Page 24 of The Dark Lord’s Guide to Honeymooning (and Other Acts of Tyranny)

It wasn’t a physical shove. It was a deluge. A torrent of her magic, bright and clean and an utterly offensive shade of heroic gold, poured into me. It wasn’t the slow, symbiotic exchange we’d grown accustomed to through the Heirloom. This was a desperate, full-force intervention. Her untainted, heroic power slammed into the corrupted, struggling dregs of my own.

With a final, guttural roar, I shoved the last of my energy into the spell. The portal snapped open, revealing the familiar stone of my workroom. I hooked an arm around Arabella’s waist and hauled us through.

We collapsed onto the floor as the portal slammed shut behind us with a deafening crack of thunder. The backlash left us gasping, a tangled heap of exhausted Dark Lord and dangerously competent Dark Lady.

Silence. Utter, profound silence, broken only by the sound of our ragged breathing. The air in here was still and cold, smelling of ancient stone, ozone, and the faint, alchemical tang of my various ongoing experiments. A stark contrast to the iron-scented chaos we’d just left.

For a long moment, we just lay there, tangled together on the floor, the raw, visceral power of our escape leaving us both shaking and drained.

My first coherent thought, after the roaring in my ears subsided, was for Arabella. I pushed myself up onto one elbow. My gaze raked over her, a frantic, clinical assessment. No visible wounds. No blood—that was hers, anyway. Her face was pale, her eyes wide with shock, but she was breathing. She was whole.

“Are you all right?” I managed, my voice hoarse.

She pushed herself up, her hair a wild storm around her face. “Fine. Just… drained.” Her eyes fixed on me with worried intensity. “You’re not, though. What in the nine hells was that?”

“I don’t know.” The admission cost me. I was the Dark Lord. I was supposed to have answers. I was supposed to be in control.

I frowned, my fingers instinctively tracing the burning runes beneath my skin. The sensation was familiar—that prickling awareness that came when magic shifted in unexpected ways. But this was different. The usual hum of power that connected us to the earth’s veins felt tainted. Like drinking clear water only to find mud on your tongue.

“Something’s wrong with the ley lines,” I said, the realization crystallizing as I spoke. “Something’s wrong with—”

I stopped, the words dying in my throat.

The ley lines were the foundation of all magic in the Western Realms. They were what made the Heirloom of Dominion so powerful, what gave it the ability to dominate entire kingdoms.

I shook my head, my mind already working, analyzing, compartmentalizing the visceral horror of the memory. The burning runes. My mother’s voice. That was old news. The corruption, however—the alien presence in my magic, in my Heirloom—that was new.

And I do not appreciate new things I haven’t personally approved.

I levered myself into a sitting position, my back against the leg of a heavy oak table littered with alchemical glassware. I ran a hand through my sweat-damp hair and let my head fall back against the table leg with a dull thud.

“What. The. Fuck,” I said angrily. “Is wrong with my Heirloom?”

8 Share Your Villain Origin Story

(and Make It Emotionally Devastating)

Kazimir

The door to my workroom burst open with a bang that made my already throbbing head pulse with fresh agony. Vex stood in the doorway, her silver hair a wild storm around her face, eyes wide.

“What in the hell—” she began, then stopped abruptly as she took in the scene before her.

Me, sitting on the cold stone floor, looking like I’d just lost a bar fight with a minor deity. Arabella, tangled beside me, looking similarly disheveled but with an added, infuriating dusting of heroic concern. And air that still sizzled with the ghost of our chaotic portal.

Vex’s gaze flicked between us. Her eyes—today a shade of stormy gray that mirrored the churning chaos in my own mind—narrowed. “My lord. My lady.” Her voice was deceptively calm, but I could feel the thrum of her agitation through the very stones of the citadel. “Judging by the magical signature that just rattled the teeth of every sentient being in a five-mile radius, and your current… floor-based strategy meeting, I’m going to assume the invasion is not going precisely to plan.”

“An astute observation, as always, Vex,” I said, my voice still a rasp. I let my head thump back against the table leg again. It was a nice, solid, grounding sensation. “Make a note: Invading Solandris is marginally more inconvenient than anticipated.”

Vex stepped fully into the room, closing the door behind her with a soft click. She moved with that eerie grace of hers, crossing the stone floor to crouch beside us. “What happened?”

I waved her away, already pushing myself to my feet. My muscles were jelly; my bones felt brittle. But I’d be damned if I’d stay sprawled on the floor like some defeated novice. “The usual.” I gestured vaguely. “A general sense that the universe is conspiring against my meticulously laid plans.”

Arabella swayed as she rose, and I steadied her with a hand on her elbow. “We think there’s something wrong with the Heirloom.”

Vex’s eyebrows shot up toward her hairline. “Again?”

“I need you to handle things,” I said, not giving her a chance to ask more questions. “The army will be expecting orders, which are to hold position until we return in a day or two. Tell Thorne to leave the management to the generals and get his ass back here with Griffin so we can figure out what happened. In the meantime, double the patrols around Skyspire or below. No one in or out without my direct approval.”