Chapter 19
Andrian thought he’d known rage before.
He’d felt broken fury when he’d learned of his mother’s death. A wanting anger when he’d been unable to resist Mariah at the Selection. A desperate rage when an Uroboros was sent to kill her in her sleep.
He’d sunken into rage when the Royals took Mariah’s family, dwelling beside her and the beast of her anger. Had felt that fury crack and splinter when they’d failed.
But this, whatever it was that consumed him now, was wild. Savage. Unyielding and out of control.
He fucking loved it.
His chest heaved, lip lifted in a snarl. His hair fell across his forehead and into his eyes. He stood beside a dais, a longsword in his right hand.
Julian Laurent knelt below him. The man who’d murdered his mother. The man who’d tried to murder his queen.
A dead man.
Andrian wasn’t sure how he’d gotten there or gotten the sword. He gripped it tighter, lawless fury rippling through him and setting his soul free.
“Thank you all for joining us on such short notice.”
Kol’s voice tore through the hall. It didn’t quench Andrian’s rage, but it did draw his attention up, sweeping across his surroundings.
They were in the great hall of a castle—Khento, his mind whispered to him.
People gathered in the hall, none standing closer than twenty feet from the bound and kneeling Lord Laurent.
Andrian recognized those in the front row: Lord Shawth, sniveling rotund face sweaty and pale; the heads of the other four Royal houses flanked him, cowardly fear dripping from them; to the far left, golden eyes wide with shock, stood a young man whom Andrian refused to look at.
He will only distract you. You have a job to do here.
Andrian didn’t bother fighting the voice. He settled into it, listening and accepting, dark tendrils wrapping around his mind and sinking in deep.
Kol smiled.
“It is with great sadness that I come to you all to report a betrayal.” The dark god rose from his makeshift throne, shadows seeping from his shoulders. The sunlight streaming through the windows pulsed brighter, as if drawn to feed his darkness.
Something scratched at the back of Andrian’s mind. Something about the god of the sun, something he did…
Kol’s eyes scorched the side of his face as a heavy pulse thundered in his skull. Andrian wavered on his feet, teeth gritting, breaths becoming shakier.
Something was wrong. This was the wrong side—
Kol is not your enemy here. He has not laid a hand on a single person you love. That was always Julian, the traitor.
Your childhood. Your mother. Mariah. Do not forget who harmed them.
The pulsing faded. Andrian’s glare refocused on the man he’d long believed to be his father.
No true father would do those things.
He almost lurched forward a step, almost barreled down that dais, but he held himself still. Kol sauntered past, hands in his pockets, an air of casual authority around him as his shadows trailed in his wake.
Andrian’s shadows recoiled from their maker, submissive and compliant.
“Earlier this very day, Lord Julian Laurent confessed to his sins.” Kol stopped at the bottom of the dais. “He confessed to sabotaging my efforts prior to my return. He confessed to trying to prevent my return altogether.” He paused, glancing at Andrian.
“He confessed to the murder of his wife.”
Audible gasps filled the hall. An urge to lift his gaze from the kneeling lord and glance at the blond-haired man in the crowd rippled through Andrian.
Focus. Remember what you are here to do.
Kol clicked his tongue. “I know. I am as distraught by all this as you.” He crossed his arms behind his back, shaking his head.
“There is no place in our new world for those who would only wish to destroy it. Julian Laurent’s wife was a loyal follower, a respectable woman, a noble lady, and a loving mother.
I feel compelled to exact punishment for her death alone. ” His red-gold eyes blazed.
“But that is not all Lord Laurent has done. He engaged in behavior aimed at preventing my return. He acted in direct contravention to his Emperor God. And for that…he must pay the highest price.”
More gasps rippled through the room, colored with a fear that hadn’t been there before. Those at the front of the crowd took a step back, the gathered watchers growing restless and uneasy.
They were normally so willing to accept violence. Thirsted for it, in a way.
This, though, was not some common healer from a crossroad town. This was one of their own. The highest of them—the head of an exalted house, one of the most powerful men in the kingdom.
