“This way.” Lorien and I stifled a scream as Dain appeared before us. His eyes were wide and staring in a way that was unfortunately all too common. I’d found him wandering the street some nights, then was forced to coax him back to our hideout, as he muttered about something. “They’re in here.”
“Who’s they?” Lorien asked, but when he got no answer from Dain, we were both forced to follow our brother. “Who’s through here? Please, for the love of all that’s holy, tell me it’s not cave wights or the city watch. Not smugglers or Drathnor…”
His voice trailed away as both our mouths fell open. It shouldn’t shock us, but the sight of all those mushrooms glowing with a pale purple light haunted my dreams, so seeing them again was no pleasant thing.
Because that’s when the fear began.
My heart was already pounding hard, but now it was only getting faster. It was like a muscle pushed too hard. A painful strain was sure to come afterwards. But whatever the hell was going on with my body, it was nothing compared to my mind.
“There he is…”
There were only four of us in these tunnels, so seeing another had every muscle locking tight. My throat worked whenI saw who it was. My father, the Duke of fucking Harlston, appeared from the shadows.
“Not real…” I whispered. The older children had taught us it was the only way to get through the tomb of Drathnor. “Not real.”
And yet it felt like it was. That black doublet, that long fall of dark hair and eyes just like mine, though twice as hard. It was like looking in the mirror, only to discover the face of evil.
“Son—”
“No.” I threw up my hands as if to ward him off. “No.”
“Now we can be a family.”
I’d wanted that, prayed for that, before I learned who my father was. Other children had men in their lives who loved and protected them. Why couldn’t I have the same? I’d asked my mother. She’d waited until she was older to tell me the truth. That I was not the product of a loving union. The man I was forced to call father had picked her up like other men might a tankard of ale and used her for his pleasure. I could’ve borne the indignity of being someone’s bastard if I had Mother. She told me she loved me more than two parents ever could, and when I discovered the truth, that was enough for me.
Right before my father took that from me too.
That little whimper, I’d know it anywhere, and that had me quivering like a hound with a scent in its nose.
“Mother…?”
When he dragged her forth, that’s when it all came back.
The last time I saw my mother, she’d clawed at the Executioner’s hands, just like she did at my father’s right now.
“Kael…” Her voice trembled in the same way I did now, pinned to the spot. “Kael, you need to run.”
Suddenly I was right back there, hiding in the cellar, but back then she hadn’t been able to say a thing, lest she reveal my presence. She’d just stared, mutely pleading with me to stay put.I had, and I hated that I did, every damn day. If she had to die for the sin of being chosen by the Duke, I should’ve as well. My eyes burned as I stared at her face, seeing it clearly for the first time in so many years. A tear rolled down my cheek and then, I remembered.
Before I was small and weak, but you didn’t spend four years living on the streets of Blackreach without learning a thing or two. My fists balled and my heart pounded, because finally, finally I would have a chance to put this right.
“Let her go, you bastard!”
As I lunged at the Duke, I realised I shouldn’t be shouting anything, but I wasn’t the only one. As I went to strike my father down, Lorien gasped like a fish out of water, but it was Dain’s roar that broke the spell. I blinked, unable to believe it when I saw my mother dissolve into nothing, replaced by the dragon’s skeleton, just in time to see my brother run straight towards it.
“Dain!”
Lorien clawed at me like a drowning man, so he was hauled along as I tried to snatch at Dain’s cloak. The three of us were careening around the cavern like drunkards, and perhaps that’s why this happened. No one touched Drathnor’s bones. To do so was awfully bad luck, but considering what had happened to me since the moment my mother was taken from me, how much worse could it get?
We were about to find out.
The bones burned like ice the moment we touched the ribs, but before I could yank my hand free, the ground gave out beneath us and down we fell.
Chapter 5
Lorien
“Gods…!”
