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“I don’t want to go down,” Sebastian said. “I will not go down unless Lucan goes with me.”
Somewhere at the edges of Lucan’s perception, he heard the sound of hooves on uneven terrain and smelled the unmistakeable scent of a path being cut and burned through undergrowth. They were hidden for the moment, but it was an illusion that kept them safe.
All his instincts were telling him that they had been found. Their tracks had been followed. He had a flash of an image of the merchant at Greenbelt lying face down and bloodied amid his goods, the very same royal trinket he took as payment having served as his death warrant.
A day and a half. That was all it had taken for the Death King’s riders to find them. An entire network of spies must have been activated, a creeping network of common people, soldiers, and nobles all turned one at a time by clandestine forced who had operated under the very noses of Melinda and Thadecus Force, both of whom had believed far too strongly in the strength of castle walls to the exclusion of all other forms of security.
“The riders grow near,” Kinsey hissed. “They do not see you, but if I were to drop the veil, you would be spotted at once. How many times are you going to fail your royal duties, Lucan? You're not really a knight, are you? You’re a waif. A stray all grown up but wearing the armor of someone of rank. That’s why you didn’t eat the cake. Royal things were never meant for you. Including the boy. But you are owed more than you think.”
Lucan had the strong sense that this conversation was only taking place between him and Kinsey. Sebastian was still present, but he didn’t seem to hear the devil, and there was a certain shadowing at the edges of Lucan’s vision that made him almost certain they had entered yet another of the devil’s transparent little veils for a private conversation.
“I’ll give you the prince. He can be yours to fuck. Yours to love. Yours to guard. But you will have to learn how to hold his leash, Sir Knight. He may seem like a damp little squib now, but there are seeds of true greatness inside that boy — and there is the capacity for unspeakable evil. You are the hand that guides him. Do you know what that means?”
Lucan shook his head curtly. He did not want to interrupt the devil’s flow with his own words.
Kinsey’s smile grew broad with genuine devilment and amusement. “It means you are the one who determines the fate of the world. You alone, Lucan. All things will come down to you.”
“I could not begin to imagine what you mean,” Lucan said.
“Everyone will imagine little Sebastian Force to be the chosen one. The golden boy. The prince. The vessel of demonic power — and others beside. He is the heir apparent. The savior, or the destroyer. That is what they will think, but I am telling you now, he is nothing but a blade. You will be the one who wields him.”
There was a moment in which the devil’s words made a terrifying amount of sense. Sebastian was powerful, but habitually directionless. He did not have a strong sense of where he wanted to be or what he wanted to do. Even now, when most would crave vengeance to their core, he had a curiously lackadaisical approach to his own survival.
“Come down with us. Learn to use him, Lucan. Command him. Properly. Treat him not like a delicate flower, but like the steel that will separate light from dark.”
“If this is a trick…”
“If this is a trick, then you will have been tricked,” Kinsey said pragmatically. “If it is not a trick, then you will return to the world above after a period of training with a prince who is capable of defending himself, and with new powers. You will have everything you have ever dreamed of. The prince as your consort, the power that lies inside him, and the throne of Force itself. Not bad for a little urchin from a fishing town, is it?”
Lucan did not bother to ask how the devil knew of his past. Devils had ways and means of knowing things, and this one had clearly been keeping an eye on Sebastian from afar since his very conception. Kinsey likely knew the identity of the Death King. He may even have played a hand in the undoing of Melinda and Thadecus Force. After all, Sebastian was of age, and that could mean the devil’s very own son and pawn sitting on the throne.
He had never expected to be responsible for such great decisions. He was a knight, and a knight, at his core, is someone who carries out orders after decisions have been made. Sebastian was not the only one being thrust unprepared into a role he had never truly expected to inherit.
