
Bruises the color of twilight and obsidian marred his pale skin.
His wrists were almost black where the heavy chains shackled him against the wall.
His pain bled into the dark stone surface, swallowed by the grooves, as if the dungeon itself was feasting on his suffering like it had with the traitors, rebels, and cowards before him.
And yet, no matter how many of them I carved apart, the whispers still came. The defiance. The refusal to bend the knee.
Contempt raced through my blood, hot and relentless like refiner’s fire.
One hour. This piece of shit had held his silence for a full hour, fucking with me, his lord and prince. No matter what I’d asked him, he refused to answer my questions.
I got up in his face, my breath ghosting across his blood-flecked skin. At least he had the good sense to flinch. “One. More. Time. Tell me where to find your leaders and what their plans are. Now!”
The rebel stared back at me, his bloodshot eyes dull with pain. And that was it. No words. No sign of surrender. Just a look filled with violent thunder.
A minute passed, then another. Not once did he blink.
Fuck. This was a waste of time.
Behind me, Bastian, Alaric, and Garrick—my Bloodsworn—stood in silent watch.
Their lives and magic were bound to me by oath to protect the kingdom.
But as members of my Veythral Circle, they were also my closest and most trusted advisors.
They knew me. They knew my frustration. They knew how close I was to the edge of insanity.
One glance at their faces told me everything. This interrogation, like the last, was proof of how deeply the rebellion had sunk its claws into the kingdom. It was a ravenous blight, rotting us from the inside out.
I was the Prince of Galaythia. Wolfe Nightblade. Heir to the Elder Fae Royals who had ruled for several millennia. If not for my curse, I would have seized my birthright and sat on the throne.
Regardless of my title, when an elder Fae demanded information, you gave it.
To withhold anything from me was as good as treason. That was common knowledge, ingrained in every mind of the Galaythian Fae folk and all kingdoms of Vaelthorne.
Yet here was this fucker maintaining his silence like a mortal preserving air.
And he wasn’t the first. He was the second rebel we’d brought down here tonight. The first had been exactly the same. Silent. Unyielding.
They’d acted like those who’d made unbreakable oaths or had something more to lose than their lives. Family, friends, everything they cared about.
We’d ambushed the rebels in the woods just before the Phantom Moon rose.
Disguised as revelers on their way to the palace for the festival, they had nearly fooled us. Nearly.
A dagger tattooed beneath the scruffy hair on this one's neck marked them as insurgents. The insignia should have been warning enough. But nothing could have prepared me for finding the mutilated bodies of two handmaidens in their carriage. Handmaidens I’d known all my life.
This bastard and his companion had raped and murdered them, then their bodies were defiled in a way that only the gods of the six hells could fathom.
I smelled the essence of this rebel all over the handmaidens’ remains, evidence that he had hurt them the most. And all this fucker could do was look at me.
That was fine. I would be his worst nightmare.
The air in the dungeon already reeked of old blood, damp rot, and the dead. But now there was something more. Something worse. The scent of fear.
I stepped closer, letting him see the silent warning in my eyes that there would be no mercy shown here tonight. His only choice was how he died. Fast or fucking slow.
From his resistance, I knew he’d chosen slow. Good. I wanted to feel him break, and I’d savor every second of bleeding the life from his miserable body.
The rebels had been a problem since the death of my father. He was the last King of Galaythia. Five years had passed since, and the kingdom had been in turmoil with the growing rebellion.
Galaythians had always had a king. Never a cursed prince, damned from claiming his crown. Now my uncle Dreynthor ruled as steward while rebels and lords alike schemed for the throne.
Before last week, there was an uprising here and there. Now, dissent had turned to bloodshed with the murders of the Elder Fae High Counselor, the handmaidens, and the Royal Galdrmester. Along with the attempted assassination of Dreynthor.
My patience was gone. All that remained was the blade, the blood, and his fucking silence.
I inhaled, flexing my fingers against the pommel of my knife. “Last time, navoshka.” I used the crass insult for idiot in his common tongue.
