Chapter 43
Dazed, Imani slowly ambled into the throne room amongst a throng of other survivors. She kept to the shadows in the back of the room, not wanting to face Kiran’s empty, merciless expression again. The skulls on the armrests of the throne gleamed in the firelit room.
He had already approached the throne and was pacing in front of it, obviously trying to decide if he wanted to risk death for a chance to wield its power as monarch. The crowd didn’t seem to bother him.
Finally, he turned toward the corner and stared right at her. “Imani, my heartmate, come to me.”
The room hushed, and she shrank back into herself a little. But, finally, she stood tall and picked up her tattered, bloodied skirts, confidently striding toward him.
Once inside the throne’s radius, Imani craned her neck to look into his eyes. With one nod, she silently told him to do it—sit on the throne and prove to everyone who he was now.
With a nod back, he turned and squared his shoulders as he pushed his hair off his forehead. He took a deep breath, facing the chair.
Everyone fell into a chilling silence.
Then he stepped forward.
The pain seemed to start in his head, because he started grabbing and tugging on his hair with a clenched jaw. Another step, and he clutched his chest, letting out a growl of pain.
Imani couldn’t even process what she was watching and hearing. The throne wouldn’t give its power away so easily. And yet, it was willing to see what Kiran could endure, because it wasn’t killing him. If he had been unworthy, she was sure those first two steps would have stopped his heart.
Another step, and he gritted his teeth against the pain, crying out and wrapping an arm around himself, as if he was going to be sick.
His eyes found hers. The fierce emotion raging inside almost brought her to her knees. She reached for him. Then he screamed in pain and fell to the ground.
Gods help her, she ran to him. He was becoming king in front of their eyes.
“Kiran, you don’t know what you’ve done,” she breathed after kneeling down next to him.
He hissed and clenched his jaw. The pain was about to get worse.
Imani gripped his bicep and soothingly told him, “I’m here … I’m here.”
“Why have you been avoiding me? You ran as soon as my father died. Something is going on,” he whispered through gritted teeth, eyes fluttering open and closed as he became king of the Niflheim Kingdom.
He missed nothing, though. She had been avoiding him—formulating a plan.
Brands of power that matched the skulls on the armrests of the throne seared themselves into his palms. He stared at them in horror and screamed.
She knew more than most how the magic felt burning inside his bones and muscles. This was the test the relic put the new monarch through.
She ignored his questions, knowing the exact pain he was enduring. And gods help her, all she wanted to do was comfort him.
“It’s okay, my darling.” She kneeled. “It will pass soon. I know—”
His scream shook her chest, an agony she knew few had experienced. She was one of them.
His body trembled, taking on the power.
“Imani,” he gasped. “Kill me.”
“I know.” And she was glad he didn’t have to be alone. She murmured, “It will end soon, Kiran. I promise.” She paused then added, “It will end soon, and you will feel the best you’ve ever felt. Stronger, with more magic … multiplied,” she whispered. “You will be unstoppable, my love.”
A black obsidian crown grew from his head, cracking and breaking through the skin to encircle his brow.
The strongest witch in the world—and a twelve-mark witch—had just become the king of the Niflheim Kingdom with an army from the Under following him.
It made her bones tremble in fear at what was to come.
He could have destroyed his father and brother years ago. In minutes. He had always been the strongest shifter. Was this why his mother had died—to protect him? It was plausible because for all these years, he could have killed them all in minutes. He knew—and hid himself.
But he hadn’t acted on this knowledge. Why?
The man was too smart for that. Instead, he had waited years. He had watched until it was time.
Imani had a sick feeling she was somehow the final piece in his plan.
Gods … did he know what she possessed? Who she was?
Had she been lying to herself this last year when she’d convinced herself that she could tell him about the Drasil?
Convince him to run away with her? Was it a fantasy she had created for them?
Imani had never been more terrified at what she now knew was inevitable.
He stood, panting, magic practically exploding from him. His eyes dilated and thinned. He fisted his hands and screamed. This was the power she could see raging inside his muscles. It was burning him, all that magic transferring.
In an instant, his dragon wings burst from his back in a storm of emotions rippling off of him, half-man, half-dragon.
Still breathing hard, Kiran turned to face the crowd, his eyes slitted and determined. With a deep breath, he then lowered himself onto the throne, his wings draped over the sides.
An insane, wild look, with a hint of a smirk, crossed his face. It made her shiver with fear and something else … something warm and reverent.
