Chapter 83
Chapter Eighty-Three
Roremar
There wasn’t a strong enough word for the hatred that tunneled through Roremar when he finally had a face for the Fate who had controlled and manipulated him for months—who had forced him to take his brother’s life.
And he felt like an utter fool.
Before their eyes, Khasson’s demeanor shifted. He stood taller, power rippling off him with each easy movement, like he could bend the stars with a thought. He’d kept it compressed throughout his entire act, had been right under their noses, sleeping in the same room, lying in wait.
The rest of him—the long, dark hair trailing around his shoulders, the high cheekbones and feline eyes, the grace—was all the same person Roremar had been working with for weeks. Who had wormed his way into Roremar’s head, both internally and externally.
He hadn’t once suspected Khasson. Not because he didn’t think him capable, but Khasson hadn’t seemed interested in them enough.
He’d always been on the outskirts of his allies, kept to his own schedule, but not in a way that Roremar would have flagged as suspicious.
He was the one who seemed to fall into line because of convenience.
There was no attempt at a false backstory, no move to sway Roremar to benefit him somehow in return.
Khasson had simply watched and enjoyed the chaos unfolding around him, encouraged it from the shadows but never actually to Roremar’s face, other than the one time he came to his cell.
“That’s why we could never read about the tournament.” Emmeline breathed. “Dryvius wasn’t meddling with it. He was participating in it. And—Fates, you’ve been all over this damn city. At the scene of the first murder, at the vineyard party, in the barracks. Khasson was always there.”
“Dryvius was always there,” Roremar corrected.
Perry blurted out, “You’re saying Khasson is the Fate of Chaos and Revelry?”
“You said yourself he showed up here later than the rest of you,” Roremar explained, his mind fighting to clear, to pick up every piece. “Dryvius didn’t have a body until after he killed my brother, remember? A few weeks before the trials began. Plenty of time for him to get from Lyra to Valyn.”
"Yeah, and he was the one that suggested you as an ally,” Perry said as if just remembering.
Fates, it was right there all this time. Khasson was always pulling the strings.
When Perry had first introduced them, Roremar hadn’t known he should be looking for Dryvius outside of himself. He hadn’t thought any of this mattered.
Rocarri pressed a hand to one of the cracked marble bases of the monuments, staring awestruck at the Fate.
“You were the one who suggested we allow more entrants.” The Chancellor appeared as shocked as the rest of them.
“Khasson showed up on the eve of the opening ceremonies and put in a bid for entry into the tournament. He suggested more men would be more lucrative for the city.”
“More men, more chaos,” Roremar whispered, the tainted feeling sinking so deep into his bones, he wasn’t sure he’d ever get it out.
“If you were the one who suggested that,” Emmeline began, “then you were who I overheard with the Chancellor when I was in the tunnels. I’d suspected the Chancellor had a plant, but I’d thought it was Perry”—Perry scoffed but Emmeline didn’t pause—“and Rocarri didn’t even know, this entire time, as he ran this tournament to manipulate our magic, he had a very real Fate working for him. ”
Rocarri was practically panting at Emmeline’s words. Roremar’s stomach twisted.
Khasson—Dryvius—smiled salaciously. “It was exceptionally fun to watch him lust after your magic without even knowing mine was nearby.”
“You were at the sacrifices, too,” Desmond blurted, still holding Lola up. “At the rituals with Falliare. I didn’t recognize your voice. It sounded different when you were Khasson, compressed. But there it sounded like it does now.”
Dryvius hummed in agreement, seemingly enjoying all of their shock. Feeding off it. He was in no rush. “Yes, I was. Though, it was convenient you thought it was Perry. I worried at first when you all started following. Thought our plans might have to speed up, and I wasn’t done yet.”
“You followed us into the Angel’s seeing chamber, didn’t you? You’ve been following us all over this fucking city,” Roremar guessed. “You wanted us to be paranoid.”
Dryvius’s vicious grin was all the confirmation Roremar needed.
Violation slid across his skin again. He’d known he was compromised by the Fate, but the fact that Dryvius had been right there, sleeping in the same room, sharing drinks and celebrations with them all…it poisoned the very air Roremar had been breathing. Made every second feel like a cruel joke.
“What is the goal of Rocarri’s rituals? He wanted to study our Fatesworn bond? Is that another game for you?” Roremar accused.
