Текст книги "The wolf and the crown of blood"

Автор книги: Elizabeth May

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Текущая страница: 8 (всего у книги 33 страниц)

15

EVANDER

THE STUDY DOOR creaks open. I keep my eyes fixed on my book as the Devaliant steps into the room, but I track her all the same—the rustle of fabric, the sweet, wild scent of jasmine and rain and soap from the bath.

“Hello, Wolf.”

“Hello, nemesis,” I say, flipping a page. Not reading a damn word.

Her feet whisper across the carpet. “I’m surprised someone as important as you doesn’t have an army of servants. I probably aged a year wandering these halls searching for you.”

“I had to tell them not to come when a mortal princess landed on my doorstep.”

“You’re more than welcome to take me back to Vartena.”

“Still mulling that over. Deciding if it fits in with my plans for you.”

She heaves a sigh. “I need to go home. I told you I have unfinished business.”

I don’t reply to that. Instead, I snap my book shut and toss it aside, pinning her with the full weight of my attention. Her silver-white hair is mussed, cheeks still flushed from the bath. She’s wearing the shirt I left out for her. It hits mid-thigh, barely decent, the barest hint of cleavage. My gaze drags over her legs, snagging on the angry welts and scratches marring her luminous skin—souvenirs from her tussle with my roses.

“Come here,” I say, patting my thigh.

A flush crawls up her neck. “You can’t be serious. I’m not sitting on your lap.”

“No?” I give her a smirk. “You had no problem straddling me when I let you play with my knife.”

“That was different.”

Was it? As far as I can tell, the only thing that’s changed is our location. She’s still looking at me like she wants to bathe her hands in my blood. I’m still picturing how she’d feel on my cock.

“I need contact for my power to work. So unless you’d prefer me to lay you on the rug…” I pat my thigh again. “Sit.”

For a moment, I’m sure she’ll tell me to go fuck myself. I practically see the battle waging behind her eyes, the swift calculation of her rapidly dwindling options.

Then, as if the concession is being dragged out of her, she steps forward and settles across my thighs as if she’s lowering herself onto hot coals. “Happy now?”

“Ecstatic.” I reach for the buttons on her borrowed shirt. “Let’s see what damage is left.”

Her hand shoots out, fingers wrapping around my wrist. “Don’t get any ideas.”

I arch a brow. “About what? Healing you? Or the fact that you’re about to be naked in my lap?”

“Both. Neither.” She blows out a frustrated breath. “Just… behave.”

“I always behave. I just have my own definition of good behavior.”

After a second of hesitation, she slowly releases me.

I take my time with the buttons, each slip of fabric a slow reveal. The delicate hollows of her collarbones, the smoothness of her sternum, the lush swell of her breasts. Her nipples pebble in the cool air, and I bite back a groan. Devla svaust, the stars made my nemesis pretty.

She tracks each movement, a faint tremor running through her. As if it’s taking every scrap of self-control not to bolt. Not to snarl and snap.

Good. If she didn’t have the sense to be afraid of me, I’d be questioning her intelligence.

“Relax,” I murmur. “I won’t bite unless you ask me to.”

“That’s not as reassuring as you think it is.”

My hands find her waist as I unwind the bandage with careful fingers. Her breath hitches when the wrap falls away, exposing what remains of her wounds: some slight bruising, some cuts not yet fully healed, her new injuries from my garden. Yesterday had been about keeping her from slipping into the Void, mending all the internal damage. Today is for the rest. The small agonies.

I flatten my palms against her ribs and carefully channel my magic into her. Not too much—just the faintest lick of warmth chased by a whisper of pleasure.

“What—” Her voice breaks on a gasp. “What are you doing?”

“Healing you. Unless you’d prefer I stop?”

A shiver rolls through her as another pulse of power sinks in. Her spine arches, those long lashes fluttering against her cheeks. The scent of her arousal blooms in the air, rich and heady, and when her eyes open, she looks perturbed. Irritated.