But power was fleeting. It only lasted until someone with more came along to rip it all away.
That dull thud ached again in Andrian’s mind. There was still something he was forgetting, something he was failing to see—
You have always wanted vengeance. Now is your time to take it.
His grip on the sword tightened.
Kol’s gaze swept across the crowd. “I know, my people. I know. It is a heavy thing, to see one of our best drop so low. But our new world has no place for those who do not stand in support of it in all matters. Remember: the sun must rise.”
“The sun must rise,” the crowd echoed. Andrian’s rage tightened and curled.
“And as much as some might wish,” Kol said. A tinge of sadness seeped into his voice. “No light can compete with that of the sun.”
The crowd was still uneasy but fell back into silence. Fear and nervousness hung thick in the air. It clogged Andrian’s senses, swirling around him, tugging at his skin.
He shrugged it off, holding his wild focus on Julian Laurent.
He bound you like an animal. Severed you from your magic. Treated you as less than human, when it was you who was always superior to him.
Kol’s gaze burned the side of his face. “Justice must be served. Who better to dispense it than the one hurt by Julian’s betrayals the most?”
Murmurs rippled through the crowd.
“Andrian Laurent.”
Andrian was silent as a ghostly whisper as he stalked forward, feet finally loosened by the command.
A question itched and scratched at the back of his mind, that same thing he should know.
Should know but didn’t care to. Not now.
The dull thudding faded into oblivion as his anger and hatred swallowed him whole. All those feelings he’d harbored since childhood roared to the surface.
All he’d ever wanted was to impress his father. To prove that he was worthy of love and affection. No matter how hard he’d worked—how much he’d studied, how many blisters and calluses he’d given himself on the training yard—it was never enough.
He was never enough.
He was now.
His father had built a monster and trained a beast. But that was the problem with such things: sooner or later, the beast always turned on the master.
Andrian was just furious it had taken him so many years to reach this point. It was a fury that blended with the feeding whispers until all he knew was hate.
He halted before Julian Laurent. The lord—still kneeling—sat back on his heels, tipping his head to meet Andrian’s gaze. Black and gold deistair cuffs were locked around his wrists, snuffing out the flames running through his veins, but his golden eyes carried not a single trace of fear.
Instead, he looked at Andrian with something akin to resigned sadness.
Andrian lifted his sword. Leveled the sharpened tip at his father’s chest.
Julian swallowed, the only outward sign that he may not be as unaffected as he tried to appear.
“I know you will never understand,” Julian whispered, the crowd falling into a silent hush. “But I always did what I had to do for my family. For my country. I will not apologize for protecting what I love.”
“Protecting the things you love doesn’t mean destroying the things you don’t,” Andrian snarled, the point of his sword digging into Julian’s chest. A bead of blood welled to the surface, staining the front of his dirty gray tunic.
Julian smiled sadly. “Yes. I could just be more like you and destroy everything. Including the things I’d give anything to save.” He leaned forward, the sword point slicing into more of his skin, but he didn’t flinch.
“You will always be cursed, Andrian. Your existence is an abomination. Your queen will never be safe from you. Whatever happiness you might imagine for yourself will never be yours.”
End this. Snuff him out. Show yourself what you can do.
With a desperate snarl of rage, Andrian sank the sword into his father’s heart.
The foreign frenzy dissipated as Andrian’s blade slid between Julian’s ribs. Everything plummeted, leaving him hollow and reeling as the Laurent lord’s lifeblood poured over his bare hands.
Andrian wavered, blinking against the loss of fury. He sank to his knees.
Julian still looked at him, golden eyes blown wide, hands shaking as they lurched to his chest. As if he could stop his blood from pulsing from the wound.
Andrian’s aim was true. Each beat of Julian’s heart only served to further shred the soft muscle, blood bubbling up his throat and into his mouth.
Andrian let go of the sword. His hands landed on his thighs, palms up.
What have I done?
