Chapter 29
G arrik’s rampage hadn’t ended in the grasses below the castle steps. With every echo of their boots, the crimson-rugged hallways flooded with new victims.
Those deserving of his wrath were left ashen and unmoving. Others clung to life by pleasing chokes of breath.
The pitiless force of Garrik’s pace spurred them through inner cloisters lighted by faelight chandeliers, casting the Dragon’s haunting shadows along the walls.
High arch architraves to their right opened to a wall of blackstone and grand waterfalls roaring deep inside the mountain. And though the sound of crashing waters would normally echo as they fell into the pitted depths, they expelled little noise. Like its absence, the stones of the walkway remained dry. The mist and spray of the waters were unable to penetrate an invisible barrier outside the well-sculpted windows, only allowing the earthy aroma of water and the chilling breeze to pass beyond their ledges.
A ripple of Garrik’s power pulsed around them, stroking talons made of darkness against every surface as the Dragon-storm approached a double door adorned with Kadamar’s crest. Laden with glistening rubies and shimmering gold-accented trees, branches webbed across the dark red oak with leaves of emeralds so dark they appeared black in the dim light.
It was beautiful.
Until it was nothing at all.
The doors shattered.
Splinters and golden dust swirled within clouds of ash and smoke. A wave of weaponized air—Garrik’s shield—tore across the ceiling of a grand ballroom, shattering chandeliers and raining sparks onto the polished granite floor.
Within ten effortless strides, Garrik stood atop a balcony with two staircases adorned in crimson rugs flanking each side. There, he overlooked the crowds of cowering nobility as their trembling hands gripped wineglasses and dinner plates.
High Fae faces froze in petrified screams and strangled silence as Dragons flooded down the stairs and surrounded the room.
The Savage Prince cracked the golden railing beneath his grip, and footsteps echoed as the steps of the Shadow Order graced the ballroom floor.
Jade prowled forward. A group of males, dripping in gold, silver, and expensive fabrics too fine for the outside world, parted for the redhead. Allowing her to brace her back against a pillar dauntingly. She scrunched her bright crimson cloak against the stone and idly twirled a dagger between her fingertips while she burned her gaze into a dark-haired male curling his lip at her.
And if Jade’s presence was somehow not intimidating enough, Thalon was a vision of holy wrath. Silently promising them a Firekeeper-filled death if they so much as twitched. His mask curated brimstoned fury as he strolled below the balcony.
The crowd trembled at the sight of him. Muscles of ethereal power rippled as he tore his golden sword from his back, slamming it into the granite. Cracking the surface through the warring bear crest in the center of the room.
Aiden sauntered between the masses with a toying grin. Like a cat chasing a mouse, he scanned a group of beautiful courtiers. His arm stretched out to an infatuating brunette with bronze skin glistening under a rosy evening gown. Aiden’s hand brushed across the transparent sleeve before he plucked her wineglass from her ringed fingers, winked, and downed her glass.
Alora mimicked their ruthlessness, adopting a deliberately cold and disgusted mask of her own. With a mannered wickedness in her eyes, she halted at the base of the balcony, drew a throwing dagger, and perched on the steps. One boot crushed the ballroom floor as the other rested two steps high. Draping her forearm across her knee, she displayed the dagger on its tip, spinning it in her fingers while veiling Soulstryker inside her armor.
It was exhilarating. Knowing these nobles deserved the illusioned wickedness.
What honorable faerie handed Mystics to Magnelis to be tortured?
They deserved this. This fear. This malevolence.
All of it.
Then something caught her eye.
Among the nobility, servants donned in scratchy fabrics and aprons cowered. The innocents held trays plastered with decadent varieties of pastries and pies, roasted meats, fine cheeses melted inside braids of toasted bread, and crystal glasses in a spectrum of colored liquids.
Alora’s eyes threatened to burn with embers as she surveyed the servants. Within the disgusting display of wealth and power and privilege, among palms that had never held a sword or worked one starsdamn day in their lives, these servants lived with a horrific sight she recognized.
Like the brutality on the ankles and wrists of her High Prince.
Scars.