I hold back a laugh. The Devaliant wants to fuck me—and she hates herself for it.

“Doing okay there?” I ask, all innocence.

I’m a bastard. A killer. I’m going to ruin this girl’s life. But I’m not quite cruel enough to point out that I feel the slick heat of her pussy through my trousers, not when she’s this close to bolting.

She gives her head a small shake as if to dislodge an unpleasant thought. “It feels… different from before. The pain is less.”

I hum thoughtfully, letting my touch skim over the delicate ladder of her ribs, the sharp jut of her hips. So many lovely bones. “I was out of practice yesterday and kept it brief so I didn’t accidentally do any damage. But this gift wasn’t for the battlefield. It was meant for worship.” I pause, meeting her gaze. “For giving pleasure as well as mending.”

Her thighs clench around my hips and her ass squirms right over my cock. I grit my teeth, shifting her back so she doesn’t feel how hard I am. If she keeps moving like that, this is about to get uncomfortable fast.

“Let’s keep things strictly clinical, shall we?” she says tightly. An attempt to reestablish boundaries eroded by proximity and sensation.

“If you insist,” I say, shrugging. As if I’m not aroused just from having her here.

I gentle my touch and keep the contact chaste as I work. She swallows, glancing away to focus on the roses snaking up the chamber walls and nearly covering the ceiling.

“Your roses are lovely. The way you talked about them before, it was almost as if…” She pauses, careful. Deliberate. “As if you spoke to them.”

Something tightens in my chest—some wounded thing I buried three hundred years ago. My hands flex against her waist before I can stop them, an aborted flinch. I’m tempted to remind her of her place. Show her the cost of prodding at old scars.

Instead, I shove down all those inconvenient thoughts and say, “The realm granted me the power of an Eternal. It recognizes me as part of itself. Sometimes, it speaks. Sometimes I listen.”

“And what does it say?”

And this is the side of her I don’t know what to do with. Always pushing, pushing, pushing. Seeking out the ugly, squirming bits and holding them up as if to say, Look what I found. Aren’t you curious? Aren’t you dying to unearth all the broken pieces of yourself?

No, vicious girl. You don’t get to see. You don’t get to pluck out all my ugliest secrets and pin them to the wall for your perusal.

The roses creep and curl along the stones of my tower, an ever-present reminder of my failings. Of the king I refuse to be. And each year, the branches grow thicker, the blooms more suffocating. The realm’s wordless message grows louder.

You’re abandoning your responsibilities. You’re wasting all that power I gifted you.

I lean in and whisper, “It says you ask too many fucking questions.”

She snorts. “I hope it scolds you for being a neglectful gardener. The weeds are staging a revolt. Your roses are strangling your tower.”

“My duties keep me away,” I say curtly. “You’re very chatty and judgmental for someone at my mercy.”

“You’re awfully defensive about some roses. Maybe I want to know more about the male who’s going to kill me. Is that so strange?”

“Strange? No. Foolish? Absolutely. The more you know about the monster, the harder it becomes to despise him.”

“Bold of you to assume I could ever stop despising you.”

I glare at her and shove another pulse of magic into her body, watching her eyes flutter shut. A low moan catches between her teeth as the last injuries knit closed without a mark left behind.

“You’re as mended as you’ll ever be.” I run careful fingers over the smooth skin. “Not even a scar. See? I’m very talented.”

Emotions flicker over her features as she takes in the flawless expanse of her torso. “It’s like it never happened.”

Something in me gentles. “The worst ones never really go away. No power in either realm can heal those.”

Those are carved into the soul, knotted up and gnarled in all the black spaces. The holes where something precious used to live before it was ripped out at the root.

My attention snags on her arm—on the ladder of neat marks scoring her flesh on the inside crease of her elbow. Deliberate. I trace the outer ridge with my finger with a barely there graze. “These aren’t from a fight.”

They’re too precise. Each notch is the same depth and width, five of them lined up like little soldiers.