Her body was on fire. Guilt, humiliation, and desire made for a truly heady cocktail. How could she possibly still want him?
It was dangerous. She knew Kiran was a monster.
She had seen it herself. And now, with what he’d just done to a huge group of innocent people, she had all the proof she would ever need that he was capable of terrible things.
But it wasn’t the violence she abhorred—it was his lies to her.
They swirled inside her like a sickness.
A king atop the throne, he was so different yet the same. Saints, Kiran was good at performances. Imani didn’t think she’d even cracked the surface of the real him.
Nothing about the throne had changed. It was still large enough to seat two people, but, like his father, Kiran somehow dominated it. Casually sitting with his wings draped behind him, his legs spread, leaning his elbow on the armrest, it was an image Imani wouldn’t forget for a long, long time.
Arrogant bastard.
He raised his hand and made a fist with it. Immediately, all chatter and noise died out.
He had seemed like a titan earlier, in all that armor. Now, he loomed over Imani, who still kneeled on the ground. Tall and broad-shouldered but inhuman. Still, he was no less daunting, and he was the king.
Even if this place and these people meant nothing to Imani, she sensed the aura of power radiating from him. An arrogance.
His piercing gaze settled on her, his focus still intently on her.
Imani thinned her mouth, staring steadily back. Whatever he commanded would be done. His power was absolute, and amongst the shock of all his lies and manipulations, Imani didn’t even have the strength to fight back.
What Kiran might intend as king turned her stomach into knots. She had to get him alone, to talk to him about making a plan together, even if their trust was in tatters.
The king rose and stepped past the debris and rubble piled up in the throne room, stalking toward Imani, chest heaving as he stared at her like she was some sort of creature, some monster that was more a walking corpse than a man.
She immediately stood, holding his gaze with what she hoped was a blank expression. As his bloodshot eyes took Imani in, vacant and vicious, she felt like she was looking into the face of death itself.
He watched her with a sharp, unreadable gaze that made her want to strangle him with the shreds of her dress.
Why did his gaze do things to her? However, this was a different Kiran.
A towering, imperial, majestic figure cut from the obsidian crown now on his head.
Imani imagined this Kiran commanding men in battle and decimating armies with his magic.
Someone screamed and shot an arrow at him, only narrowly missing him. “We won’t trade one tyrant for another!” he shouted.
Several people surged forward.
In a flash, that beast inside him rose. His eyes shifted into reptilian slits that seemed to scream silently.
His wings spread wide, and with a swipe above his head, Kiran caught another arrow then cut the heads off the five attackers, his eyes still fixed on Imani.
He brutally cut down anyone in his path, blood spraying unnecessarily onto his pants, the ground, the gravel, and his hair.
He was terrifying. He was ethereal. And he was now so incredibly powerful. So powerful there could be no mistaking the identity of the new monarch.
Maniacal laughter rose from his chest, and she watched, gripping the Drasil in amazement, wondering how he had hidden this plan all these years.
He glanced sideways at her in a way that was both endearing and reckless.
Somewhere deep down, a sick part of her loved it. Delighted in what it felt like to unleash that power and control, to let it rip through the ground and coil around those foolish people. Delighted that someone else spoke to her soul.
While part of her could abhor the violence, something had always been wrong with her—a darker side that didn’t shy away from what needed to be done, no matter how ruthless.
Gods, it made her want him more. The mighty prince had become even more unhinged. And she was partly to blame.
Something inside her protested at the thought—a quiet voice so low that it was hard to hear. Imani shoved it back down where it had come from and watched the king reveal what was on his arms.
He ripped his sleeve off his shirt, showcasing markings neither Imani, nor anyone else, had ever seen.
He had twelve markings all shimmering blue …
except for three. One was a red brand for his cadence magic—from the Under—and two red stags entwined to showcase his sigil for the world to see, and his heartmate’s.
They looked identical to Imani’s. Also, now his Drow elf marking was gone.
Imani lifted her fingers to her open mouth in shock.
He’s an Eldritch elf, like me, and those heartmate markings look exactly like they did at the dwarves visit.
Something wasn’t adding up.
Rage rattled her chest, and she fisted her hands at her sides. Her thoughts were frenzied, but one thing was certain—she and the Niflheim king needed to have a conversation about his lies and what came next.
No one spoke. One by one, everyone in the room dropped to their knees in front of Kiran as he settled back onto the throne, its power enhancing his own.
She remained standing.
He locked eyes with her again, and Imani barely recognized the unyielding evil blackness swirling inside them.