Chapter 14
BY YOUR COMMAND
DOMITAN FAELSTROM, HIGH KING OF ASTEROS, hunched in his high-backed chair and rubbed the space between his furrowed brows. A headache throbbed behind his eyes.
His usually meticulous receiving room was strewn with broken pieces of furniture, scattered tomes, and sheaves of parchment.
A glass lay shattered in one corner, shards untouched where they’d landed after impact.
His servants had rallied to clean the room after the initial destruction, but desisted when Domitan had shifted, gripped the nearest throat with a clawed fist, and crushed the old man’s windpipe in an uncustomary fit of fury.
The loss of control did not befit a king. He despised having displayed such a lack of restraint. Yet he’d been unable to stop his skin from splitting, second form spilling forth, at the news he received.
The guards at the western perimeter wall had rushed to him. She returned, they’d exclaimed.
Tavene. His huntress had returned.
Domitan commanded that she be brought before him. His moment of anticipated triumph had been obliterated when they carried her in, her near-lifeless second form leaking like a sieve, innards barely held in place by a bloodied strip of cloth.
Tavene had never failed him. Not once in all the years she’d faithfully served.
Now, she had the fucking gall to claw her way back to the capital on the brink of death, empty-handed?
The carelessness of such a thing, the blatant disobedience, had annihilated what remained of his self-control.
Domitan had shifted to second form on the spot, monstrous, tawny hide erupting, clothes shredding, and exploded in a blind rage.
Now, hours later, he had a demolished receiving room, a dead servant, and a ruined huntress. And still no answers.
No fucking answers.
The menders said it would be days, possibly weeks, before Tavene regained consciousness, if she ever did.
He was no closer to solving this mess of a missing Prima.
No closer to identifying the fucking assailant who had killed his soldier with the fragmenting blade.
The one Domitan was certain had abducted the Prima.
Serebine remained in the Temple of the Rising Dawn with her priests, praying tirelessly at the foot of the Goddess’s scepter.
The undying flame that had been lit upon the Prima’s birth still glowed with holy fire.
Because of that single fact, the queen clung to hope that the Goddess had not deserted them.
There was still time. As long as the Prima was returned and her presentation completed, they could still break the curse.
Domitan and Serebine would maintain their sovereignty.
If they failed, they risked an uprising.
Domitan would not tolerate any additional loss of control.
He wouldn’t suffer losing his crown, his legacy.
They would break the damn curse. The King of Asteros wouldn’t allow his name to be smeared by failure, his rule to die with no future generations to remember his greatness.
No. He would retrieve his missing offspring so that she could do her duty to their race, and no shurii would ever again dare refuse Domitan as sovereign.
He wouldn’t be King of Asteros. He would be the unopposed ruler of Ilistaar.
The closest thing to a god to walk their lands in millennia.
Would that the Goddess had placed the fate of the shurii upon his shoulders. This catastrophic complication would have never transpired.
Serebine could continue counseling her priests.
She could conduct her summoning rituals in attempts to locate the Prima, endeavoring to gain some manner of divine insight.
Reaching beyond the veil, the queen called it.
Domitan left her to her fucking witchcraft.
He needed something solid. Something tangible.
Now, he finally had it, and it was useless. Tavene had returned and couldn’t give him a godsdamned clue.
Domitan tossed back another swallow of mezahl, the smoky liquor carving a fiery path to his chest.
A servant entered the room. “Pardon, Your Majesty.”
He didn’t look up. “What.”
The servant trembled. Domitan could sense the gutless vibrations from across the room. “General Corstow is asking to speak with you, my king.”
Domitan’s head snapped up. “Show him in, you blundering fool!”
The servant nearly tripped over himself to comply.
Markain Corstow strode into the room a moment later, ushering a stooped old man leaning heavily on an alabaster cane.
Domitan stood, bracing both palms on the desk in front of him. “Corstow, so help me, you had better have some fucking answers. Is she awake?”
General Corstow bowed deeply at the waist. “Tavene remains unconscious, my king. Her state has not changed.”
Domitan blew hot breath through flared nostrils.
“I do have something else, though.” Corstow urged the old man forward.
Domitan stalked around the desk. The old man was bald, long white eyebrows nearly obscuring what remaining vision he possessed. An ocean of wrinkled skin drowned his features. “Who is this?”
The ancient bowed. Only Corstow’s grip kept him from tumbling forward. “Greeve, Your Eminence. I am a records keeper in the royal archives.” The old man’s s’s came out as a hiss between missing teeth.
Domitan crossed his arms, temples pounding. “And what use have I for a petrified records keeper?”
The old man produced a worn parchment from beneath his voluminous robes. He extended a withered arm.
“The dagger that killed your soldier had brethren, majesty,” Greeve explained. “Many others of its like have been crafted going back decades. A smithing marvel.”
Domitan’s eyes lifted from where they scanned the record. “You found their maker?”
“Yesss,” said Greeve.
“Where is he?” Domitan demanded. “Here?”
“I’m afraid not, sire,” said General Corstow. “This is just a record. An old one, at that. The artisan who originally crafted these blades is dead.”
Domitan shoved the weathered parchment into Greeve’s chest. “That doesn’t fucking help me,” he snarled.
Greeve curled protectively around the antique record. “But sssire, this givesss us some direction,” he insisted. “These recordsss were familial. The artisan would have passed the information to his successor.”
“And who is the bloody successor?” Domitan queried. “Is he also dead?”
Corstow glanced sidelong at Greeve. “She, majesty,” he said. “And yes, she is also dead.”
Domitan’s headache threatened to split his skull. “Who, Corstow? Give me a name, damn you! And then tell me who killed her, so I can hang him for the inconvenience!”
General Corstow hesitated, square jaw clenching. “Her name was Meridia Albright, sire. The last Bladesinger of Ilistaar.”
Domitan’s temper boiled over as the name stuck between them like blood clotting in a wound bed.
“And sixteen years ago, I killed her,” Corstow finished. “By your command.”