A sudden tension thrums through her. “No. Those are private.”

“And this?” I shift to the mark slashed across her throat, a brutal seam of scar. It was a killing stroke. “Is this private?”

The Devaliant clears her throat, shrugging back into my shirt. “It was given to me,” she says, doing up the buttons, covering up all that flawless skin again. She makes no move to dislodge herself from my lap. “By a nobleman who thought he was entitled to take whatever he wanted. When I refused him, he decided if he couldn’t have me, no one would.”

A quiet rage simmers through my veins. What sort of cowardly piece of shit tries to murder a woman over saying no?

“Give me his name.” I can’t keep the anger out of my command.

The beginnings of a slow, savage smile tugs at her mouth—a glimpse of the creature she could become if given enough time and the right incentive. “He’s already dead. The palace guards saw to it.”

Some of my bloodlust banks. “Then where are his remains?”

The amusement stays. I love that expression on her, the way her face lights up. “Planning to decorate your garden with a rotting corpse, Wolf?”

“Don’t be crass. I’d get you a courting gift first. Carve his spine into twin hunting knives and present them to you on a bed of his viscera as an early deathday present.”

Because nothing says budding nemesis-ship like the desecrated corpse of her would-be murderer. I’m thoughtful when I put my mind to it.

For a moment, she just stares at me as if trying to parse whether I’m joking.

I’m really, really not.

But slowly, impossibly, the corner of her lips twitch—and then I hear it. A short burst of laughter. A fragile thing, barely there and gone too fast, but real.

My chest squeezes. Do it again, I almost command. Do it until I get sick of it.

“Corpse mutilation is a waste of your talents,” she says, still smiling. “Sweet thought, though. In a disturbing, deranged sort of way.”

“I have my moments.” I trace the shape of her scar again in a leisurely drag that makes her breath catch. I want to memorize every bump and ridge, every mark and hollow. To paint the patterns of her pain with my fingertips until I’m able to recall them blind. “He went for your throat like a craven because he knew that’s where he could steal your voice.”

Where he could leave her silent and small. The kind of woman who bargains death with a god deserves better than cowardice.

The Devaliant’s face shutters, all that lovely amusement fading. “Yes. The healers did their best, but…” She trails off with a half-shrug. “My voice was never quite the same after.”

I curve my palm around her nape, fingers sinking into her hair. Power unspools from me in slow, pulsing waves, and the Devaliant tenses at the first electric lick of it over her skin. The instinctive flinch of prey.

“Name all your enemies,” I say. “Everyone who might hurt you.”

A considering pause. “Well, there’s you. Obviously.”

This fucking girl.

“Someone other than me. I want to know who might think to snatch you off the board before I’ve finished playing with you.” I tighten my grip, relishing her sharp inhale. “Give me names.”

“I hardly think it matters at this point.”

“It matters,” I growl, “because now you’re an Unclaimed Devaliant.” I tap her bare wrist where Alexios’ mark used to glow. “Which makes you a prize. Every human and demi in the realms will be salivating at the chance to collar you.” To rip you open and rearrange all the messy bits into a shape that pleases them.

She looks away. “Look, just take me back to Vartena and let me deal with the person who tried to kill me on my own terms. Give me time to say goodbye to my sister. I’m sure you’ll get your piece of flesh from me before anyone else.”

“Tell me you’re not completely helpless, at least.” I duck my head to meet her gaze. “That you can use a blade. Anything that might make me believe you won’t be dead within an hour of crossing the Shroud.”

The Devaliant’s expression shutters. “I’m a Princess of the Blood. We don’t fight. We bleed.”

Of course. Of course, they taught her jack shit. They wanted her soft and yielding. Built for the altar, for bearing little Devaliant brats to continue the line of Anchors.

I can keep Alexios and Bastien off her scent until I hunt her down. But whoever dumped her on that ridge and left her to bleed out in the cold? Any other filth who sees the Devaliant and feels entitled to her?

