Page 212 of Scourged

Andrian’s hands shook. “Leave him out of this. Please.”

Kol frowned. “I don’t understand why you care.”

“He’s my blood. Of course I care.”

“Oh, but is he?” Kol’s grin now … it raised the hair on Andrian’s arms. Made his shadows quake in his soul.

“Have you ever wondered,” Kol said, folding his hands behind his back, “why you look nothing like them? Why you didn’t get the golden Onitan hair and the ability to wield flames? Why you took so much after your mother, as if her Leuxrithian blood was all you had?”

“I favor my mother. That’s never been a secret,” Andrian rasped.

Kol’s smile was villainous. “And what if I told you that you favor her, because the man you thought to be your sire does not share blood with you?”

The earth tilted.

“What are you saying?” Andrian whispered.

Kol stalked a step closer. “The truth of thereykrsarrival in this world was always my best kept secret. I may have beentrapped in Enfara, but my influence ran deep. You can take the sun from the world, but you cannot take the world from its sun.” Shadows curled off the lapels of his jacket.

“Imadethereykr. With the pieces of my magic that lingered here, I created them. Quickened them in their mother’s bellies. There were always communities in Leuxrith who favored me; in a country so cold, they craved the sun’s heat. The first generation was always the strongest. They carried so much of me, and when raised by loyal mothers, it made it easy for me to wield their minds and shadows as my own. Their offspring made good soldiers, too, but they were more difficult to control. More corrupted by humanity.” He scoffed.

“My magic was not infinite, though. After a thousand years, it all but ran dry, and myreykrfaded with it. Weakened with each generation they bred into until they were all but extinct.”

Kol stood too close to Andrian now, his golden stare level with Andrian’s own. Something in Andrian—something deep and buried and woven into the very fabric of his being—called out in recognition. As if knowing the truth of Kol’s words and knowing what more there was to come.

Andrian, though, simply rooted himself to the bloody grass. His dread and loss and heartbreak was all he had left.

“Until your beautiful, brilliant, loyal mother found the last cache of my power, stored away in her ancestral home.” Kol sighed, almost dreamily. “I did not give it to her; not right away. I used the influence I had stretched into Onita to encourage a marriage between herself and a powerful Royal. Told that lord what was expected of him; he would allow his wife to bear me areykr, the last of its kind. To raise it as his own, a member of his family—his heir, even. If he did that, I would raise his house to unimaginable heights.”

The gardens were silent. The lords and guests watched on, fascinated, horrified, but if they spoke, Andrian did not hear it.

Andrian heard nothing but the racing of his heart and the crushing, knowing agony of his soul.

“And now, here you are.” Kol ran a hand down the side of Andrian’s face. Andrian could not stop the way he flinched at the touch, at the way Kol grinned like someone delighted that what he was doing, what he was saying, was ruining the man in front of him. “It’s interesting that Priam Marked you, but it was but a small hiccup. He has always been an annoyance.” His hand fell from Andrian’s face, and he took a step back.

“The last of thereykr.A once-perfect specimen, Marked by a pest and corrupted by that stupid little goddess. But it is no matter. You were made with the last of my earthly power, the most powerful drop I hid. I think there is time yet for you to reach your potential.”

Andrian begged to be released from this hell, begged for some sort of mercy.

But the gods, as he’d always known, were as selfish as men. They would not listen to his prayer.

“It is time to welcome you back into the fold … my son.”

Chapter 73

Anniliese Hareth walked amongst the rubble, ragged skirts catching on charred plants and scorched stone.

Khento’s gardens were destroyed. They’d always been lovely in a cold, detached sort of way. But now they were gone, destroyed by nightmares and legend made flesh.

Night had fallen and Anniliese still could not comprehend the past day. When Shawth had ordered them all down to attend another ceremony in the gardens, she’d felt only dread. Dread that was replaced by terror, then sickening, puzzling rage.

A breeze swept through the gardens, bringing with it the smell of burnt flowers, charred flesh, and lingering dragonfire. She tightened her cloak around her shoulders against the chill of the night, shuffling forward. Wisps of her dark hair that had fallen out of her coiled braid brushed her cheeks.

Anniliese stepped over a large piece of stone, once part of the risers lining the garden’s central space, and halted in her tracks.

The temporary wooden platform was still there in the middle. Despite the destruction, it still stood, almost untouched.

And atop it, laying behind that mass of foul black stone, was the body of Lisabel Salis. Forgotten, discarded, abandoned.