A hand clamped tightly onto his shoulder. Atlas yanked at him, trying to pull him back, but Draevyn held strong against it.
“Do it,” the king taunted. “Burn me,boy. Prove to them you’re the monster the realm fears. Prove to them the rumors of the Phoenix are true.” His beady eyes narrowed. “Kill me just how you killed yourmother.”
Draevyn’s mind emptied at the words. Memories of the roaring inferno engulfing his mother’s chambers flashed across his mind. The king striking her in his rage, and the look of fear on her face as she cowered beneath her husband. Then the grim acceptance in her eyes when the smoke and flames engulfed both her and Draevyn once the king fled the room. Only Draevyn had come out untouched, and the king was merely marked with burns on his forearm, while his mother paid for his mistake with her life after suffocating from the smoke. There was nothing the healers could do.
Fire flared in Draevyn’s hands, searing the fabric of the king’s collar before turning it to ash.
The guards rushed in from all sides of the chamber, hands on their weapons.
“No! Stand down!” Atlas screamed at the guards, but the sound of shifting armor continued all around them.
He could do it. Right here. Right now. Draevyn could end this. End the man who had stolen everything from him. From his Wildfire.
But then he pictured Esmyra’s face. Her glacial blue gaze and the runes on her skin that looked as if they were seared into her flesh by Draevyn’s flames, marking her as his.
This revenge wasn’t his to take. It washers. And, by all those ruthless fucking gods, he refused to take another thing from her.
Draevyn’s grip loosened, and the sparks sputtered out as he shoved the king back.
His father staggered, falling back onto his throne. The king straightened with a chuckle as he rubbed at his nearly crushed throat. “Pathetic,” he muttered.
Draevyn’s hands clenched into fists at his sides, his entire body shaking as he stepped back, breath heaving. Atlas was still holding on to him, ready to restrain him again.
The king dusted off his collar, the charred edges crumbling beneath his fingers. He turned his cold gaze back to Draevyn, and the whole room seemed to hold its breath.
“Well, I must say, that was quite the show.” A voice sounded to the left of the dais, accompanied with a slow, dramatic clap.
When Draevyn turned, his anger flared all over again when his eyes landed on Varis Laen, the king’s advisor and royal chancellor. The bastard had been away for months, checking on the mining of velsinyte from Lephyrin’s soils.
Oh, fucking Irah. Why the hells was he suddenly back?
“Varis,” Draevyn growled, his brows creasing. “I didn’t realize the king was allowing vermin back in our halls.”
Atlas let out a dark chuckle, releasing his hold on Draevyn. “I knew I smelled something rotting. I didn’t know rats came out in the daylight.”
Varis’s beady little eyes roamed over the brothers as they stood side by side. “Always a pleasure, Princes. Just here for my reports.”
He slowly began to climb the steps of the dais, his eyes locked on Draevyn. “Someonehad to bring our king something of use.” He winked. “I was happy to oblige when rumors claimed his own son couldn’t fight off a mere woman at a masquerade.”
For a heartbeat the hall seemed to still.
A fury-driven smile formed on Draevyn’s lips, and he flashed his teeth. Slowly, he tilted his head, studying Varis. And then, without another word, his fist shot forward. The crack of knuckles against bone echoed sharply through the room, sending Varis reeling back with blood blooming at his lip.
Gasps broke around them as the king’s advisor tumbled down thesteps, but Draevyn only flexed his hand, the ghost of that smile still carved into his face.
I’ve wanted to do that for years.
Atlas let out a booming laugh, his hand falling to Draevyn’s shoulder to hold himself up. “It’s about godsdamn time someone did that.”
“Guards!” the king boomed, snapping them both from the moment. The armored men around the room surged forward at the command.
The brothers whirled on their father, brows raised.
“I can’t have you storming through my halls, throwing fists, and grabbing at throats like some feral beast. Take Draevyn to the dungeons,” the king ordered. “Let him cool that fiery temper of his in the dark for a night.”
Atlas stiffened beside him. “Father?—”
The king lifted a hand, silencing him without a glance.