Too many variables. Too many opportunities for someone to steal her. She wouldn’t last a day.

“Change of terms,” I say on impulse.

The Devaliant stills. “Sorry?”

“I’m not taking you back yet. You’re staying here.”

“No.” She jerks away, nearly falling off my lap. “You can’t—you’re not Claiming me, are you? After what Alexios did—”

I catch her wrist, squeezing. “Would you shut up for five seconds? I don’t want a Claim, you impossible creature.” Her pulse hammers against my fingers. So fragile. So damn breakable. “How exactly do you plan to get revenge? I’m betting the person who put you on the Duehavn has guards, right? Protection detail you’d have to get through? And the only blades you’ve handled are the ones you’ve used on yourself and whatever butter knife they trusted you with at dinner.”

Her jaw clenches. I’ve struck a nerve. “Then teach me to fight.”

I don’t hesitate. “Done.”

Her eyebrows shoot up. She wasn’t expecting that—probably assumed I’d laugh at her. “Just like that? I thought you detested me.”

“Oh, I fucking loathe you.” It’s important she understands this, that every mercy and moment of kindness are gifts I grant for my own amusement. “I hate everything about your family. The sound of your name makes me want to tear out your throat. But I have no intention of letting anyone else kill you. Nothing that’s mine gets broken unless I’m the one to break it.”

“How generous of you.”

“I’m a giver.”

Silence stretches. I let it linger, let her consider my offer, watching emotions chase across her face as she weighs her options.

“Wait.” She shifts on my lap. “I thought Alexios wanted my corpse.”

I shrug. “Alexios will get what’s left when I’m done. As far as he needs to know, scavengers got to you first. They would have if Amara hadn’t found you.”

“And what price am I expected to pay for this?” she asks with a scowl. “What do you get out of it?”

I stroke my knuckles down her cheek. “I’m not doing this out of the goodness of my heart. If it hasn’t escaped your notice, I’m prone to destructive behavior in my boredom, and you’re the worst idea I’ve had in centuries. I’m curious to see what sort of monster I can shape you into, given time and a blade.”

Her brows knit together in indecision. She’s so easy to read, even as she tries to lock herself down and bury all her soft places behind a facade of fire and thorns and defiance.

“Here’s my negotiation,” I continue, almost gently. “You can crawl back to Vartena and spend your numbered days trying not to get eaten alive. Or you can stay here and be my temporary entertainment. The more interesting you are, the longer you live. So take what I’m offering, extend this short mortal life with me a little more, and walk out my door ready to claim your retribution.” My hands stroke down her sides, fingertips dragging over each ridge of her ribs. “But remember this. Your death is mine. It’s always been mine. And when I get bored and you stop being fun?” I wrap my fingers around her throat. “I’ll hunt you across both realms and through the Shroud itself. And when I find you, I’ll rip you open and eat your heart while it’s still beating.”

Some dark and ravenous emotion flickers in the Devaliant’s face. “Maybe I’ll get good enough to carve out yours first.”

Laughter rumbles out of me. Oh, she’s going to be so much fun to conquer. I can’t wait to see what she looks like by the time I’m through with her. “I’m counting on you trying.”

She inhales a shuddering breath. I watch her piece herself together, shore up her crumbling walls, attempting to hide all that human vulnerability. It’s cute.

“When I’m ready—when I say I’m ready—you’ll take me to Vartena and give me a three-day head start to settle my business. And you won’t ever Claim me. Promise.”

I study her face. Something about her makes me want to push until she pushes back. “Worried I might keep you?”

“Swear it.”

My mouth curves into a slow smile. “You have my word. No Claims. Just an agreement between a god and his new toy.”

Her eyes flare. She holds my gaze like she’s planning the ways she might try to kill me. She’d fail, but I’d admire the attempt. “I’ll stay if you never call me that again.”

