Chapter 44 Feel Something Genuine #2
I could destroy the building. Turn it to rubble with a thought. But the petty hearth-spirit magic would probably just attach itself to the debris and follow me for weeks, making my life incrementally more annoying. Plus—and this disturbed me—I was curious what would happen if I participated.
“Fine.” I stood, ignoring Thorne’s surprised expression. “But I’m not singing.”
The room went completely quiet as I moved to the performance space. Recognition rippled through the crowd—the Dark Lord, Terror of the Western Realms, standing in their tavern like any other patron. The tension was thick enough to cut.
I chose an old war chant from my mercenary days, something my first company used to recite before particularly brutal battles. The words were rhythmic, describing the calm before violence with honesty.
“Steel weighs heavy in the hand,
Heavier still in another man,
The calm before the storm’s first break,
Is sweeter than the blood we’ll take.”
My voice was controlled, commanding, turning what could have been a simple soldier’s song into something genuinely menacing. The temperature in the room seemed to drop as I continued, describing the certainty of blood, the emptying of the soul, the moment when violence became inevitable.
“We know the cost, we pay it still,
The battlefield demands its fill,
But in this breath before we fight,
We’re gods of war in mortal night.”
When I finished, the silence was absolute. I returned to my seat, and the building’s magic settled around me like a satisfied cat. The warmth returned. My ale tasted right again.
Elowen launched into another song, something cheerful and bawdy that pulled the room back from whatever edge I’d pushed it toward. Gradually, the normal tavern atmosphere returned.
I should have felt satisfaction at a reputation maintained.
Instead, I felt… strange.
The hearth-spirit had looked at my darkness—really looked at it—and simply accepted it. Not tried to change it. Not recoiled. Just incorporated it into the evening like it was as valid as Thorne’s soldier’s ballad.
This is what it feels like to be seen and not destroyed.
The thought came unbidden, and immediately, something else stirred.
That ancient presence that lived in the spaces between my thoughts. It noticed the crack—the moment of genuine feeling, of lowered defenses—and pressed against it like testing a weak point in armor.
I slammed the walls back up. My runes burned cold as I forced everything back into its box.
Fuck.
I’d been vulnerable before. Stripped down, broken apart, someone else’s hands on every piece of me—body, mind, will. I’d survived by holding on to one truth: No matter what was done to my body, to my mind, I was still in here somewhere.
The voice that plagued me was different.
Malphas had wanted to own me, but the fragment wanted to consume me.
And the warmth in my chest wouldn’t fully dissipate, no matter how hard I tried to smother it. Something about the offering to the hearth-spirit had cracked me open, and the fragment was already slithering through the gap.
I watched the room, forcing my breathing to steady. Villains and criminals, all of them. Content. Present. Participating in something that wasn’t about power or survival, just about being human together for a few hours.
When did I stop knowing how to do that?
I knew exactly when. The first time I’d shown genuine emotion during one of my mother’s carvings and she’d had to start over because her hand had slipped.
“Emotion makes you sloppy, Kazimir. Sloppy gets you killed.”
She’d been right. Just not in the way she’d meant.
Emotion didn’t make me sloppy. It made me accessible. Every genuine feeling was a doorway the fragment could exploit. Every moment of vulnerability gave it more room to work.
“You all right, boss?” Thorne’s voice cut through my thoughts.
“Fine,” I said automatically.
Thorne jerked his chin toward Istvan at the bar. “If we’re going to grab him, now’s the time.”
Right. The mission.
I stood, and the fragment pressed again—curious, hungry. I could feel it trying to twist the feeling, use it as leverage.
This is why, I thought viciously, shoving it back. This is why I can’t afford to feel anything real.
Not when every genuine emotion gave the Shadow King another foothold in my mind. Not when vulnerability didn’t just risk my heart—it risked my entire fucking consciousness.
I approached the bar, my walls firmly back in place, the warmth buried under layers of control.
The hearth-spirit’s magic had shown me something I’d forgotten: that being seen didn’t always lead to destruction.
But it had also reminded the fragment that I was still in here. Still capable of feeling. Still vulnerable.
And that was far more dangerous than any comfort was worth.
Istvan was wiping down mugs, still humming along with Elowen’s songs. He looked up as I approached, his expression shifting from jovial tavern keeper to the hard look of an ex-soldier recognizing a threat.
“Lord Blackrose.” He set down the mug deliberately. “What can I get you?”
“A moment of your time.” I kept my voice low. “Somewhere private.”
“I don’t think so.” His hand moved under the bar—toward a weapon, probably. “I’m quite happy where I am.”
“You have heroic blood. King Auremar is collecting people like you for a ritual that will end in your death.” I sent shadows to curl behind the bar. “I’m here to prevent that.”
His jaw set. “Then I’ll handle it here. The Eagle needs me.”
But the sleep spell was already forming, shadows weaving through the air between us. Istvan fought it longer than most—his hearth-spirit heritage giving him resistance against my dominion—but eventually his eyes glazed and his shoulders slumped.
Thorne caught him before he fell, supporting him like a drunk friend.
As we moved Istvan from behind the bar, the building itself seemed to notice. The fire dimmed. The warmth pulled back. The cheerful atmosphere became subdued, like a house realizing its family had left. Glasses rattled on tables. A few drops of ale wept from the tap.
“The Eagle will be fine,” Istvan murmured, still fighting the spell even as it dragged him under. “Was here before me. Will be here when I return.”
But I could feel the magic already fading, the hearth-spirit presence dissipating without its anchor. Within weeks, this would just be another rough tavern. No more gift nights. No more unconscious respect for the rules. No more neutral ground that even killers honored.
For a moment, I hesitated. Places like the Black Eagle were rare pockets of strange magic that existed outside the usual power structures. I was destroying something unique. The kind of small, beautiful thing that made the world worth conquering.
But then I thought of Auremar’s mages, of what they’d do to Istvan, and my resolve hardened. Better the tavern lose its magic than Istvan lose his life.
Thorne supported him as we moved toward the door.
To onlookers, we were just helping a drunk friend home.
Elowen watched us leave, curiosity in her eyes but smart enough not to interfere.
Keld raised his mug in a mock salute, understanding exactly what was happening but too practical to get involved.
As we stepped outside, the cold mountain air sucked the tavern’s warmth from my body. Kheldvar’s narrow streets were mostly empty at this hour, just a few late-night stragglers and the occasional patrol.
I was already opening a portal in the alley when I saw her.
A figure in gray robes with red stitching like veins of blood, walking down the dark street. Dark hair pulled severely back from sharp cheekbones. A presence that made my bones ache with recognition even before my mind caught up.
It’d been sixteen years since she’d abandoned me after I killed my father. Sixteen years of silence. I’d hoped she was dead, but when Arabella had told me about the sorceress who killed her mother, I realized it was a fantasy.
There was no mistaking the woman now. The way she moved, the tilt of her head, the particular quality of menace she radiated.
Amaryska.
My mother.