He’d never felt this way before, it was as if…
Clutching at his chest, he rose, moving swiftly through the pitch black to grab his rune stones from the gilded gold table in the center of his chambers. He didn’t need light to see them—he knew their placement like the back of his hand.
Scattering them across the table, he picked up the ones that had landed face up, feeling the runes etched into them one by one.
Diabolus
Vocarus
Tellus
Restoras
His body went cold. Those runes…that combination. He’d never seen them before. EspeciallyTellus—it had been defunct since Gaia’s abandonment. It had never come face up in a reading before. And that last one…
His blood turned to ice. It couldn’t be. How would that even be possible? They had done nothing—nothing—to regain Gaia’s favor. She had abandoned daemons centuries ago, and they’d never once sought her forgiveness. Why would she…be restored to them?
Closing his eyes once more, he sought that connection to his Master, and there it was—thereshewas. This sense of…contentment, and peace. Balance. Everything the witches stood for, everything the witchesforcedonto them, onto the world. Everything they leveraged to maintain power and control over mortals—it was now here. Inside him.
The thought disgusted him.
Closing off his connection to Iblis, he threw the rune stones down and grabbed his darkrock lantern from the decorative oak table next to his bed. Fumbling around in the drawer, he pulled out his flint and striker, and lit the lantern, instantly bathing himself in its deep-blue flame.
Storming shirtless and shoeless from his chambers, he moved down the dark passageways of the Underworld toward the Great Antre.
Animperiwalking the opposite way froze when he saw him. “M-my king, I was just coming to prepare your breakfast. Do you require something?”
Cole loathed it when they spoke to him. They knew he wanted them to be silent in his presence—their words not fit for Iblis’s ears or his own—so why did they constantly push him?
Of course, he hadn’t specifically asked this one not to speak to him, so punishing him would be frowned upon. But no matter. He would find an excuse to later.
“Fetch my brother and the other upper-level daemons for a Convening. Now!” he declared.
Theimperiturned around and scurried down the hall towards Zak’s quarters, but Cole stopped him as he called after him.
“Steig too,” he added. He needed to know what his little tool knew about all this…because deep down, Cole was sure of it.
This was no coincidence. Just weeks after he discovered his nephew was plotting something with his witch-slave, this happens?
No, he was no fool. He knew without a doubt Ty had something to do with this—the boy had always been tainted by witches in the most despicable ways.
There was no doubt in his mind that he was responsible for this. And he would fix it, and then, as Iblis was his witness, he’d remove his heir from the line of succession—one way or another.
Rushing through the passageways, he arrived in the Great Antre and took his place on his throne at the head of the Convening table, a plan already forming.
He’d go after him. He’d been lenient when Ty fled, choosing to bide his time until the boy made his whereabouts known again.Without him in the Underworld, the threat was all but gone—or so he’d thought.
But his nephew was more of a threat than Cole had ever realized, and he would find a way to end him at all costs.
In record time, the other upper-level daemons who served him began to arrive.
Zak arrived first, his dark-blond hair ruffled from sleep. Cole would have to talk to him later about the disrespect of his disheveled appearance. Then Gunnar and Chans, his most loyal, obedient hellhounds, and the elders. They all whispered and chattered amongst themselves, and Cole let them.
He didn’t need to take part in their tiny, tittering conversations—moving around like scared little mice. When he was ready, he would speak, and they would listen.
Last to arrive was Steig.
The man walked sullenly into the Great Antre, silent as the grave, as he so often was.
