Emillie grabbed Madan’s amputated arm firmly, her quiet gasp dragging his attention from Luce to his sister. Following her line of sight, he gaped. The water, still shifting slowly at the whim of Phulan, had begun to glow. As it picked up more and more of the leaves and petals, the tone fluttered from white to pink.
“Keon,” Emillie whispered. “He has not abandoned us.”
Words failed Madan as Luce’s mouth split into a wide smile. This was familiar to her, then. She’d done it.
“For millennia, your children have suffered,” Luce continued, “and now it is time to end their pain.”
More and more, the three parts of their ceremony mixed. More and more the celestial glow radiated, shifting now from pink to crimson. Like blood, it churned through the air on the phantom wind of the fae and mage.
“Walk amongst us, Lord Keon,” Luce pressed on, “and grant your blessing to that which we create in your honor. The journey to kneel at your feet has been completed.”
Crimson light surrounding the ink bled into a deep garnet.
“We have gazed upon that which is most sacred to you.” Luce wordlessly pointed into the shadows where Ehrun sat and crooked her finger in a silent command.
Without needing clarification, Madan took the small silver key from Phulan and stalked over to the dhemon who watched with carefully tempered interest.
“On your feet,” Madan hissed.
Ehrun tilted his head back to glare without moving.
“Fine.” Channeling the command silently, the key in his hand warmed a touch, and at the same moment, Ehrun winced. Moving like a puppet on a string, the dhemon shoved to his feet, the hate radiating from him in waves. Then he moved towards the fire, one jerky footstep after another.
“We have honored your heart,” Luce was saying as Madan returned with the captured dhemon. “Now we ask for your help in guiding the lost souls to rest back where they belong in the sanctuary that is your light.”
At that, the glowing of the ink shifted once more into a shade of deep onyx, its haze undulating like shadows as the mixture came to a halt in the air before Luce. Beside Phulan, Ehrun made a face that distinctly said that he wasnota lost soul and that he certainly didnotwish to be within the light of any god.
“Ink him now,” Zeke said quietly to Phulan.
The mage nodded once and swept the ink through the air with a flick of her fingers. Ehrun jerked back before his body seized up at Madan’s command. Still glowing that strange black light, the mixture pierced the dhemon’s face, just below his eye, without a needle.
“Keon, God of the Underworld,” Luce continued, turning her rapt attention to Ehrun, “welcome Ehrun, husband of Rhana and father of Thavii—brother of Kall. Show him your mercy.”
Blood trickled down Ehrun’s cheek as the ink punched through his epidermis again and again, embedding itself there at Phulan’s will. Madan watched the process, his heart thundering in anticipation. In hope. For if this worked on a full-bloodeddhemon now…nothing could stop them from connecting anyone on Keon’s holiday, Noxidium.
It took some time before Madan realized Luce had stopped speaking and that the only sound still pressing in on his eardrums was that of the snapping logs in the fire. Ehrun hadn’t spoken a word as he endured Phulan’s tattooing process. No one had. Like Madan, everyone merely watched.
Watched and waited.
And as the light faded, the ink settling into his skin, Ehrun’s red eyes softened. For the first time in over a hundred years, Madan looked upon the man who once treated him, a vampire amongst dhemons, like any other.
Ehrun took in each of them, strangers who’d plucked him from the darkness of his own mind, before settling on Madan, the only familiar face amongst them. His lips parted for a long moment, the tips of his sharp teeth glinting in the firelight as he looked at all Madan had become—trulyseeinghim after decades of blind hatred. Then all at once, the great dhemon—the Crowe’s fiercest general and terrifying false king—sank to the ground and wept.
Air rushed from Ariadne’s lungs as Loren’s heavy weight landed fully on top of her, unmoving. She choked out another sob and peeled her hand away from her face. Being there, on the floor with someone she hated so much holding her down…everything about it had taken her right back to those moments in the cells of the dhemon keep. Phantom hands—except that this time, they were not phantom. They were Loren’s.
And he had planned to do precisely what those monsters had done to her.
Another shuddering cry cracked through her lips as she pushed away, desperately working to put distance between herself and the motionless King of Valenul. Crimson stained his silver hair on the side of his head, though it did not gush like a fatal wound. Only when she had pulled her legs free and her back pressed against the arm of a chair did Ariadne take in the rest of the scene.
Nikolai Jensen, the King’s Sword, stood behind Loren holding a dagger, the blunt hilt shining with blood. His brown eyes rounded like saucers as he looked from Loren—his best friend and King—to Ariadne, mouth agape in horror at what he had just done.
But it was not the first time Nikolai had saved her. Indeed, mere weeks ago, he had stopped Melia from well and truly beheading her. He had swayed the wicked mage by promising he would return Ariadne back to Valenul. Back to Loren. Yet even so, he had not followed through. Instead, he let her go, instructing Phulan and Kall to hide her away where Melia would not find them. And then he ran. He returned to Laeton empty-handed—a dangerous place to be with Loren Gard on the throne.
This, however, far exceeded Nikolai’s previous transgressions against the Crown. Rather than claim to have no knowledge of her whereabouts despite helping her escape, he went so far as to attack the very King he had sworn to protect.
“Why?” she breathed, the air hitching from her lungs as she clung to some semblance of calm. Tears continued to fall, the warm streaks of liquid carving new paths down her cheeks from her upright position.
At her question, Nikolai looked down at the dagger in his hand and back at Loren. “He… I could not let him…”
