Chapter 17 The Dark Throne
The Dark Throne
Raisa
The throne room is even colder than I remember, as if all the warmth in this place was sucked out long ago. The only thing that’s left is the frigid chill of death. It’s fitting, I suppose, given how much destruction my father has ushered into existence from this very room.
There are guards everywhere—along the balcony, flanking the dais, lining the steps in perfect military rows. Each one holds a spear or sword at the ready. If any of them recognize me as the princess they once helped cage, they don’t show it.
They eye me nervously, like I’m a dangerous wild animal.
They don’t know how right they are.
My boots click as I step forward, my eyes locked on the man at the end of the room, lounging on his throne like he didn’t orchestrate the massacre happening in the courtyard outside. He’s supposed to be my father, but he feels more like the architect of every nightmare I’ve ever had.
His hair is a cold sheet of gray, pulled back from a face cut from winter stone. There’s no warmth there, no kindness, either.
I march toward him, not stopping, not even when the guards nearest me shift, ready to cut me down at the first sign of trouble.
I could be walking to my own execution, and maybe I am, but I refuse to break pace or cower.
I did that for long enough, letting this man lock me away for reasons I still don’t fully understand. I’ll die before I do it again now.
I stop ten paces from the throne and drop into a formal bow. It’s not a deep one, not the kind he’d want, but enough to show that I remember the rules even as I plan to break them.
The silence between us stretches, so taut I want to scream just to shatter it.
Finally, he speaks. “Princess. You return from the wild, and all you bring me is a flock of feral traitors.”
His voice is a cold slap.
I straighten, meeting his eyes.
“They’re more loyal than any man you ever hired,” I say. “And you know it.”
The ghost of a smile touches his lips, then vanishes. “You could have come back alone. But you chose to drag that filth with you. Why?”
He asks as if he doesn’t know. But the gleam in his eye says otherwise. He wants to see what kind of girl he’s bred, if I’ll bare my teeth or curl under his heel.
“They’re not filth. They’re my brothers,” I say, my voice steady. “But you already knew that, didn’t you?”
He shrugs, an indolent, carelessly motion.
“I want to know why you did it.”
“Why?” He stands, descending the dais with the deliberate grace of a man who’s never lost. “Because I could, Raisa. Because power is the only thing that matters, and you were the most powerful thing I ever created. They nearly destroyed you.” His eyes bore into mine, his hatred for them seething just below the surface. “They had to be punished for that.”
“Punished?” I say. “You call it punishment to turn children into monsters? You’re insane.”
My father sighs, the sound full of exasperation. “I needed an heir, not a flock of mongrel monsters. They were a means to an end.” His lips curl. “You are the end.”
The words hit harder than I want to admit. “So the boys you raised in our halls, the ones who called you father, were nothing to you?”
“Of course not,” he snaps, and for a moment, there’s real heat in his voice.
“They were the Queen’s idea, her little charity project.
But they served their purpose, I suppose.
They made her happy. I should have killed them the night they put your birth at risk, but I suppose I let sentiment get the better of me. ”
I stare at him in shock and horror. How can he so casually call what he did to them sentiment? They were just children, just innocent little boys! They deserved his forgiveness and compassion. Instead, he gave them lies and a curse so ugly they still suffer for it.
I’m not sure he’s capable of compassion or forgiveness. I’m not sure he’s even human enough to know what either of those even are. There are monsters in this world, but they aren’t my brothers. They aren’t me. The real monster is this man, who calls himself a king but deserves a chain in hell.
He fixes me with the full weight of his gaze, and I see a splinter of fear, quickly buried beneath layers of scorn.
“And you,” he says, his voice flat, “you never could see them for what they were. Even now. You run off into the forest, consorting with the beasts I made as if they’re you’re equals. If that’s not proof of my point, what is?”
My hands shake. I clench them into fists, my nails biting into my palms. “They protected me. They loved me in ways you never could. All you ever gave me were lies and the cold loneliness of the tower.”
“I kept you alive, girl,” he snaps. “I made you everything you are. I created a legacy out of your blood. Without me, you’d be another grave in the family crypt, forgotten and unmourned.”
I want to lunge at him. I want to claw the smugness from his face, but I hold back. I remember the bodies outside, the blood that already stains this day. I can’t lash out now and let it be for nothing, not until I get my answers.
Instead, I force myself to look around. The guards stare straight ahead, eyes glazed with the blankness of the condemned. Every one of them is waiting for the order to die or to kill. I wonder if they’re even human anymore, or if my father’s magic has hollowed them out like pumpkins.