I squeeze her throat slightly as a reminder that I’m being merciful enough to let her negotiate when I can rip her apart. “You’ll stay because you need my mercy more than I need your entertainment.” I lean in close, whispering, “So I’ll call you whatever the fuck I want. Toy. Pet. Mine. Still interested?”

Her lip curls in a little snarl at that. “Fine. Deal.”

And just like that, I’ve got myself a Devaliant to play with.

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16

EVANDER

FUCK, I LOVE SUNSETS.

There’s something savage about that final blaze of color spilling across the horizon—the way the gold burns into red before the dark swallows it up. Night always wins in the end. It’s nature’s daily execution.

I breathe deep, filling my lungs with salt and brine and the hint of a coming storm. Below, the waves of the Rionese Sea crash against the rocks. The village of Keksa sprawls along the coast, its quaint cottages and winding cobbled streets still peaceful. Indigo and pink flowers spill from window boxes. Linens flap in the wind on laundry lines strung between buildings. Gulls wheel above me, their cries piercing the air.

Pretty little place. Shame I have to tear it apart.

Wolf. Alexios’ voice lashes through my mind, impatient. Stop fucking around and finish the job.

My wings rustle with irritation. I’m enjoying the view first. Taking in the ambiance.

I want the village destroyed by moonrise, Alexios says, his displeasure crackling along my nerves.

The mind-link severs with a vicious twist that leaves copper flooding my mouth. My tongue probes the split flesh of my cheek. Alexios has always been a dramatic bastard who likes to punctuate his orders with gratuitous violence. Three hundred years of this shit, and he still thinks pain is an effective motivator.

I sweep my gaze over Keksa again. All that charm, and tomorrow it’ll be wiped off the map because of that age-old human weakness: hubris. In this case, a mass quantity of it—this entire village chose to abandon their local temple and stop tithing. They’d voted on it, the arrogant pricks.

That’s the problem with these remote communities. They hardly ever see gods, if at all. We might as well be a bedtime story, a myth to scare children into giving a drop of blood into the collection channels. The elders who witnessed the war that tore Vartena apart are long gone, and their descendants are soft. Lazy. They never see any bloodshed except for a bimonthly fingerprick, and they start thinking, “What’s this for?” Because peace has been there since the day they were shoved out of the womb, and none of them realizes that the price for it was paid in blood. Their ancestors’, my mother’s, my brother’s, mine.

Like too many Vartenans, they’ve forgotten what it’s like to stare death in the face.

When the oathbreaker marks appeared on their wrists, they finally got it through their thick skulls that they weren’t beneath Alexios’ notice. No one is. Some tried to make a run for it, but I tracked them down days ago. It’s almost a mercy that I’m here to reap the rest. Dread is its own kind of dying.

Feathers rustle above me, and Amara drops from the sky with a flap of charcoal wings. The sunset bleeds through her hair, dying the light purple strands in streaks of scarlet.

“What do you want this time?” she asks, voice sharp with annoyance. “I thought I told you not to bother me again unless the realms were ending.”

I don’t look at her. “Yet here you are. Always showing up. Do you miss me? Is that it?”

She scoffs. “Arrogance is even less appealing on you than bloodstains and grave dirt. I don’t know how you stand yourself.”

Amusement kindles despite myself. “Even villains get tired of their own reflections,” I say wryly. “I’ll make this quick before Alexios joins us. I’d hate for him to catch you. It’s about the girl.”

Amara laces her fingers together, interest sparking. “Did she fight back when you killed her, or did she just lie there like a good little sacrifice? Do I get a thank you for bringing you a Devaliant to slaughter after three centuries of being forbidden to touch them?”

“The Devaliant is staying at the tower.”

Her mouth hangs open. “What? For how long?”

I shrug. “The foreseeable.”

“The foresee—” Amara stares at me like she’s trying to pinpoint the exact moment I lost my sanity. Then she grabs the front of my shirt. “I did not,” she hisses, “almost get caught dragging the princess’ half-dead ass across the Shroud so you could adopt her like a stray cat and make her your personal cock warmer.”

