His hand struck the pillar beside him, the sound echoing through the hall like a blow.
“You fucked your brother’s wife like an animal,” he snarled. “And then you come into my hall and call yourself my son?”
His words were red-hot blades, cutting through the ragged stitches of pride I’d been clutching.
“Father—” I began, but the word died under his fury.
He seized my hair with one hand—and hauled my head back. My cheek met the wall with a sick crack. Stars burst behind my eyes. He shoved again, harder, and my shoulder struck the stone.
“You were swiving your dead brother’s widow while he bled for this city!” he thundered, voice breaking the rafters. “You desecrated his name. His memory. With your filth.”
My knees went weak. The floor tilted. Breath came shallow and sharp, shame and fury slugging at my throat.
“You were always the weak one,” he spat. “Julian fought like a lion. You… you slither. You crawl between legs when men need honor.”
“I love her,” I choked out, the words ragged and useless.
“Love?” His voice caught—just for a heartbeat—before it hardened again. “You dare speak of love to me?” He took a step forward, his eyes burning with something older than rage. “Your motherwaslove. She was light itself. And the gods took her the moment they gave me you.”
His breath hitched, though his tone stayed cold. “Every day since, I’ve carried her death like a chain around my neck. Every time I see your face, I see what she lost—what you cost me. Her laughter. Her warmth. Her life.”
His jaw tightened until his voice dropped. “What you and Helena had was not love. Don’t youdarecall it that. She pitied you—let you crawl into her bed like a stray seeking warmth. You mistook mercy for love, the same way I mistook your life for a blessing.”
He turned away then, shoulders stiff, breath shallow, forcing control back into himself. “I loved your mother more than the gods themselves,” he said quietly, each word heavy with grief. “And every time I look at you, I remember what love cost me.”
It felt like a hand inside my chest, tearing from within. The air left me in one long, hollow breath, and I stood there crushed by grief that had outlived her.
“You were born to disgrace me,” he said, voice low and coiled. “All I beat into you, all I bled into you—You pissed on it.”
“I’m still your son,” I whispered. The sentence was as fragile as parchment.
“No,” he denied. “I buried both my sons in battle. One with honor. The other with shame.”
He watched me as he spoke the last words, as if carving them into stone. “And now I bury your name.”
He leaned close, his whisper a promise of ruin.
“If I ever see you again,” he hissed, “I will inflict my fury into your flesh. The gods may have spared you on the battlefield—I will not.”
The room tasted of smoke and iron. My hands were knotted at my sides. The thing I’d held as identity—son, general, a name to live by—crumbled under his voice. Outside, the morning air held its breath.
I left the house on legs that felt like someone else’s, my father’s words trailing me like a stain.
Everything inside me had been marked.
I stormed to the stables, flung myself into the saddle, and tore through the streets like a demon unshackled. The leather of the reins bit into my palms; my jaw was clenched so tight I tasted blood—iron and fury on my tongue.
Reckless. Unworthy. Useless. Despicable.
Every one of my father’s insults burned into me like a brand.
And I would burn Helena for every one of them.
It had to be her. She’d opened her mouth. She’d told him. She’d ratted me out. She dug my grave with the words that’d killed me here.
Rage in me stopped being human. It was older, colder—a godless hunger, fed on worship and wounds. Let my father think I was broken. Let him believe I’d shattered. From what he destroyed, something immortal would rise.
I barreled into the market, hooves thudding, cloak snapping behind me. People flinched and parted, voices halting mid-haggle. I saw their eyes slide off me and whisper—There goes Salvatore—back from the grave. Something has crawled into him and taken the shape of a man.