Deep and blistered and some raw.
Garrik had warned her. Yet the shock still blazed through her veins.
Ladomyr’s proclivities involved shackled slaves.
Willing herself not to explode into an inferno, Alora tore her eyes away, whispering a silent curse to the king’s name.
A cheery voice broke her attention.
In the center of the ballroom, Aiden stepped forward, feet carelessly dancing as he began his performance. “Friends and enemies.” His grin flashed expertly, despicable and twisted. “You should be kneeling.” Aiden twirled, grinning at the bronze-skinned female, before he tapped his boot on the polished stone, and suggested, “Get on with it, love.”
Every wary eye of nobility shifted. On trembling limbs, one by one, their knees kissed the granite. They dirtied their expensive finery. Clothes that servants would’ve spent weeks laboring over and taking a beating if they wasted even a thread.
The entire room went still as corpses, heads lowered as movement in the back drew attention to a ruby-crested, golden throne.
The floor quaked. From the walls, tree branches snaked and slithered. Like parting waves, those branches forced a pathway between the court as creatures budded from the leaves and twigs. Breaking away and forming …
Bears . Made of hardwood. Gnashing sharp teeth.
Adorned in a lavish red jacket with golden threads down the chest and brown furs covering the collar of a long crimson cape, an older High Fae male with a semi-short wavy gray beard leaned forward and crushed the armrests with his fists.
Lifting his fuming hazel gaze. “ What is the meaning of this ?” Fury mingled with the sounds of snarls from his beasts. A crown of golden branches, rubies, and emerald leaves settled on his bald head, shifting in the movement as if it were made to grace another.
But Garrik’s growl was long and terrible, the endless abyss in his eyes as black as the Smokeshadows whorling around him when he warned, “ You are in my seat, Ladomyr. ” Razor-sharp teeth gritted under his curled lip. “You were ordered to kneel.”
Braids of shadows engulfed the male on the throne. Seconds later, he dawned in front of the court, standing as if the High Prince allowed him a choice.
Something like a scoff whispered from his lips. “I kneel for no one but our High King.” Ladomyr didn’t so much as twitch when his bears prowled forward, thirsting for blood as they flanked their maker. Crimson curtains ruffled before guardsmen stormed in from the walls, stirring Dragons to draw their blades.
A golden sword wrenched from the ballroom floor before Thalon’s fury echoed, “ You dare to draw on the High Prince ?”
Alora expected an explosion of wood and blades and finery melting to dust, half-hoped for it, when a sinister laugh rippled along the surface of her skin.
Garrik’s grin was their cruel warning before the room surrendered to his malice. Smokeshadows tore from every darkened corner, ripping from his body and shattering through wineglasses, plates, and ornate displays of wealth.
Those merciless shadows tendriled around each soldier and choked their forearms until every sword was relinquished and turned on their wielder.
The entire court cowered as the created beasts misted into sawdust. Kadamarian iron hovered by arms of darkness, which were ready to kill the guards at the end of floating blades without mercy.
“Use your magic against me again and you won’t have any at all,” Garrik growled.
Launching from the pillar, Jade thrust her hand to the king’s neck before shoving him forward. Swiftly kicking in his knees, Ladomyr slammed to the granite with a graveled shriek, and her dagger bit the nape of his neck. “You will kneel,” she hissed.
“You’ll beg and bleed, too.” Alora produced a feline grin, and Jade flashed her a reptilian one of her own.
A low moan rumbled inside her mind. She tried not to notice Garrik uncomfortably flexing his hand, adjusting his belt buckle.
Careful, clever girl. You seem to be enjoying this a little too much.
As are you. The throwing dagger rose in Alora’s hand, the tip twirling against her finger as her eyes watched in lazy amusement, wishing she had been the one to press it against Ladomyr’s neck. But Jade could hold that honor, for now.
The inside of her mind teemed with a gentle tingle, stroking the walls like a caress to her cheek before she heard a delighted growl. She didn’t need to turn and look, knowing Garrik’s primal smirk waited. The vision sent her nerves bursting before his delicious voice thundered again.
“ Beg .” A wrathful command. “Be convincing and I may let you live.”
