Chapter 8 Share Your Villain Origin Story
(and Make It Emotionally Devastating)
Kazimir
The door to my workroom burst open with a bang that made my already throbbing head pulse with fresh agony. Vex stood in the doorway, her silver hair a wild storm around her face, eyes wide.
“What in the hell—” she began, then stopped abruptly as she took in the scene before her.
Me, sitting on the cold stone floor, looking like I’d just lost a bar fight with a minor deity. Arabella, tangled beside me, looking similarly disheveled but with an added, infuriating dusting of heroic concern. And air that still sizzled with the ghost of our chaotic portal.
Vex’s gaze flicked between us. Her eyes—today a shade of stormy gray that mirrored the churning chaos in my own mind—narrowed.
“My lord. My lady.” Her voice was deceptively calm, but I could feel the thrum of her agitation through the very stones of the citadel.
“Judging by the magical signature that just rattled the teeth of every sentient being in a five-mile radius, and your current… floor-based strategy meeting, I’m going to assume the invasion is not going precisely to plan. ”
“An astute observation, as always, Vex,” I said, my voice still a rasp. I let my head thump back against the table leg again. It was a nice, solid, grounding sensation. “Make a note: Invading Solandris is marginally more inconvenient than anticipated.”
Vex stepped fully into the room, closing the door behind her with a soft click. She moved with that eerie grace of hers, crossing the stone floor to crouch beside us. “What happened?”
I waved her away, already pushing myself to my feet. My muscles were jelly; my bones felt brittle. But I’d be damned if I’d stay sprawled on the floor like some defeated novice. “The usual.” I gestured vaguely. “A general sense that the universe is conspiring against my meticulously laid plans.”
Arabella swayed as she rose, and I steadied her with a hand on her elbow. “We think there’s something wrong with the Heirloom.”
Vex’s eyebrows shot up toward her hairline. “Again?”
“I need you to handle things,” I said, not giving her a chance to ask more questions.
“The army will be expecting orders, which are to hold position until we return in a day or two. Tell Thorne to leave the management to the generals and get his ass back here with Griffin so we can figure out what happened. In the meantime, double the patrols around Skyspire or below. No one in or out without my direct approval.”
“And what will you be doing while I’m managing your empire?” Vex asked as she made for the door.
“Fixing this temporary setback.”
She nodded, accepting the vague answer with the ease of someone accustomed to filling in the blanks herself. “Understood.”
It was only after she’d left that I remembered. “Shit. Sebastian.”
Arabella raised an eyebrow. “What about him?”
“Forgot to tell Vex we have a stray hero holed up in our war camp.” I ran a hand through my hair, which was sticky with sweat and blood. “He’ll be fine. Thorne can handle one pompous, golden-haired refugee.”
Arabella snorted.
“Come on.” I led her out of the workroom, through the cold stone corridors of the lower levels, and up the winding stairs to our private tower. The guards we passed snapped to attention, their faces impassive.
As we climbed, I felt her magic wash over me—a healing current, subtle but persistent. The ache in my bones eased slightly, and the worst of the dizziness receded.
I glanced back at her. “Thanks.”
She smiled, a small, tired quirk of her lips. “Can’t have the Dark Lord falling down the stairs. Bad for the brand.”
“Indeed.”
Our chambers were at the apex of the citadel, a sprawling suite with panoramic views of the distant jagged peaks and the endless sky.
But I bypassed the sitting area, the bed, and the bathing chamber.
My destination was a small, unassuming door tucked away in an alcove near the fireplace, hidden behind a tapestry.
I pressed my palm against the wood. The dozen or so wards I’d layered over it flared to life, shimmering in waves of color before recognizing me and dissolving.
Finally, a small, sharp protrusion lifted out of the door.
A quick sting, a drop of blood absorbed into the wood, and the door swung open silently to reveal a small curved room.
The walls were bare stone, and the space was sparsely furnished with a couple of armchairs and a single pedestal of polished black obsidian.
And upon that pedestal, nestled on a cushion of velvet, sat the Heirloom of Dominion.
It looked deceptively simple—a circlet of gold, delicate yet sturdy, etched with intricate patterns that resembled the flow of ley lines across the land.
Inside the band, a faint rose motif of thorns chasing thorns twined around, barely visible unless you held it up to the light.
The air in the warded chamber was heavy with contained power, as usual, but the Heirloom gave off a low, discordant hum like an instrument horribly out of tune.