From the few words he’d spat earlier, when he told me to go fuck myself, I had placed his accent as from River Clan filth. They were criminals but intelligent enough to despise an insult like navoshka. The flicker of hate in the rebel’s swollen eyes told me my jab hit the mark.
“Speak of your leaders and their schemes before I tear the words from your throat.” How many times had I spoken those fucking words tonight? I was beginning to sound like an echo raven, those loathsome birds that irritated the hells out of me. “Talk right now. Or you’re dead.”
A flicker of something, maybe uncertainty, flashed in the rebel’s eyes. For a brief moment, I entertained the thought that he may succumb to fear.
But then the look disappeared, replaced by cold defiance.
Nothing came from his bloodied, blistered lips. Just his ragged breathing which clashed with the weight of the tension in the air.
I yanked my knife out of his gut. His sweaty head drooped in agony and his shoulders sagged as though the life had already been drained from him.
Pathetic. He wasn’t going to talk. And I was done wasting my time here. “The Nightblade Family used to have the River Clan Fae’s allegiance.” Wasted words.
The rebel lifted his head, just high enough so his desolate eyes met mine. “I will tell you nothing. You…are death, Lord Nightblade. Death.”
All this time, he’d been in here experiencing the most agonizing pain imaginable in all four corners of Vaelthorne, and those piercing words were the only ones he’d uttered. That I was death.
I inched away a fraction and instinctively glanced at Bastian, perhaps because he was my closest friend. Alaric was my younger brother, but I’d come to rely more on Bastian in times like these.
Like the others he was clad in the silver armor that marked him as a senior knight in the King's Guard.
He wore his black hair in a severe undercut, the top plaited into a thick warrior's braid adorned with leather cords that spoke of battles won.
He looked every inch the hardened soldier.
Yet he gazed back at me not as a warrior in arms, but a lifelong friend.
The shift in his eyes from the usual hardness I relied on to something that resembled pity twisted my gut. Seeing such an emotion on a Galaythian warrior’s face reminded me of how far I’d fallen and that everything, even the kingdom, was slipping away from me.
The rebel was right. I was Death.
I became Death the moment my father was murdered and the Ring of Kings was stolen from his lifeless body.
The ring was always to be worn by the King, passing to the firstborn son upon death. If it fell into the wrong hands, the rightful heir to the throne was cursed until it was retrieved.
Until the ring was found and placed upon my hand, I would remain cursed to continue my days on this earth as a Deathwalker. A being no different from a wraith.
But while wraiths existed in shadowy forms that harnessed darkness, I still looked Fae. When I wanted to. And where wraiths drained souls, I shattered them with just one look. One mere look and that was it. Death.
The pity in Bastian’s eyes displayed the depth of his worry for my ruin. We both knew what it would cost me eventually the longer I remained cursed. My ensuing demise accelerated every time I used those dark powers of death that were forbidden in all lands. But fuck it.
No one knew what it was like to be me. Only me.
I was the Lord Commander of the Kings Guard. The firstborn son of the great Lysander Nightblade. Bonded to the most powerful of the ancient dragons.
And yet, I was not the king.
My personal favorite of my fucked-up situation was having to watch my uncle sit on the Galaythian throne as acting king in his stewardship and give me orders.
At least being Death still gave me some control. Like now.
I turned away from Bastian and looked back to the rebel. It was time to show him my true face. It seemed fitting that he should see what Death looked like before he drew his last breath.
My lips twisted into a mirthless grin, all predator and no warmth, enriched with malice and everything that was supposed to make the blood run cold. It was a dark promise. The last thing many had seen before they met their end at my hands.
“Tell me, rebel, what do you think Death will look like when he comes for you?” I taunted, my smile widening. “Food for thought; I enjoy punishing murderers and rapists.” I was going to make him feel the same pain the handmaidens felt, but so much worse.
“My… Lord?” His voice was a garbled stutter of labored, useless words.
I didn’t answer. The time for talking was over.
Darkness from the depths of my core had already begun bleeding into my eyes, swallowing the silvery-blue color I inherited from my mother.