Page 162 of The Dark Lord’s Guide to Honeymooning (and Other Acts of Tyranny)

“Hoped, you mean.” Her gray eyes studied me with clinical interest. The same look she’d given me before each carving session, assessing which rune would fit where. “You’ve grown powerful. More than I anticipated when I left you to that demon.”

Her casual admission struck with brutal force.

When I left you—

Time fractured.

I blinked and I was seventeen, waking up in chains in a demon’s lair, my supposed allies’ laughter still echoing. They’d known exactly when to strike. Exactly where I’d be vulnerable.

I blinked and I was thirty-three again, standing on a rooftop, staring at my mother.

Left you to that demon.

“When you left me?” The words came from somewhere deep and raw.

“Oh, don’t look so surprised.” She tilted her head. That gesture. That fucking gesture. “You were always too clever not to figure it out eventually. Though I’d thought the demon would take care of you. Imagine my surprise when you turned up a year later, even more powerful than before.”

“It was your idea all along.” My voice was still steady. Still controlled. (The child was howling now, clawing at the inside of my skull.) “You helped them sell me to that thing.”

“I orchestrated it.” No shame. No regret. Just that same matter-of-fact tone she’d used when explaining why she needed to break my fingers before carving the strength runes.

The Shadow King whispered of similar betrayals across centuries. I shoved him down viciously. This was my rage, my pain. Not his.

“You were becoming too powerful, too quickly. I was afraid of what you’d become.” She paused. “And I was right to be afraid.”

The rage exploded.

My shadows erupted outward in a wave of darkness, racing across the rooftop toward her. (Tighter, the child begged. Make her stop breathing. Make her stop talking. Make her STOP.) She sidestepped with infuriating grace, her own magic flaring to life—essence magic, the brutal foundation from which my dominion had evolved.

Crimson threads erupted from her palms, seeking to bind rather than command.

I lunged forward, channeling raw power through the combat runes in my arms. She deflected with a gesture, more threads whipping from her fingers to intercept my strike.

I was already moving. Using the momentum to spin and strike from a different angle. My shadows formed into blades, slicing through the space where she’d been a heartbeat before.

The air reeked of copper and the metallic tang of essence magic.

“You sold your own son!” The words tore from my throat—not the Dark Lord’s controlled fury, but younger.

“I tried to contain a weapon that had grown beyond its purpose.” She danced backward, weaving defensive spells with the same precision she’d used to carve runes. “You were meant to kill your father, nothing more.”

Nothing more.

I was seventeen again, watching my father’s head roll across the floor, looking to her for approval and finding only cold satisfaction.

And now my mother was still talking about me like I was a tool that had outlived its usefulness.

I caught her wrist as she tried to cast something particularly nasty, her essence magic already coiling around my bones, trying to bind me from the inside out. The contact sent shock waves of pain through us both—her magic recognizing the runes she’d carved, trying to turn them against me.

Her eyes widened. She hadn’t expected me to be strong enough to resist.

“And Arabella’s mother?” I yanked her closer, shadows wrapping around her throat. “Was murdering her part of your grand plan too?”

Surprise flickered in Amaryska’s expression. “How did you—”

My shadows tightened, cutting off her words. But she hissed a single syllable through clenched teeth—a command that burned through my shadows. I recoiled as she twisted free, but not before I sent more shadows flying toward her chest.

She twisted at the last second, taking the blow to her shoulder instead. Blood splattered across the rooftop.