Julian blinked furiously. He gritted his teeth and leaned forward.
“Never…free…” He choked on his blood, his words a garbled mess.
But Andrian heard them.
With one final muffled groan, Julian Laurent slumped forward and did not rise again.
A terrible silence settled over the hall, and a ringing slowly filled Andrian’s head. One of shock and gut-wrenching realization.
He had done this.
He’d never killed before. He’d threatened and hurt and maimed but had never taken that final step. He’d always resisted it, terrified of what it would do to his already shadow-tainted soul.
The voice that had been whispering to him wasn’t his. He’d known it wasn’t his. Yet he’d listened to it anyway, let it sweep him away and stain his hands with sins he’d never be able to wash away.
He’d always hated his father. But despite everything, despite all the ways he knew he was cursed, he’d never believed himself capable of murder.
Not just murder. Patricide.
Yet here he knelt, blood pooling around him, a mirror to his ruined soul.
A hand rested on his shoulder, and he couldn’t stop himself from flinching.
“I know this was not easy for any of you. For so long, we believed Lord Laurent to be one of us.” Kol’s smooth words slid around him like a coiled snake, as venomous as the tendrils still brushing Andrian’s mind. A sickly reminder of what Kol was and of what he could do.
Andrian had never felt such an urgent, helpless loathing for himself as what he felt now.
His father—Julian—had been right. For as long as Andrian lived, he would be cursed. There was no escaping the influence of his creator, not when every shadowy part of himself cried out for the darkness of the sun.
Mariah’s magic might have severed Kol’s ability to inhabit Andrian’s body, but he’d fallen to the dark god’s power all the same.
Andrian hung his head as nausea crept up his throat.
He had to escape this. He had to get away from Kol. But he knew that no matter where he went, he could never go back to Mariah.
Never would he endanger her again. He was nothing more than a walking trap for her.
Kol’s fingers dug into Andrian’s shoulder, as if the dark god could still read his thoughts.
“I hope this serves as a reminder to you all. None shall stand in the way of the new world I will bring. I will exalt those who serve and punish those who resist.” Kol released Andrian, turning on his heel and stalking back to his makeshift throne.
“Gabriel Laurent. Please step forward.”
Andrian’s head shot up.
Gabriel had always been gentler. He wore his heart on his sleeve, coddled by a life of affection.
Andrian was surprised to see a careful mask set across Gabriel’s aristocratic features, the fires in his blood carefully hidden in his golden eyes. Eyes that were so much like his fathers. He stood proud, arms clasped behind his back, and lifted his chin to Kol.
“You are now the Lord of Antoris. I hope you serve me and that station far better than your predecessor.” Kol’s red-gold eyes burned the back of Andrian’s head. “Both of your predecessors.”
Andrian didn’t need to turn to know that Kol was moving, sweeping across the dais and out of the hall, Ksee on his heels. A tension snapped in the room and the crowd heaved a collective sigh.
They quickly retreated, however, when two mudae guards stalked from the shadows, hauling Julian Laurent’s corpse between them and leaving the hall.
Andrian stayed there for a long time—how long, he couldn’t be sure—kneeling in the stain of his father’s blood.
It was hard to break the habit of calling the man his father. He knew he shared no blood with him. He remembered his childhood; he couldn’t even say he felt he’d been raised by him. The man had been cruel and selfish and so often had tried—and succeeded—in hurting people Andrian loved.
So why did he now feel so hollow and stained and empty?
Boot heels clicked on marble. Andrian’s gaze landed on a familiar golden stare.
Gabriel glanced between him and the ruby stain on the dark floor. His mouth opened and closed, so much emotion flickering like embers behind his eyes.
Andrian didn’t want to hear what his brother had to say. Not right now. Gabriel was too good, too bright, to be tainted by this darkness.
And he would need every drop of his fire to survive in this den of serpents.
So, without another word, Andrian rose from the floor and strode from the hall, pieces of his shattered heart falling with each step as he left his brother beside the evidence of his greatest sin.