I catch her wrist in a bruising grip. “You’ve got three seconds to get your hand off me before I remove it permanently.”

She wrenches free. “Tell me you’re not Claiming the Devaliant. Tell me you’re not that stupid.”

“I’m not Claiming anyone.”

Yet all I’ve been able to think about for hours is the weight of her in my lap, all that bare skin like a blank canvas begging to be marked. But I am not a thing that wants, and she is not a thing to be possessed.

“You despise mortals,” Amara says. “Especially Devaliants. You told me you were going to stitch her up and make her wish you’d killed her quickly. And now you’re letting her live? Are you that desperate for company in your creepy murder tower?”

“Don’t be ridiculous.” I roll my eyes. “The Devaliant lacks even the most basic combat skills. She’s never held a blade she didn’t shove in her own heart. They raised her soft and breakable for the altar. “

“And? What’s that got to do with anything?”

“So”—I smile pleasantly—“I want you to train her.”

Silence stretches between us, filled with the cry of gulls and the distant crash of waves against the cliffs.

Then, “You’ve lost it. You’ve finally cracked.”

Well.

It’s not untrue. I left the best parts of my sanity somewhere amid the corpses in Turpori and abandoned it completely when I lost my family. But that’s neither here nor there.

“I want her proficient in every weapon she can lift,” I say, as if she hadn’t spoken. “Any style she shows an aptitude for. She needs to be able to incapacitate a male three times her size in under sixty seconds. She’s got business to settle in Vartena, and she has to survive long enough to make it interesting when I end her.”

She looks at me in annoyance. “Train her yourself if you’re so obsessed with turning a Princess of the Blood into a killer for your amusement.”

“I’ve never been much for honing delicate things. And you owe me, Amara. For services rendered.”

“Services rend—” she sputters. “Blackmail isn’t a service, Wolf. It’s coercion. You’re holding my secrets over my head to get me to do your bidding.”

My smile doesn’t waver. “It’s generous discretion between friends. A favor for a favor. Because if you don’t agree to it, I’ll tell Alexios where you are. How happy do you think he’ll be when he finds you, hmm? When he realizes you’ve been lying to him?”

All it would take is a few whispers in Alexios’ ear to watch her burn. I won’t actually do that, though. Probably. Unless she irritates me.

Amara’s lips flatten. “Fuck you.”

“Not interested. Are you doing this for me, or am I telling him?”

She crosses her arms. “Who exactly is the princess planning to kill? Just her attempted murderer or every idiot guard who ever glanced at her tits? What kind of training are we talking about?”

No, don’t like that. I don’t like the idea of anyone else’s hands on the Devaliant or someone other than me looking at her tits. From this moment on, she’s mine. Those tits are mine, that body is mine, her remaining days are mine.

Her death is all fucking mine.

“I don’t care if it’s anyone who’s looked at her wrong, touched her wrong, opened their big mouth to degrade her, or breathed wrong in her general direction,” I say, ticking off the options on my fingers. “That’s her business. I just want to ensure my prey can give me a good chase before I rip her throat out.”

Amara studies me, probably comparing this current unhinged me to the god she’s known for hundreds of years. “You know what your problem is?” she finally says.

Fuck’s sake.

“By all means, enlighten me with your pearls of wisdom.”

“You used to have some glimmer of control. But I think you’ve spent too long bathing in entrails. Between that and the isolation at your little hermit tower, your few remaining virtues have shriveled up and died.”

“Are you done with the character assessment?” I ask with a sigh. “Because I have a village to slaughter, and you’re cutting into my murder time. Do we have a deal?”

Amara’s gaze drifts over Keksa, studying the meandering lanes strewn with flowers. I wonder if she’s picturing how it will look when I’m finished.

“Fine. I’ll do it. But you don’t get to hold this over me again. Swear it.”

“You have my word.” I pause, considering. “When you train her, aim for the soft spots. I want the kill instinct hammered into her skull. It’ll make things more interesting.”

