Chapter Four
Legend
The moment I step into the war room, a smug grin still tugging at the edge of my mouth, the air turns heavy.
Creed stops mid-sentence. His knuckles blanch as he grips the armrest of his throne. That crown of bone-light shimmers as if it sprouted straight out of his goddamn skull, though it’s merely demonic smoke suspended above his head. Just like my brothers. Just like mine.
That shit is gonna take some getting used to, but it is the war room after all, and the only way our ancestors can hear our calls.
Is our father among them yet?
I refocus on my brothers, just in time to catch Knight’s jaw tick as he leans forward, expression unreadable but eyes narrowed. Always calculating. Always quiet.
Sinner’s sharp laugh cuts the air, shattering the tension. He drowns the last gulp from a gnarled black bottle, then slams it onto the stone with such force that the surface cracks beneath it.
“Where the hell did you go?” Creed fires first, voice cold and sharp as forged iron.
Knight’s head cocks, like a predator sniffing out a lie. “Why are you late?”
“Did you just”—Sinner grins, teeth flashing like a blade—“fuck or something?”
I chuckle low, dragging the scent of ash and adrenaline with me as I cross the obsidian-slick floor.
There’s a seat waiting at the table—massive, claw-footed, carved from the remains of some long-dead Leviathan no one’s seen in over a thousand years.
Its surface ripples faintly as I approach, reacting to the magic bleeding off me.
Good. It remembers who I am.
I drop into the chair and kick my boots up onto the tabletop. The moment the soles hit, the Leviathan bone snarls. It pulses a muted red beneath the translucent surface, ancient veins still humming with magic that doesn’t quite know if it wants to kill or obey.
“Relax,” I mutter to the thing. “We’ve both bled enough today.”
Creed exhales sharply through his nose. “Legend. You disappeared for days with no explanation. No word.”
I arch a brow. “Just had to go get something of mine,” I say smoothly, folding my hands behind my head. “I’m here now. Talk.”
Creed shifts his attention to the center of the table. There, the runic map of the realm softly glows. Its lines of light and shadow tracing alliances, magical disturbances, and blood-signed treaties that flare when violated.
“The Argents are frantic,” he finally says, his voice all steel and diplomacy, honed like a blade meant for council chambers, not battlefields. “The ascension of us four to the throne has left them feeling…imbalanced.”
“As they fucking should.” Sinner snaps before he can finish, swinging his leg over the arm of his throne and lounging like he’s at a gods-damned tavern instead of one of the four most powerful seats in the known realm.
“We don’t need them. I say we kill them all.
Or just wait for whoever is going around killing our people to do it for us. ”
Killings? That’s news to me.
Creed ignores him, but I see the way his jaw tightens when my head swings his way in question. His attempt at maintaining his patience makes me want to poke harder. Sinner’s wrong though: the Argents are as important for the ecosystem of Rathe as we are. You know…we gotta eat.
“We can’t have the alleys of Rathe painted in blood being the first thing documented in the Archives of Aether,” he goes on, voice clipped.
The Archives of Aether. I tried to read them once by breaking into the sacred lair with the help of a witch.
But the moment I touched the scrolls that magically record every aspect of a king’s reign, I was flung through the wall.
I landed on my ass on the floor of my father’s torture chambers, hellhound leashes whipping me from every direction.
My father laughed and watched. Then he poured me a drink and asked if I’d ever do it again.
I miss the king.
Creed continues. “If the scribes start recording this reign as a massacre of magic blood, we may never gain the alliances we need to solidify our rule.”
I snort. “So don’t start a massacre. Easy.”
Sinner laughs again.
Creed doesn’t blink. “Four bodies have been found as of two moons ago. All Stygian born. All savagely murdered in their own homes. Homes here in Rathe.”
I sit forward, a frown pulling at my brows.
“You would know this,” he continues, “if you didn’t run off and block us out the minute you crossed back into Rathe with that outsider.
” He eyes me curiously as his powers brush against my temple, attempting to enter my mind.
I block him out, oddly fatigued by the effort to do so.
“You are a King now; you can’t disappear only to come back and hide away while waiting for your newest toy to wake the fuck up. ”
Sinner smirks. “Next time just don’t dose her up so high.”
“There won’t be a next time. She is here now, as am I, so tell me what we know.”
Creed frowns in my direction but gets us back on track. “Nothing. That’s the problem. So far, they seem random, but we have Vicente looking deeper and checking their ancestry line for clues or connections.”