Ladomyr’s muffled whimpering echoed across the floor as Jade pressed her boot to his back, trapping his cheek to the stone. “I don’t know what I’m begging for!” he shouted. Spit pebbled inches from his mouth.
Garrik prowled from the railing and descended the stairs with a Smokeshadow cape draped from his shoulders and dragging along the stones.
Alora felt his power before his footsteps neared. Felt the exquisite burn of ice and tingling energy like moments before lightning strikes. The air charged with his power. With his brutal essence. And her body threatened to burst into flames at how exhilarating it felt.
To the court, their trembling was in fear. Hers, sheer adrenaline. The fine hair on her arms stood as he approached. And a gentle lick of Smokeshadows danced around her fingers as if it were his hand, gently squeezing.
Then it was his hand. Unnoticeably brushing her shoulder as he asked to enter her mind, and she obliged him.
You are viciously exquisite, clever girl. Who knew?
She side-eyed him with a feral grin. Careful, mighty prince. Maybe I’ll make you beg, too.
What an honor that would be.
Alora blasted her fiery wall inside her mind, forming a delightful middle finger.
Garrik’s back faced her but his abyss for eyes peered over his shoulder with that irritating smirk before he turned to the squirming king under Jade’s boot.
Smokeshadows inched across the floor. Any remaining light dimmed. Somehow, the glistening crown of obsidian jewels on Garrik’s head gleamed brighter as if to enhance his authority—not that it was needed. Garrik’s face alone was a thing of nightmares and death triumphant. But Alora remembered him as the male who held her after the Dawnspace. And as he stalked across the granite, there was no trace of that version. That male she climbed a staircase with. Kissed in a wintry barn. No sign of that fallen warrior broken inside his shower.
No. The beast of Elysian nightmares manifested before her.
But she had promised him she wasn’t afraid of his darkness.
And she wasn’t. Even as his voice merged into that which was unrecognizable.
“We are going to play an amusing little spectacle where I pose to you a question, and if your answer does not convince me, you get to decide which hand you part with.” His lip curled in a murderous smile, baring sharpened teeth.
Garrik’s grin twisted as his boot tip lazily wandered to the king’s nose, and then he began pacing around him. “The Festival of Cullings opened your borders to Elysian’s dignitaries. Distributing the High Guard to patrol traveling routes instead of scouting the forests and slums of your cities. And because of this pathetic tradition, your efforts to serve our High King to the fullest extent of your piddling abilities have wavered. Your head stuck so far up your ass that you failed in anticipating my arrival to clean up your fucking incompetence.”
“High Prince?—”
“ I am not finished. ” Smokeshadows burst to the ceiling from Garrik’s shoulders. As ruthless as his roar between his pointed teeth. “Imagine my disappointment, and I assure you, it is unwise to disappoint me, when a Marked One crossed your border and disappeared into your mountains. The ones you boast so heavily that no Marked One can vanish within. You should imagine I do not take kindly to this negligence.”
Garrik’s anger burned hotter as he trailed his eyes across the walls, falling upon portraits. One in particular had Smokeshadows ripping into the face of a blond male, somewhat younger than himself, before the painting exploded into dust. “So, tell me, Ladomyr—and yes—the moment of my question. Why should I show you mercy?”
Ladomyr merely gritted his teeth and snarled.
“I will not ask you again.”
Kadamar’s king spit out, “Magnelis granted this week in honor of my kingdom’s traditions. And surely the Hunt?—”
“We both know the High King dismisses tradition for his will. Do not lie to me. ”
Jade laid her forearms on her knee and leaned. Ladomyr’s face flushed as red as her hair as he choked, “High Prince, if you’d allow my guard another opportunity, they will find the fugitive before sundown.”
“You are losing my interest.” Smokeshadows began to swirl around the king’s wrists.
“No— no please!” Shadows tightened. “One more day. Please, Your Highness!”
“ I want their head, Ladomyr .” The walls shook. The castle shook. The kingdom trembled at his roar. Then Garrik’s face melted to perfect calm. “Do not disappoint me again.”