Amara shakes out her wings, getting ready to take off. “You’re a sick bastard, you know that?” Her lips twist. “I’ll come to your tower at first light.”

“Wait. One more thing.”

She looks over her shoulder. “What now? Need tips on proper pet care? A manual for keeping princesses in captivity?”

I hesitate, searching for the right words. This will require a delicate touch. “The girl was whining about clothes earlier. Basic shit. Necessities.”

“I fail to see why this concerns me.”

“Well, that got me thinking. What’s the opposite? Of necessities?”

She squints at me. “Is this your addled attempt to ask me what gifts you should get for your pet mortal? Because that’s adorable in a demented, unhinged way.”

I’m about to break every bone in her wings, possibly twice. “It’s not a gift. I’m curious to see what she does.”

With softness. With things she’s never been allowed to have.

“Let me get this straight.” She pinches the bridge of her nose. “You want me to help you spoil the girl you’re planning on murdering?”

“Less commentary, more answers.”

“Sweets,” she says after a considering pause. “The more decadent, the better.” She shakes her head. “Why do I feel like I’ll regret telling you that?”

I ignore that, my mind already making plans. Miniature ambrosia cakes. Fruits drizzled with honey. I’ll hand-feed them to the Devaliant, a bite at a time—a nice interlude before I kill her.

“What else?” I ask, dragging myself from the edge of distraction.

“Let her lead. Something tells me agency and autonomy have been in short supply for a Princess of the Blood.” Amara’s wings rustle. “Maybe if you give her a little freedom, she’ll bite back harder. Show you what she’s made of.”

Yes, that’s good. The Devaliant has been an Anchor for the Shroud her entire life, her choices stripped away. She seemed to enjoy being in control when she cut me up with my dagger.

“A word of advice.” Amara gives me a look of distaste. “When you go to her later, try not to be covered in human guts, you savage.”

Then she’s flying off with a sharp flap of her wings.

Well, then.

I turn back to the village and take in another breath of the sharp air, admiring those quaint cottages before they’re rubble.

Time to get to work.

Power ignites within me, and with a downward thrust of my wings, I launch into the sky. Screams erupt as I tear into a building. Someone tries to run past me, but I catch them by the throat and squeeze until something snaps.

The first death is always the hardest. After that, I become the monster they made me into.

There’s an art to carnage. A poetry in the way bones break and flesh yields. You have the hands of an artist, the Devaliant said, and she was right. I’m a masterful painter, and tonight, this settlement is my canvas—a masterpiece of violence. The blood against the red hues of the fading light, the rubble silhouetted in lines of teal, the stars glittering above the slaughter.

I paint the world in my fury.

A whisper echoes through my thoughts, the ghost of my mother’s voice: Destruction is easy, son. Any beast can tear something apart.

“Shut up,” I mutter, crushing another windpipe. “Just shut the fuck up.”

Some human tries begging me, but I barely even hear it over the buzzing in my head as a deluge of memories batter at me. Images flash of the decimated cities in Scillari, all our dead, the pyres stacked high. These people squandered the peace we paid for with our lives and sanity.

Three hundred years isn’t enough to forget. Vengeance is a cruel master, and it never lets me rest.

By the time the last body hits the ground, my ears ring in the silence. I’m drenched in gore, my clothes barely visible. The stink of death is overwhelming. I straighten and take a slow measure of the devastation I’ve wrought—a once thriving settlement is nothing more than rubble and dust.

There’s always a strange stillness after a slaughter, a sound unique to each place. Here, it’s the lapping of distant waves and the rhythmic grind of sea rocks, the coo of a bird in the distance. And in that hush come the too-loud thoughts.

I want a drink.

I want my brother from before the war.

Remember when you were more? When you wore a crown instead of a collar?

I shove the images down where they belong, into the locked box in my chest where I keep all my weaknesses. There’s no place for sentiment in this line of work.