Page 113 of The Dark Lord’s Guide to Honeymooning (and Other Acts of Tyranny)

The fragment inside me thrashed like a caged animal, furious at being denied. Images slammed through my mind: Arabella’s throat beneath my hands, her blood feeding the ley lines, her power consumed and added to mine. The Heirloom pulsed in response, amplifying the fragment’s rage until my runes felt like they were tearing through my skin from the inside.

MINE. SHE IS MINE TO USE. MINE TO DESTROY.

I yanked my hand away from Arabella’s before I could hurt her.

“Kazimir?” Her voice was sharp with concern.

“Aftereffects from the working,” I said, as if that explained the cold sweat on my brow and the ancient rage clawing at my thoughts.

I clamped down on that voice with every ounce of will I possessed. I was Kazimir Blackrose. I had built my own empire, forged my own identity through pain and conquest. Whatever ancient consciousness lurked within me, it didn’t define me completely.

The fragment was screaming now. It had been whispering suggestions before. Now it was demanding. Now it knew I was fighting back.

And it was fighting harder.

33 Dine with Villains

(and Try Not to Get Murdered over Dessert)

Kazimir

It’s called a restaurant. Fancier than inn or pub food.”

Griffin’s voice carried the particular brand of condescension reserved for explaining basic concepts to barbarians. The lift descended through the God Spire’s innards with a grinding mechanical whir that set my already frayed nerves on edge.

“I know what a restaurant is,” I said, leaning against the lift’s railing. My runes still throbbed from the ritual, a dull ache that matched the pounding in my skull. “I’ve conquered several kingdoms that had them.”

“Yes, but have you actually eaten in one?” Griffin adjusted his spectacles—a nervous habit that intensified whenever he thought he might be pushing his luck. “Without, um… executing the chef afterward?”

“That was one time.” I caught Arabella’s lips twitching in my peripheral vision. She looked equally exhausted, though she hid it better. Only I could see the slight tremor in her hands, feel the bone-deep weariness through our bond. “And there was a hair in my soufflé.”

Weak. Pathetic. In my time we would have razed the entire establishment and salted the—

I gritted my teeth, forcing the voice back down. It had been screaming at me since we’d left the god’s skull a couple of hours ago, a relentless torrent of rage and hunger that made my own thoughts feel like whispers. Every moment was a battle to keep it contained, to maintain the facade that everything was fine.

Everything was decidedly not fine.

Reality had reasserted itself, but the revelations kept coming. Not visions now—understanding. Like puzzle pieces clicking into place, showing me a picture I’d been too blind to see.

Skyspire had never been mine. Not really.

I’d thought I’d claimed it through conquest, through sheer force of will when I was barely more than a boy playing at being a warlord. But now I could feel the truth thrumming through the ley lines beneath my feet: The citadel had been waiting for me. The fragment inside me had recognized its ancient seat of power and pulled me there like a lodestone.

Every strategic decision I’d made, every seemingly brilliant tactical move—how much of that had actually been me? How much had been the Shadow King’s consciousness, dormant but not dead, guiding me toward reclaiming what it had lost?

The thought made my stomach churn.

I’d always prided myself on my cunning, my ability to see three moves ahead of my enemies. But what if I’d never been the mastermind I thought I was? What if I’d been a puppet dancing on strings I couldn’t see, congratulating myself on my own cleverness while something ancient pulled me exactly where it wanted me to go?

Skyspire. The obsession with Solandris that went beyond mere ambition. The way I’d pursued the Heirloom with single-minded determination that bordered on madness. Even my mother—gods, had she known? Is that why she’d carved those runes into my bones, trying to wake something she sensed sleeping inside me?

The Shadow King had tried before. I could feel echoes of other attempts, other lives. Warlords and sorcerers throughout history, all touched by his essence, all drawn to Skyspire. All failing to fully manifest his power because they lacked what I had—the Heirloom, activated by a marriage bond to Soriven’s own bloodline.

I was the closest it had come in centuries to breaking free completely.

And the worst part? I couldn’t even be certain which ambitions were mine and which were his. Did I want to conquer the Western Realms because of my own drive for power, or because the Shadow King wanted to reclaim his former dominion?

My hands clenched into fists. No. I refused to accept that everything I was could be reduced to some ancient evil’s machinations. I was Kazimir Blackrose. I had built my empire with these hands, carved my legend with my own will. I’d made my own choices. Killed my own father. The fragment might have influenced me, might have amplified certain tendencies, but the core of who I was—that was mine. The fact that some primordial essence lurked in my soul didn’t negate thirty-three years of being me.