He turned to the courtiers who didn’t dare to raise their heads.
Garrik dismissively waved his hand. “Captain.”
Aiden meandered forward with a golden skewer between his teeth. “Count yourselves lucky!” Arms flared wide, fanning his Shadow Order cape in the wind he created. “You’ve been given an unfathomable mercy. Get your asses off the floor, you look bloody ridiculous, honestly. Have you no respect for yourselves?” Aiden leaned forward, offering his left hand to the bronze-skinned female. “But not you, love. I wouldn’t mind keeping you on your knees.” And pulled her, blushing cheeks and all, to her feet as the court and servants rose.
“Not you, Ladomyr.” Garrik turned, shadow-kissed eyes meeting Alora’s amused stare as he spoke. “My Shadow Order has my complete authority. Respect them”—Garrik angled his head at Alora … then Jade—“do not touch what is mine or pay with your lives. Do not make me waste breath, because I will not bother reminding you before I rip out your fucking insides and feed them to the beasts you keep locked behind the mountain.”
Alora felt him, saw the shadows brush against her wall of flames inside, and let him pass.
Tell Ladomyr to lick the floor.
Her eyes beamed for a moment. Then she stood, chin high as feral excitement opened across her face. But instead—“Lick His Highness’s boots,” Alora ordered.
Ladomyr’s face paled.
Something unreadable flashed in Garrik’s eyes before he flickered his attention to Alora, face drawn in repulsion. You wish to punish me, too, clever girl? I will have to burn these boots. I actually favor these.
That’s too bad. Hiding the sarcasm across her face, Alora turned to Ladomyr. “Do not make me repeat myself.”
Garrik cocked his head, raking his eyes over her with a growl of approval. Starsdamn, clever girl. Absolutely vicious.
On the floor, Ladomyr hesitated. Jade lifted her boot and kicked him forward, forcing him to close the distance by crawling until his breath formed a vapor on Garrik’s leather.
Crouching, Garrik rested his forearms on bent knees and leaned forward to whisper to the king, “Doesn’t this look familiar?” A hint of wicked delight cloaked his tongue as Garrik sunk his nails into the king’s bald head, holding it between his knees.
Still, Ladomyr said nothing. His eyes were merely downcast, fixed on the dirty leather of Garrik’s boot. Whimpering like a fool.
Garrik leaned in closer. “Not all was washed from me when I was … perfected.” He barely restrained his rage. “I. Remember. Ladomyr,” Garrik gritted out between his teeth.
Ladomyr’s face drained of color as if he were entering the grave.
“Show me … what that tongue … can do.” Before the king had a moment to breathe, Garrik shoved his face down.
Wisely, Ladomyr’s tongue glided from his mouth. In one hesitant stroke, he licked the dirt, blood, and muck from Garrik’s leather and gagged.
“You are lucky that is all you are doing.” Garrik shifted upright and wiped the king’s spit from his boots and onto the fancy crimson jacket before twisting away. Then stepping on Ladomyr’s fingers, a pained wail cried out from the king.
“Rise,” Garrik commanded.
The look of defiance on Ladomyr's face was nothing compared to the death glare her High Prince held. And before Garrik could take in that wasted breath he’d warned of, Ladomyr stood from the polished granite, clutching his throbbing fingers.
Alora crossed her arms, scanning Ladomyr with wicked satisfaction, then swept to Garrik’s face.
Something … something was … off. Are you okay?
A look of consideration cloaked Garrik’s features. Then he glimpsed Ladomyr, who’d fallen a sickly shade of green, and wolfishly grinned. I have wished to do that for … decades. Saying nothing more, as if to conceal a secret, he carelessly paced.
Garrik spoke to no one in particular. “My patience draws thin. Show us to the High King’s mountain. We will retain his accommodations for our stay.”
Gripping his bruising fingers, Ladomyr dared to question, “And just how long will that be?”
“ For as long as I see fit, ” Garrik roared, rattling the floor, the walls, the portraits. “Have a feast prepared for my soldiers. And Ladomyr … I expect a banquet this evening. I do not possess a solitary shit if you planned anything else. Your traditions will wait.”