“You talk about legacy,” I say, my voice raw. “But all you’ve left behind is a trail of curses and corpses. The boys you broke aren’t the monsters. You are.”
His lips curl, baring the faintest edge of teeth. “Do you want to be like them, Raisa? Do you want to squander your birthright and crawl in the mud with them?”
“Yes,” I say without hesitation. “If the choice is between them and your throne, I choose them every time.” My voice is steady, but my heart is a hive of anger and rage. “I spit on your throne.”
My father throws his head back and laughs, a cold, hollow sound that echoes off the stone. It’s not the brittle mirthless bark I remember from my childhood, but something deep enough to make my skin crawl.
“Do you really think this was ever about the throne, Raisa? The throne is wood, and velvet, and gold. I could have ruled from a hovel and still made the world kneel.”
He looks me over like I’m a wolf he’s raised and now needs to slaughter. “It’s never been about the seat. It’s about the power that keeps it warm. Magic, girl. Magic is the true legacy, the real power. And I forged it into your bones and blood like an artist.”
“I was just, what? An experiment? A pawn?”
He tilts his head, almost pitying. “You’re the strongbox. The lock. The key. You think I would gamble all of this—“ he gestures at the world, or maybe just his own rotten piece of it— “on a fragile little thing like love? Grow up.”
He never loved me. He isn’t capable of it. And even though I knew it, I feel sick. Not just in my stomach, but in my bones, in every part of me that ever wanted to be his daughter.
His mouth twists into a smile. “The Queen’s womb barely survived making you, but I made sure you were strong enough to contain what’s coming.
When the time is right, I’ll cast off this dying flesh, and you’ll carry my power forward.
My name. My will.” He steps closer, so near I can smell lavender under his armor.
“Sacrifice is the only thing that lasts, Raisa. You should be proud.”
I want to scream at him. I want to claw his eyes out. I want to run to my brothers and let them tear him apart. Instead, I stand my ground. “I’d rather die than be your puppet,” I snarl. “I will never let you use me.”
For the first time, he looks genuinely amused. “I don’t remember asking,” he says, his voice soft and deadly. “You come from my blood, my magic. It’s already done.”
I shake my head, but he’s not even looking at me anymore.
He lifts his hand in a lazy half-gesture. The guards snap to attention. Somewhere behind me, the doors scream open, the echo ricocheting up to the rafters and crawling down my spine.
I whip around as a dozen more guards march in, dragging the seven men I love most in the world.
My brothers, battered and shackled and barely upright, are forced to their knees on the stones.
Their faces are a map of wounds.
Onyx’s eye is nearly swollen shut, his face streaked with blood. Deep wounds crisscross him in a sickening pattern, as if he took the brunt of them. His breath rattles in his chest, coming in a wet whisper that claws at my heart.
Sable’s mouth is split and leaking red, his body trembling.
Rune’s silver hair is crusted with dried blood from an oozing gash across the side of his head. His eyes are dilated and unfocused as he sways dangerously.
Shade, who always seems so fiercely untouchable to me, is covered in raw, gaping wounds. But his eyes are still full of black fire and deadly intent.
Bran’s glasses are broken. So is his leg. He tries to rise anyway, but a pike jams into his gut, pinning him in place.
Grim’s green eyes burn with hate and helplessness, his body battered and broken. He’s lost so much blood he’s ashen, the color of death.
Talon is last, his arm twisted behind him at an impossible angle, arrows still jammed into his thigh, his shoulder, and his back. His glare finds me anyway.
My legs fill up with ice. The air tastes of iron and rot and terror. I can’t move. I can’t breathe.
My father watches me soak in the sight of them, lets the despair settle in my bones before he speaks. “You see?” he says. “This is how easy it is to take what you love.”
The guards wrench my brothers’ heads up by their hair. My brothers don’t beg. They don’t plead. They just look at me, steady and unbroken, and I can feel the shape of their hope.
Even now, they’re more worried about me than themselves. That breaks me in a way my father can’t.
Perhaps that’s the point.
To him, they’re tools to use, a means to an end. And like he said, I’m the end.
He smiles at me, a real smile this time. A predator’s smile. The kind you find in old stories, right before the wolf closes its jaws and swallows the world.
“You’ve always wanted a choice, Raisa,” he says, his voice ringing out over the shuddering, dying breaths of my brothers. “So here is your choice.”
He gestures, and a guard steps forward, his sword drawn, the tip pressed to the nape of Grim’s neck. Another levels a crossbow at Bran, centered at his heart. Each brother is marked, each man’s life balanced on a flick of the king’s finger.
“You can kneel, accept what you are, and take your place at my side. Or you can watch these abominations die, one by one, while you do nothing.”