Page 7 of Fate of a Faux

As if the thought alone somehow conjured the feeling, a sharp sting stabs at my spine, like the cut of a fresh blade slipping beyond flesh and hitting bone.

I tense a moment, brows slashing together as my vision blurs and heat explodes in my chest.I blink, and the Gifted men coming at me come back into view a split second before their blows connect. I open my arms, welcoming what they have to offer.

A loud piercing sound ripples through the air and everyone stops mid-fight. Hot wires coil in my gut and I feel time tick slower inside my head. It almost echoes through the space. Like a reminder ofpainor the warning of it coming. The sound pushes past the throbbing of my own blood gushing through my body, and the hairs on the back of my neck prickle when I register what it is.

There have been three times this alarm has ever sounded. The first was to declare who had won the war—my father. The second time to announce the birth of the Dark Crown’s first heir, Creed’s birth, and the third? When my sister died.

This isn’t good.

Hands grab my arm and I flinch away from them, not realizing it’s Legend. I don't want anyone to fucking touch me. The thought of anyone, even so much as breathing too close to me, makes my skin crawl.

She did this to me.

“Knight!” Creed snaps, and everything comes into clear vision.

My breathing slows, finding my brother’s rampant eyes.

His hands come to my cheek. “We need to leave. This could mean anything.”

“I know.” I blink past my rage for a second, before Creed reaches into his pocket and I look around the space to see everyone else doing the exact same. “What is it?”

Legend shoves his phone in my chest, and I blink down at the alarm that’s going off in the background. This really wasn’t good.

“Are you fucking—”

“Look!” Legend pushes his phone farther into my chest and I watch as everyone around me slowly disappears. I don’t know if it’s out of sight or my own mind pushing them out.

I snatch the phone out of his grip and start reading the words on the screen. I read them over and over again until they begin to blur together. A hollow echo starts roaring in my chest.

“Impossible…” I whisper, all the anger I felt moments ago gone. Poof. Evaporated. “It can’t be…” I read the words again, the siren now scratching on my last nerve.

I read the private message that dings in our group thread next.

Mother:Meet at the Chamber.

I shoveLegend’s phone into his chest, inhaling deeply and reciting the old tongue until black vines start growing from the ground until rounded into a perfect oval. The inside turns a deep obsidian black and spreads like a virus until it fills the space. I shove Legend through and quickly close the Chamber’s portal.

The silence is deafening, and the more that time goes by, the longer my agitation grows. I pull up another portal, the simple kind, a stark difference to the Royal portal, and step through when I see the headquarters.

The throne comes into view first and everything around it fails to exist. The meeting place where we’ve always held the Gathering of Stygians, now too big a space. The ceilings too high, the room too wide. I smell the twist of melted metal as soon as my feet hit the ground.

A wave of searing hot anger rolls over me. I flick my head to the side and the loud snap of his neck breaks the silence. My speed picks up, and the closer I get, the more the reality of what’s in front of me comes into view, the taste of blood slipping down my throat like it belongs there. All other details fade to nothingness as I bend down, swiping my finger in the sticky red pool at my feet.

I remember the first time I truly noticed my father’s eyes. I was young. Young enough to only just notice that they’re a twisted shade of blue. The kind that looks like enchanted skies or cursed waters. Blue, white, cobalt with a hint of silver. They were the color of everything, yet nothing at all.

Or they used to be. Until right now. They stare back at me with an emptiness only death can touch. Bleak and pale, they’d seen three thousand fucking years—all for what? To be taken away by some piece of shit that would never even come near to as important as he was.

Royalty.

King.

Father.

I stand back to my full height, stepping closer to where his head was once attached to his neck. Cut completely off and now at his feet, I study the dagger that’s sticking out where his head should be. The handle simplistic and melted clumps of silver. Reaching forward, I grip the molded iron and force its blade from my father's flesh, watching as blood spills from where it clotted around the sharp point. I tuck it into my belt and step backward, anger snapping down my spine like a jolt of electricity desperate to break all the rage I’ve tried to contain free.

I can’t blink past what’s in front of me.

The tungsten throne’s surface catches the moonlight through the floor-to-ceiling glass windows at the back. This room has been a space for sanctuary in the past. Where Father would announce wars, births, threats, every other fucking thing that needed an audience, with the rest of the Stygians watching on their televisions at home. Mass balls, weddings, it all happened here. In this room. Where the throne never left. Now the two high pointed edges that reach up to the ceiling show nothing but murder. Deceit. Someone murdered the King of Darkness and now… now we are all going to war.