Page 229 of The Dark Lord’s Guide to Honeymooning (and Other Acts of Tyranny)

I just had to keep fighting for him the way he’d always fought for me.

Because that’s what you did when you loved someone. You stood over their body on a battlefield and commanded an undead monstrosity while your dragon ate your enemies.

66 Reject Godhood

(for the Woman Who Set Your Shirt on Fire)

Kazimir

I was drowning in memories that were mine and not mine.

I stood in a throne room of volcanic glass, watching myself—no, the Shadow King—accept tribute from terrified subjects. I felt the satisfaction of their fear, the intoxication of absolute power.

This is what you were meant to be, the voice whispered, no longer separate from my thoughts but woven through them like poison through blood. This is what we can be again.

The scene shifted. Now I commanded armies that darkened the horizon, each soldier bound to my will through chains of shadow. Cities fell before me like wheat before the scythe. The world reshaped itself according to my desires, every ley line singing my name.

Everything you’ve ever wanted, the Shadow King purred. The power to remake reality itself. No more games with petty nobles. No more bargaining with syndicates. Just pure, absolute dominion.

It was beautiful. It was everything I’d dreamed of when I first claimed Skyspire, when I’d carved my father’s empire from his cooling corpse. The Western and Eastern Realms unified under my banner. Magic itself bending to my will. Even death would bow before me.

Another memory—binding the first bone runes into a follower’s flesh, watching them scream as power rewrote their very existence. The technique my mother had used on me, but perfected. Refined. I could make anyone into a weapon. Everyone into an extension of my will.

Yes, the Shadow King breathed. You understand. You’ve always understood. We are the same, you and I.

The visions continued, each more intoxicating than the last. I saw myself standing where Auremar had fallen, but instead of his pathetic attempts to siphon power, I would crack the prison wide and absorb it all. Every drop of magic the First Hero had stolen would return to me. The ley lines would burn with my essence.

Accept what you are, the Shadow King urged. Stop fighting your nature. You were born to rule, bred for conquest. Every scar on your body, every betrayal you’ve suffered—it all led to this moment.

He was right. Gods help me, he was right. This was what I’d always wanted. What I’d spent years building toward. Why else had I searched for the Heirloom? Why else had I kidnapped—

Arabella.

Her name cut through the visions. For a moment, I saw her as the Shadow King did—another descendant of that bastard Soriven, key to my revenge, a tool to be used and discarded. First, her blood would open every lock. Then, her death would—

No.

The word came from somewhere deeper than thought. The visions flickered.

She betrays you, he hissed. Even now she stands with your enemies, ready to bind you as her ancestor did. She is the heir of your ancient enemy. She will destroy us.

Another vision—Arabella standing over my corpse, the Heirloom glowing on her brow as she commanded my own shadow warriors. Her face cold, beautiful, terrible. The Golden Roses blooming again from soil watered with my blood.

This is her destiny, the Shadow King insisted. To complete what Soriven began. She has made you weak, clouded your judgment with sentiment. Without her, you would already rule. With her, you will fall.

But even as he painted her as my doom, I remembered other things. Arabella in my training room, setting my shirt on fire and trying not to laugh. Wielding her power for the first time unfettered by her father’s machinations. Her eyes practically glowing as she demanded I teach her dark magic. Arabella standing beside me against the Syndicate, her chin raised in defiance. Fighting the Hero’s Guild and defending our home.

Arabella beneath me, around me, her magic twining with mine until I couldn’t tell where I ended and she began.

Sentiment, the Shadow King spat. Weakness. I offer you the world, and you’re choosing chains.

“They’re not chains,” I said, or thought I said. In this place between minds, speech and thought were the same. “They’re—”

She’s using you. His voice turned sly, knowing. Think, boy. Why did she stay after you kidnapped her? Why did she bind herself to you? The heroic bloodline knows its purpose. She’s been guiding you to this moment, to make you vulnerable. To make you love her so she could—

“Shut up.”

The Shadow King recoiled at the venom in my voice. The visions wavered.