Chapter 33 Dine with Villains #3
I wanted to start now, tonight, but my bones ached and my magic felt like I’d run it through a cheese grater.
The ritual had taken more out of me than I’d anticipated, and I’d be useless stumbling around in the dark.
Especially when I couldn’t trust my own judgment or be certain which impulses were mine and which belonged to the thing sharing my skull.
“About tomorrow,” Griffin said, “I’m expected at the Academia for the lecture. Emissary Pyrrha specifically requested an early afternoon time slot so the students could attend.”
“Fine,” I conceded.
“Thank you, my lord!”
Dessert arrived in a flourish of unnecessary pyrotechnics.
My “Deconstructed Concept of Sweetness” looked like someone had taken the idea of cake and tortured it until it confessed its deepest secrets—a geometric arrangement of crystallized sugar, essence of vanilla suspended in temporal bubbles, and the theoretical essence of frosting.
Arabella’s “Frozen Moment of Joy” actually giggled when she poked it with her spoon.
I was just raising my fork, hoping that focusing on the absurdity of my dessert would quiet the screaming in my head, when every instinct I’d honed through decades of paranoia fired at once.
The attack came from three directions simultaneously.
I moved without thinking, shoving Arabella down and to the side as a sickly green curse sizzled through the air where her head had been.
My shadows erupted outward, forming a dome of protection around our table just as two more spells slammed into them.
The magic made my defensive barrier spark and writhe.
Through the translucent darkness, I spotted three figures in nondescript robes, already moving to flank us with magic building in their hands, aimed directly at my wife.
Professional assassins, judging by their coordinated movements. The kind that cost more than small kingdoms.
Something inside me snapped.
Not the cold, calculated anger I typically wielded. This was the fragment surging forward, no longer content to whisper and scream from the depths of my mind. It rose like a tidal wave, and this time, I didn’t fight it.
Because they’d tried to hurt her. Tried to kill what was mine.
I dropped the shield and let the fury take me.
The first assassin tried to dodge, but I had already reached him.
My hand closed around his throat, and I pulled—not just at his flesh but at his very essence, the way the fragment remembered doing a thousand times before.
He had enough time to scream before he simply ceased, reduced to component atoms that scattered like dust.
The second had better reflexes, managing to get off another curse that caught me in the shoulder.
Pain flared, but it only fed the rage—both mine and the thing that shared my bones.
I gestured sharply, and every piece of cutlery in the restaurant responded, turning into a whirlwind of sharp metal that pursued him across the room.
He made it three steps before being reduced to confetti.
The third tried to run.
Coward.
I didn’t chase him. Instead, I reached out with my magic, grasping the very air in his lungs.
He stopped mid-stride, clawing at his throat as I slowly, methodically increased the pressure.
Part of me—the part that was still Kazimir Blackrose and not dancing on the edge of something ancient and terrible—whispered that I should keep him alive, interrogate him, find out who sent them.
But he’d tried to hurt what was mine. Tried to take my—
The assassin imploded. I may have gotten a bit carried away.
The restaurant was in ruins. Tables overturned, that fascinating ceiling view cracked and leaking sea water. Other diners cowered behind whatever cover they could find, staring at me with the kind of terror I usually welcomed.
I stood in the center of the devastation, breathing hard, my runes burning so hot I could smell charred fabric. The fragment was still there, still screaming, but now it was screaming in triumph.
The display of power was exactly what we’d been trying to avoid. Every Syndicate member with half a brain would know something had changed, would know I’d accessed power levels that should have been impossible. So much for hiding whatever changes the Heirloom had wrought.
But as I turned to check on Arabella—found her unharmed if wide-eyed, Sebastian’s vines having provided additional protection—I found I didn’t care.
They’d tried to kill her. In front of me. That was unforgivable.
The fragment and I were in complete agreement on that point.
I might have something ancient and murderous sharing space in my skull, but I was still Kazimir Blackrose. And the sheer audacity of attacking my wife in my presence made my vision blur red.
I could feel power thrumming beneath my skin, and my runes began to feel like they were writhing instead of burning, as if they were trying to shape themselves into something new.
I flexed my hands, half expecting to see blood pouring from the old scars.
But nothing was different except my magic felt sharper and hungrier.
For once, the voice in my head was silent. Not because it had gone away, but because we finally wanted the same thing.
Who the fuck tried to kill what’s mine?