“It’s all. About the bond.” Lola’s weak voice sounded from the altar.
Her eyes were still closed as she leaned against Desmond’s shoulder, but she went on, “I was going to tell you. At the masquerade. It’s what I found in the Archives earlier.
” She took labored breaths, each one sawing through Roremar.
“The Fate Bound Seekers…they don’t exist anymore. ”
“What do you mean?” Emmeline asked.
“Rocarri’s father. Drove them into the ground.” Lola took a huge breath, her shoulders heaving. “Trying to do experiments about Fatesworn bonds. Killed hundreds of them.”
“The constellations,” Emmeline said, clearly steps ahead of Roremar thanks to his addled memory.
“At the rituals, they kept saying the victims were dying because they didn’t have the right alignment.
You’ve been waiting for us to accept our bond so we’d move the stars around.
That’s the celestial event you needed. And as soon as we did, you began the third trial.
You’re not trying to study our bond, you’re trying to create Fatesworn bonds using the magic ours produces. ”
“That’s what these stupid trials are about?” Roremar roared. “The rituals are trying to forge soul bonds?”
The rituals and the tournament were connected. One a research project, the other a means of harnessing the results.
If that was true, then the third trial involved more than conquering fears. He’d tethered them all to the ritual. It wasn’t over yet. It was building toward something. Building toward—
As if in answer, the ground shuddered. A pulse of power ripped through the cave, so strong Roremar thought it went through the entire city.
Emmeline cried out, folding over in pain. A demolishing strength pulsed from her end of the bond, burning as bright as the heart of a star.
A second wave hit, and this time, as it nearly took Roremar to his knees along with Perry and Rian, he understood.
They’d moved the constellations when they’d accepted their Fatesworn bond tonight, and it had given Rocarri the key he needed for his rituals. And thanks to their Fatesworn bond, this was the largest attempt of all.
The final trial in the tournament…it was about breaking down their defenses to try to take advantage of the magic he’d primed in the poison task. It had all been building to the Chancellor’s final goal.
Not to fabricate another Fate.
Not to study their bond.
To create Fatesworn bonds.
Roremar feared what would remain of the competitors when it was over.
Another of Dryvius’s cool laughs rolled through the room on the heels of the blast.
“We should be thanking you, Emmeline,” the Fate said, watching them squirm.
“So much of this wouldn’t have been possible without you.
You tipped me off about what could finally return me to my body.
Or should I thank Metrina for telling you to protect secrets and greed?
I knew Serchus was a meddlesome fool—they all are.
It is what we were trained to be. But I didn’t know what it would do exactly when I killed him.
I thought perhaps it would harm Serchus across the realms, that I would finally see him suffer.
” Dryvius waved a hand down his body. “This was better than anything I could have imagined. Got me out of that forsaken ring’s compression, too. ”
Dryvius’s attention shifted to Emmeline’s necklace, her fingers curling around the blackened steel as she panted.
From the back of the cavern, Falliare cleared his throat. “Was it the Fatalium? Is that the resin imbued in the blackened steel?”
Roremar glared at his uncle as ripples of power washed through the chamber, but Dryvius’s wry laugh trickled on the air. “Why would I confirm that for you? I prefer letting you mortals spin your games.”
For different reasons, Roremar agreed with shutting Aldryn Falliare the fuck up.
“What if you hadn’t killed Nico?” Roremar asked Dryvius, panting over the words.
Hunger burned through his blood with every answer, with every blank filled in.
As much as he longed to lunge at the Fate now, to take him out with his bare hands, he needed to remedy those gaps.
“What if you hadn’t gotten your body back and this—every life you took—was for nothing? ”
“I did not need my body to get what I want,” Dryvius said, scoffing as if it was common sense. “Yours would have worked just fine. You would have killed a few more and ended with her.” His eyes sliced to Lola, who was staring daggers at the Fate despite her weak state.
The fucking Fate. That was who stood before them. The Fate of Chaos and Revelry, in all the glory of his name. Roremar had always known the Fates embodied their spectrums. Anphrosia birthed cruelty and adoration, Arenothos was wrought of wrath and redemption.
And here before them now, he finally understood how Dryvius worked. He had an end goal—one Roremar was desperate to learn and put a stop to—and every decision the Fate made in this city was to encourage the most chaotic paths to it.
