He crouched down on the rug, knees coming close to Topp’s face. “I’ve no desire to sire a new heir. Your mother was it for me, and her son will take my throne.”
Topp’s nostrils flared. Words wouldn’t come, but he knew his father could see exactly what he thought of this.
The king smiled. He stood, looking down at his son. “You’ll come around. Even if not for yourself, then for Elysia’s sake. All it takes is one accusation, one whisper of magic, and a person’s life is mine to turn to dust. You wouldn’t want that, now would you? You may have grown harder over these last years, but somehow I doubt you have the balls to let her die.”
Even if Topp had the voice to speak, he wouldn’t have been able to—his father, executioner of the masses, didn’t think he was capable of allowing someone he loved to die. But hehadbecome someone who did such things. And he had no idea where that left him.
“You will continue as before, but with shall we say, renewed fervor? And you will ensure Elysia is at the Raven Ball. Both of your behavior has been unfortunate as of late, but I’m sure you’ll see to it that she gets in line.” He paused. “Or don’t. But you know what happens then, don’t you?”
His father turned to Terrin. He spoke regretfully. “Iamsorry about this.”
He closed his opposite fist now, his power striking out and stealing the only magic this man had: his life. A gray pallor overcame the king’s loyal advisor. Knees giving out, he toppleddown, his face an inch from Topp’s own, his glassy eyes no longer seeing anything at all.
The king walked casually from the room, whiskey glass dangling between his fingers. “Clean up the mess, will you?”
His father’s magic released him, and Topp fell onto his back, chest quaking and magic darting feverishly back through him like all the candles in a room coming alight.
Physically he would be fine, his body would slowly return to its natural stasis. But what his father revealed had caused a permanent fracture that would likely never heal. It was one thing to question and long for answers. It was another to have your roots ripped out from beneath you, leaving you with only ashes and death to sustain you. No matter his suspicions, it turned out the final moment of truth was still painful.
The image of his sister filled his mind. Gray eyes that matched his father’s, a thick smattering of freckles softening her delicate face. He so rarely allowed himself to think of her—she may have motivated his search, but think of her, he did not. Because to see her face was excruciating. He’d even had all of her paintings removed from the castle. But right now, she was all he could see. Her wood-brown hair and gray eyes stared into his soul, and he knew what she would have wanted.
Revenge.
It had always been about answers. Where did the magic go? How did his familyactuallydie? What would it take to restore his home?
Tomorrow he might care about Kava again. But tonight, he was a brother and a son, and he wanted nothing more than to make the man he called father feel his pain.
The inner turmoil he’d long felt about his father had been put to rest today. In its place was the newly ignited need to shear the life of Garrison Blatz from fate’s tapestry.
He had no idea what his father had done to secure a future in which magic didn’t exist in Kava. All he needed to know was that his sister was gone, and it was because of him. Topp sat up, rubbing his hands roughly against his face.
He knew what fear and hate could do, and he saw it in his father now. Somehow, his father’s past had driven him mad. Because it was madness to wipe a land of its natural magic. It was madness to cut down your own daughter. And it was madness to wield the magic of the gods while cursing their name.
Over the years, he’d seen behind his father’s mask often enough to wonder if Garrison Blatz was really a hero after all. But he’d still felt guilt over his questions about his sister’s death. Because what kind of father could possibly kill his own daughter? His suspicions left him feeling like a terrible, ungrateful son. On the days his father looked at him with happiness and pride in his eyes, the guilt was almost incapacitating. He would look around his kingdom—at all the people who parroted Garrison’s words and cheered for the man who saved them from the destruction of the Fall, and convince himself once more that he must be the one who was wrong.
Garrison Blatz was a good man who spoke the truth. Magic was a curse, and the undead gods did not hear nor care.
But if magic was a curse, then Topp Blatz was the ultimate sin. He couldn’t have stopped the magic in himself if he’d wanted to—throughout his life he’d lurched between feeling dirty and ashamed back to angry and searching over and over and over.
In his guilt, he’d stop all his efforts for a few weeks, but then the anger and questions would return, and his big sister would whisper in his ear, show up on the pages of a book, or in the love of the animals he cared for, and then he’d be back in the thick of it, trying to find answers.
And now, at long last, he knew the truth.
His father may wear many faces: benevolent king, loving father, wise counselor, but beneath them there was only one truth, one face, and it was one of decay. Only a soul who had already lost itself could kill their own daughter. Could rip the very essence out of an entire people and send countless faces to the gallows.
Topp stood, feeling calm in his resolution. He took hold of the dead weight that was his father’s advisor. Throwing the man over his shoulder, he exited his father’s office.
There would be no pleasing his father. There would be no falling in line. Revenge was the only sustenance for his spirit now.
He would solve the riddle of Kava’s decay, and he would rid his kingdom of the plague that was his father.
Topp set off at a brisk pace through the castle halls with his father’s fresh kill swinging behind him like yesterday’s rabbit. He hummed an old song that his sister had always sung.
Death be a fog, but death also be a newfound sight, and Topp felt like he had never seen more clearly in his life.
Chapter 36
Elysia reached over the bar,rummaging around for the gin. Her belly went heavy on the bar and her legs kicked up dangerously as she tried to grasp the bottle she spied beneath the rail.Just a little farther. She strained, fingers swiping.