I stared at the circlet, my jaw tight. Ten years of searching, scheming, and slaughtering for this one, stupidly elegant piece of gold. Ten years of believing it was the key to absolute, unquestionable power. And now?
“It wasn’t supposed to be like this.”
Arabella stood beside me, her arms crossed over her chest. “You thought you’d put on the magic hat and the whole world would just kneel?” Her words were playful, but the delivery held weight. She was invested in this too.
“That was the general premise, yes.”
I took the Heirloom from its pedestal. It was cool to the touch, but the moment my fingers closed around it, that discordant hum intensified, vibrating up my arm, through the runes in my bones.
Before Arabella could protest, I lifted the circlet and placed it on my head.
The world didn’t go black this time. I didn’t collapse. But the effect was no less unsettling.
The power was there, a surge of raw, untamed energy flooding my senses. A promise of the dominion I’d craved for so long. But it was muddy. Beneath the surge of power was a cold, alien undercurrent that made the hairs on my arms stand on end.
And there was something else.
A flicker of movement at the edge of my vision. A sliver of shadow deeper than the ambient darkness of the room, coalescing and then vanishing when I tried to focus on it. A whisper, formless and subvocal, slid into the back of my mind, a sibilant hiss that wasn’t a word but felt like a command.
… mine…
I felt as if something hungry were watching me, looking out at the world through a crack in the wall of my own mind. Cold dread lanced through me. I ripped the Heirloom off my head and tossed it back onto the pedestal.
“Fuck.”
“What is it?” Arabella asked. “It felt ugly and twisted.”
Of course, she would have seen most of it through our bond.
I forced myself to meet her gaze. “It feels like power,” I said slowly, “but corrupted. It’s different than before—when I first placed it on my head, it was just raw potential.
Overwhelming, yes, but pure. Now there’s something else underneath.
” I flexed my fingers, trying to shake off the phantom sensation of a foreign presence.
Her worried concern was written plainly across her face. “I’m fine,” I snapped, turning away from both the artifact and her penetrating gaze.
“You don’t look ‘fine,’ ” she pressed. “You look like you were about to be sick again. What’s going on?
What’s so important about conquering that godsforsaken kingdom that you’re willing to risk…
this?” She gestured vaguely at me, at the Heirloom, at the entire mess we were in.
“Why Solandris? Why are you so obsessed?”
I whirled on her. “Why not Solandris? It’s rich, it controls key trade routes, its resources would strengthen my position against the Syndicate, and it’s ruled by a self-righteous hypocrite who deserves to be brought to his knees. Are those not reasons enough?”
“There are other rich kingdoms. Other strategic locations.” She shook her head. “This is personal to you for some reason. Why, Kazimir?”
Her hazel eyes pinned me, her truth-sense stripping away my deflections, wanting honesty. And something inside me, some long-locked door in the dungeon of my soul, creaked open.
I sighed heavily and ran a hand over my face, feeling the rough scrape of my stubble. Why Solandris? It was a question I hadn’t allowed myself to fully articulate in years.
The fight drained out of me, replaced by the weight of memory. I leaned back against the cold stone wall. “It’s complicated.”
“I have time,” she said softly, moving closer until she was standing just a breath away. She didn’t touch me, but her presence was an invitation. Talk to me.
And for some insane reason, I wanted to.
“You know I killed my father.” I watched her face, saw the flicker of acknowledgment.
“He was a mercenary warlord. A brute named Vargus who called his own lands Azroth, a petty but brutal fiefdom on the eastern coast. He wasn’t my father in any meaningful sense of the word.
He was my progenitor. A biological necessity. ”
I paused. The memories were still so vivid I could taste rust coating my tongue, feel old blood slicking my palms. “My mother, Amaryska, was a powerful sorceress. But when Vargus’s army landed on her small island in the eastern sea—or the Shattered Sea as many call it—the population was easily overwhelmed.
The mercenaries took what they wanted from the island.
He took what he wanted from her. And the result was me. ”
Arabella’s breath hitched. She knew about my mother carving the runes into my bones, but not the circumstances of my conception.
I saw the horror dawn in her eyes, quickly followed by a wave of emotion.
It wasn’t pity. Pity, I could have handled.
Pity, I could have sneered at. This was something that felt dangerously close to understanding.
I blew out a frustrated breath and sank into a chair.