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Renton’s entire body coiled up. “Explain,” he growled.
“Your little contract to hunt me? Cirel blames me for his loss at Roan’s Wake. Because of that, Tenah became a target. A way to fuck with me.” Kherathi withdrew an ornate glass bottle of amber liquid and two tumblers from an oak cabinet then dropped back into his chair. “Sardoth sent me as a warning to Advanth to squash her little rebellion, thinking I would strike fear in her. Truthfully, I didn’t see fault in what she was doing. Ashens were oppressed and mistreated. Advanth fought so their voices would be heard. So they had a choice in the matter of magical limiters.”
Popping the whiskey cork, Kherathi poured slivers of the amber liquid in each glass then nudged one of them across the desk. Renton stared down at it with a blank expression, all of his energy channeled to the processing of this troubling information.
“Is that why you saw to it to murder Sardoth and his inner circle?” Renton asked.
Kherathi tossed back the whiskey without so much as a wince. “Sardoth’s fate was sealed the day he executed my wife.” His tone was laced with enough malice to peel flesh from bone. “After which he shipped me off to murder Advanth which turned into a two-year war, leaving my daughter to be raised alone in that god-awful manor.”
Brows kneading, Renton scooped up the tumbler and downed the contents. He focused on the burn in his throat. This visit was not going as expected.
“The isles assumed Advanth had turned Corrupt,” Kherathi continued. “That she’d been responsible for gathering masses of feingrot and Chaos creatures. But that wasn’t true. Things had spiraled out of Advanth’s hands. She’d assembled rebels, yes. However, it was Cirel that had summoned monsters onto the battlefield, all thanks to his successful manipulation of my daughter in the Void.”
“That’s ludicrous,” Renton muttered in disbelief.
“Advanth confirmed my suspicions. She admitted to her child having ties to a bloodline that worshipped an entity of death from another world, right before she flung herself upon those crystals to grant us a chance to end the war Cirel had fueled.”
Frowning, Renton’s eyes moved to the whiskey bottle. Though he craved another drink to numb the barbed emotions inside him, he also didn’t want to hinder his reflexes, should the Chaos lord decide to exchange words for weapons.
“After his loss, Cirel vanished.” Kherathi took his time pouring himself another drink. “I’m certain he hid in the Void, waiting to latch onto Tenah again like some sort of parasite.”
Unhinged fury coursed through Renton’s veins. Did this have anything to do with the rifts she’d carved? Or how she’d cheated death?
Renton would tear Adra’s king apart before he let him lay a hand on her again. Maybe he already had. She’d been terrified and unwilling to share what she’d experienced in the field when he’d found her. He clenched the armrests of his chair.
Kherathi’s chest rose and fell with a heavy breath. “I never expected to love that child. She was the product of a union to create a caster of unique lineage, one with the ability to tap into a higher power of healing that could wipe away the consequences of dark magic.”
“She was born a pawn in your game.”
“And quickly became my heart,” Kherathi said darkly, a promise of death in his words.
Was the lord that much of a fool? Didn’t he know he’d hurt her the most?
Kherathi studied the light reflections in his textured glass as he spun it around. With a solid thud, his tumbler smacked down on the desk. “She was six when she summoned her first feingrot inside of our home. Can you imagine?”
Horror churned Renton’s stomach, envisioning the nightmares Tenah must have endured. The isolation.
“When I laid into her about the rift she’d burned open and the dangers within,” Kherathi said, “she mentioned his name for the first time.”
“Cirel,” Renton said, sinking deeper into his chair. His bones felt as if they would dissolve.
Flickers of ocher surfaced in Kherathi’s harrowing black eyes. “He persuaded her to open rifts to unleash monsters from the Void. Told her he wanted to end his kingdom’s suffering. In reality, he wanted to end our world. She wouldn’t have remembered. We did our best to keep watch over her, but the staff lost her for a time. Approved leave from my orders, my Ashen and I found her in the woods. She was in hysterics. I cannot fathom what Cirel did to her in the Void. When she begged us to help her forget, I wouldn’t deny her the comfort. But Chaos interfered with the memory alteration. It preys on her too, conscious of her ability to purify it, should she find the right source of magic in the Void.”
Renton dragged a hand down his face, calluses scratching at his skin. If there was any truth to the Chaos lord’s word, Tenah had the potential to save herself. To save Aeyis too.
He straightened up after a deep inhale. “Would an Ashen be able to recover her memories?”
“At the cost of their own sanity, it would still be a stretch.”
A sense of hopelessness dragged over Renton. “You must know she’s hunting you. She deserves to know these truths. While she’s fixated on you, she’s not concerned about her own health.”
Kherathi gazed into the drained bottle of whiskey as if it might hold the answers. “I can’t. There’s no telling what Chaos will force me to do. It fed off my hatred of Sardoth that night. I had to watch those events play out through the eyes of a body that no longer belonged to me.”
Renton felt ill. It had been easy to convince himself that Corrupt were all monsters, fueled by the darkness breeding inside of them. Kherathi’s admissions proved that some kernel of that shadow lingered behind for a time. That they were conscious, and he’d dragged them into Boedworth’s hellhole, dumping them there to whatever fate.
“Enough talk of the past. That’s not why I’m here,” Kherathi said. “I came to discuss that shard embedded in your heart.”
Instinctively, the lie slid off Renton’s tongue. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
