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Hundreds of eyes fell on him, waiting.
I’m not questioning your orders to stop the rebellion, Kherathi said. I’m questioning your methods. Is it so wrong for Advanth to fight back for what she believes in? We are forcing our will upon her kingdom. Should we not seek to come to a nonconfrontational solution and avoid more blood spilling? My blades have carried out your bidding for decades. Not once have I denied an order, and in that right, I have gathered much experience in the art of war. This is not one we want to start.
How Tenah had missed this version of her father. His soft but commanding voice, full of passion. When she’d first learned of his profession, she’d found it nearly impossible to merge the honed killer with this version of him she’d loved so fiercely.
With hawklike intensity, Ames kept his focus on the king and his six Ashen executioners.
Your sole purpose is to serve me, Kherathi, the king said. Without question. Without delay. I give the command, and you strike. I deem the queen’s beheading necessary, and you drag your bloodstained daggers across her throat.
Thick tension filled through the room, quickly rising as Sardoth eased back on his throne with a wicked smile.I am angry with you, Kherathi. But I am also a sympathetic king. When I realized that your refusal wasn’t due to selfishness or betrayal—the king’s eyes slid to Avora, burning with hatred—but because you were trapped in the spell of an unholy creature descended from the enemy of our ancestors, I knew what needed to be done.
Dread propelled Ames forward, but six Ashen guards immediately bound him to the spot. Panicked, he looked to Kherathi, also chained to the spot. Veins bulged in his clenched fists, and his expression had turned into something filled with venom.
I’ll chalk this up as your one and only discrepancy for years of loyal service, Sardoth said. But if I ever have reason to question you again, remember this day.
Sardoth nodded at his line of murderers.
Tenah wanted to scream out, but this was only a memory and one that didn’t even belong to her.
Ames. Her mother’s voice rang clear in her mind—Ames’s mind.Fear will be her greatest hurdle.
I can’t do this without you, Ames replied, his words drenched in agony.I have no right raising your child.
Her mother’s corpse thudded to the floor. The following silence was deafening. Guards collected her by the ankles and dragged her from the room, her blue hair fanning out and leaving brush strokes of blood on the floor.
And then, as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened, spectators to Sardoth’s wickedness picked up with their hushed conversations about the weather and whose dinner party was next.
The swell of rage inside of Tenah was unreal.
Ames had always been her rock. A calm, collected figure. But on this day, his thoughts were only murderous toward every soul in that courtroom that had given no value to life.
It was the only answer she would get to what happened at the gathering. Maybe some of her father and Ames’s behavior had been induced by dark magic. Maybe it had only fed into the plans they had already made on this day.
How did she even begin to grieve a parent that had been absent for so long? There was no emotion to cling to. She’d clawed them out of her heart ages ago when she’d convinced herself that her mother had abandoned her because she’d never loved her. Numbness existed where she ached to feel pain. And where she’d felt pain for her father’s betrayal, she only wanted to feel numb.
Was this what had tipped him over the edge too? He’d been sent off to fight in a war he didn’t agree with by a king that had executed his wife. A war he hadn’t expected to win.
Chaos rippled to the forefront of her mind, and she latched onto Aeyis’s arm. His flesh was too hot. Burning under her touch.
Enough,Aeyis, she demanded.
This time, Aeyis tugged free one of her memories. She was maybe nine years old. The death king dangled off the throne in the Void temple. He perked up when she approached, leaping down to sweep her into his arms. He’d grown taller and filled out a bit since she’d last seen him. Wrapped up in him, she didn’t feel so vulnerable or alone.
You came back, he said. Does that mean you will help me end this shadow war?
She buried her head into his neck, seeking the comfort she was deprived of at home. Seeking understanding and tenderness and love.
Yes, she replied.
The death king had become so much more than family. He was everything. For him, she would offer the world.
With his guidance, she found herself standing before the giant arms of a portal in the Void.
This one won’t hurt you so much to open. Just a little bit more, okay?He stroked a finger along the back of her hand. Then he moved to trace the shard of crystal he’d embedded in the stone arms.
Only when the first taloned paw stepped out of the churning rift she’d cleaved open did she understand the depth of his motivation.
Cold magic retracted from her mind, and Tenah found herself on her hands and knees in the archives, trembling uncontrollably. “Why?” Her voice was a ragged whisper. “Why would I do that? Why would I help him summon monsters?”