He could have found all his Anphrosia ties so easily, people who didn’t have family or friends looking out for them. Could have killed them down here without alerting anyone.
But no. He displayed the Valyn victims on the face of the city’s largest temple, at the vineyard party, and in his sister’s own suite. All places that would be noticed.
And for his final act, he took the person who would hurt Roremar most.
The crashing waves of Rocarri’s rituals ebbed. Beside him, Emmeline straightened, shaking her head. Roremar could practically hear her mind racing, but he didn’t know what pieces she was collecting. His was still slower than usual.
“Why?” Emmeline blurted out. She spun her opal ring around her finger, and Roremar prayed to all the Fates but the one standing before them she was thinking up a way out of this. “Why were you killing women tied to Anphrosia in the first place?”
She phrased her questions precisely. To remind Dryvius how much they already knew and lead him pointedly toward the answers they didn’t. This Huntress was always so clever in the face of ruin, and he loved her even more for it when words failed him.
“That was a very fun thing to watch you all puzzle over,” Dryvius said.
Slime coated Roremar’s skin. “You were there for all of it.”
“I was trapped in your head, was I not?” He said it as if it was so obvious.
A smiled crept back onto Dryvius’s lips.
He straightened, taking lazy strides around the altar, his attention locked on Roremar.
“I heard every thought you had, Heir of Chaos. Every false lead. Every miscalculated conclusion. Had I not wanted my body back, I do not think you ever would have realized.”
Fates, before Nico, Dryvius had been there for every day with his family. Every moment with Emmeline.
Roremar was betrayed by his own mind again.
He was going to be sick.
“And you were right about something,” Dryvius said.
Pausing, he brushed his long silky hair over his shoulder and gazed up at the veiled Fate monument in line with the others.
His eyes shone with worship. “The Fate of Cruelty and Adoration is at the heart of this. As she is at the heart of everything worthwhile.”
“Fates, you are in love with her,” Roremar grumbled at the infatuation rolling off Dryvius’s tongue.
“Is every Angelsdamned Fate in love with Anphrosia?” Desmond grunted. First Arenothos and Aevollon, now Dryvius, too.
The Fate chuckled. “You are so much like him, Angelblessed.”
Desmond growled at the name, though Roremar wasn’t sure which him the Fate was referring to.
Out of the corner of his eye, Roremar saw Rocarri straighten on the outskirts of the confrontation. His hand fisted against the marble plinth.
“It is a complex history,” Dryvius went on, pulling their attention back to his relationship with Anphrosia. And despite his easygoing, carefree nature, for a brief moment, his full lips twisted into a sneer.
“You want revenge,” Emmeline guessed. “It’s not love, it’s vengeance.”
“As I said,” Dryvius repeated. “It is complex.”
“But how does any of this help that? Anphrosia isn’t here,” Emmeline said. “She’s in the Fate Realm. I’ve spoken to her recently, and the bond is as normal as ever.”
“Mine, too,” Lola said hoarsely, hands tightening on the sharp stone corner of the altar.
“Mine, three,” Perry interjected.
Roremar balked. He’d never known Perry’s Fate tie.
There was so much about Perry he hadn’t bothered to find out, never fully trusting him, and yet he wasn’t the one who had been masquerading as his ally. If anything, hatred burned in Perry’s eyes as he sneered at Dryvius, the betrayal blatant. Of them all, he’d been the closest with Khasson.
Dryvius gave them all an approving nod as they laid out the pieces, all his little puppets performing their show as he’d orchestrated. That’s all they were to him. Ironic, given that Khasson had been the one to encourage Roremar to stop acting like a pawn for the Chancellor.
Just another way to sew more discord. More entertainment for him while he ruined Roremar’s life.
Fates, he’d even brought Roremar red wine when he visited him in his cell. He’d been taunting him right out in the open, so on display, no one would think twice.
“You are all correct. Anphrosia is not in this realm, and that is why I needed you.”
Dryvius’s attention didn’t land on Roremar or Lola.
It didn’t even land on Emmeline.
His elated stare looked past all of them—all the way to the back of the chamber, in the mouth of the tunnel, beyond all the monuments and the Warder Mark shining silver in the stone floor. Past Perry, Rian, and Eston.
To Myrella.
And Dryvius’s lips curled into that feline smile as he said, “Realmspinner.”