Chapter 26
“I will not stand aside for you to do this, Prince.”
“It has to be done. You know that as well as I do. The enemy is coming.”
“She will break you. You’ll become like me.”
“I’m willing to be broken if that’s what it takes to protect everyone else. Are you truly choosing my happiness over Nyth?”
“I’ll always choose your happiness, regardless of the alternative.”
~Conversations between Echo Vael and the Prince of Bones
Fiona
Azric didn’t linger in the Void long this time. Instead, we appear behind Darian almost instantly. Outside, on a balcony overlooking the city of Braemarch, he seems serious and quiet, as if the silence of the night had found a purchase in him.
“Uncle,” Azric says from behind him, but Darian doesn’t turn.
“You know what you’re doing terrifies us, don’t you?” he responds. “Ainslee doesn’t like it, and I certainly don’t.”
“You shouldn’t like it,” Azric says. “But you should accept it. This time, we’re on the same side, Uncle. I’m doing things you cannot.”
Darian finally turns to look at Azric. “Why did things go wrong between us?” he asks. “You and I were so close until you left.”
Azric nods, and I feel like I shouldn’t be here, like this conversation shouldn’t be public knowledge. “We were, and that is why I treat you with respect, unlike some people.”
“Your parents did what they thought was right. They couldn’t fight Lysara, you know that. They were bound to their oath.”
Azric gives Darian his court smile. “They should never have made the oath, Uncle. My mother should have let my father stay dead.”
“But then you’d never have been born, Azric. Then you’d…”
“Not being born is far better than what I’ve gone through.
It’s far better than what I still go through.
More than that, though. Look around yourself.
Was the King of Flame’s life worth this?
Was it worth the suffering of every single creature on Nyth?
And you know, as well as I do, this is only the beginning. ”
Darian says nothing for a few moments. “I know your feelings about your mother’s choice, and that’s not what I’m talking about. I don’t know what I would have done in her place, but I didn’t make those choices. Do you blame me for…”
Azric shakes his head and goes to the balcony to stand next to his uncle.
I don’t follow, and instead, I take two silent steps backward.
“Uncle, you don’t understand me or the things I’ve gone through.
You were a good friend, but I can’t have friends.
I can’t care about anyone anymore. Not after I left. ”
Darian huffs. “You sound like your father when we weren’t much older than you. Your grandfather was a bastard of a man, and he did everything he could to push Cole away from Ainslee and me, but…”
Azric stares into his eyes, and Darian stops suddenly, seeing the feral look in them.
“My father experienced nothing compared to me. I do not carry scars as my father does only because my goddess prefers me to be unblemished. That is the only reason I don’t look like any of the other horrors the gods have created.
I am not the boy you played games with nor the one who watched your puppet shows.
The only thing that remains the same is the husk in which I reside, and that is only because she prefers me this way. ”
There’s a tense silence as Darian stares at him, but Azric doesn’t let the silence linger for long.
“It doesn’t matter, though. We have a shared purpose in this.
Fiona will win the trials, and both of us will do what we can to make sure that happens.
You do not need to worry when she is with me.
Her success is important to me, and thus, she is safer at my side than anywhere else in Nyth. ”
Darian nods to the man he remembered as a boy, but he doesn’t say anything else. Azric turns to me. In that silky sing-song voice he’s used in public so many times before, he whispers to me, “Do not speak of what we’ve done. Not even when you’re all alone. You know you cannot hide from me.”
He kisses me lightly on the cheek, his lips barely brushing against my skin. Yet, it’s like my entire body burns because of it. My heart races. My stomach clenches. I whirl to face him, and he’s gone.