“It’s the Argents.” I shrug. “You said it yourself: they feel threatened. They want to force doubt into the minds of our people. Make them question if we can handle taking over after Father’s death.”
“No.” Knight glares at the table, face pinched tight in thought. “There was a scent in the air at all the scenes. Tar or lava rock. Something familiar but not Argent. And it was messy.”
“Messy how?”
“Like someone lost their shit.” Sinner laughs. “And blacked out in rage.”
I wave dismissively. “People lose their shit every day.”
“Not like this.” Creed worries, looking over at Knight.
I glance between the two and sit back with a sigh. “Just say what you’re thinking,” I mutter, bored now. “Enough of the philosophical shit.”
Knight sighs and leans back, running a hand through his hair, the scar slicing through his brow tugging slightly as he moves.
“We need to keep as much normalcy as we can. We come into this reign soft. Last shit we need is people running around and treating their own kind like they’re threats and making our job harder. ”
I stare at him.
“Again,” I repeat, slower this time. “Just say it. Clearly you two talked about it already.”
Creed snaps to me. “We need to go back to Rathe University.”
The words hang there for a beat—just long enough for the Leviathan bone beneath my boots to pulse again, as if the ancient beast can feel the ripple of what that means.
Back to the university. Where we’re forced to live on the pathetic place known as Earth, in the giftless world, yet in a school dedicated to our own.
Where the next generation of magic-bloods are trained.
Where politics are sharpened behind false smiles, and swords are dulled behind glamours.
Where the throne was first promised to us.
Where we were watched. Groomed. Tested. Hunted.
“We killed Magdelana, remember?” I remind them of what no one could have forgotten—of the mage who was the leader of the Argents, those of light magic, and the headmistress of Rathe U.
She and the rest of the bullshit ministry that plotted against my family are nothing but ash in the wind now.
A fact that their people might not be too happy about.
“Who is going to rule over Rathe U now? And what about the murders happening here?”
No one answers at first. Not because they don’t have ideas—but because none of them are good.
Creed clenches his jaw while Knight expresses his irritation by sharply exhaling through his nose. Sinner, of course, just smirks, always the kind of bastard who relishes watching things spiral out of control.
“New year starts in less than a week, in giftless time,” Knight adds flatly.
“New blood. Freshly gifted. Half of ’em still shaking from their first vision.
The other half hoping they glow in the dark or sprout wings, or whatever wild shit the Argents have been whispering into their ears since birth. ”
Sinner cackles and leans forward, tossing his bottle lazily from one hand to the other. “And for once, we’re not the ones getting tossed into the pit with the rest of the softlings. We get to watch. We get to choose. We get to be the ones who tell them what this year is really gonna be like.”
Knight raises a brow. “We’re still being sent back to keep peace.”
Creed nods. “Symbolic presence. Eyes on the ground. Prevent panic. Show unity and make them think we are offering protection to the most important of our kind—their untrained, precious children. That kind of thing.”
“Unity,” Sinner snorts. “Is that what they’re calling it now? The Argents are creaming themselves over the idea. Oh, yay, let’s all cohabitate. Let’s be good little magelets and build bridges between good and evil. Bunch of free-spirited, happily-ever-after-loving hypocrites.”
Creed narrows his eyes. “They’re not all bad.”
Sinner scoffs. “No, just naive. The real fun’s gonna be watching the Stygian young lose their fucking minds when they find out they’re expected to sit next to Argent-borns in their elemental theory classes and smile.”
Knight leans back, arms crossed. “There will be blood. There always is.”
My mouth kicks up in a grin. “Don’t count out some of those Argents. They’re only light magic because they can fuck you hard enough to melt the skin from your bones.”
I shift slightly in my throne, the Leviathan bone beneath me pulsing with that same quiet awareness.
I can feel it in the air already. The tension.
The spark. The weight of a thousand new sets of footsteps crossing over the veil and stepping into the world of the giftless.
Where control is tested and reality checks are served.
This is kind of perfect. Now her presence will serve an even better purpose.
“Looks like the decision’s been made. We’re holding an announcement ceremony,” I say, voice dripping with amusement. “Today.”
Creed arches a brow, slow and suspicious. “Why, dear brother…do you look so excited about that?”
I tilt my head, grin stretching wide. “Because,” I murmur, kicking my boots back off the table and standing, shadows folding over my shoulders like armor. “I’ve got something of my own to announce.”
The weight of what I’m about to do presses against my spine like a blade as I make my way back through the doors.
“And it’s going to be so. Fucking. Good.”