Asterious shifted fully back to his human form, entirely at his own command, and stepped through the rivers of blood as his quivering hands reached for the hilt. He had to believe this time would be different, but he feared a fate worse than pain. What if he was not worthy or strong enough to remove the Blade? What if he’d come all this way for nothing, and he’d led everyone he cared about right into the hands of his sister?
His outstretched fingers touched the hilt. There was no searing pain, no stinging ache that coursed through his body. It called to him, in the same way that Caramyn called to him,through some unseen tether that pulled him to it. As if meant for him, and him alone.
He wrapped his hands around the handle and locked his feet in place beneath him as he prepared to dislodge the Blade. He expected resistance. But there was none. Not even a little. The blade loosened and slid out from the black bark with ease, yielding to his slightest effort to remove it.
A living, breathing weapon, he felt its essence overwhelm him with the whispers of the last Shadowblood’s dying breaths. The blood dried up before his eyes, the last of it flowing into the roots of crimson veins leading into the base of the Veil. A force pulsed out from the Blade, sending a strange ripple through the air that quickly faded.
It had clearly broken at least one simple curse. But could it spare him from the other? He pulled down the collar of his coat, and his heart sank at the sight of his black creeping lines on his skin, still there, still one more stolen heartbeat away from claiming his fate forever.
Unchanged, with nothing left to keep him hoping.
And then the sound breached Asterious’ senses. Boots crunching on the snow.
He turned to face it—Wryan, sword in hand and unfeeling amber eyes on the prince.
“You think I didn’t expect you’d follow me.” Asterious spat, looking up through the ruffled locks of hair above his brow.
“It makes no difference, Prince,” he mocked the last word, a sly grin twisting across his face. “The fact is you brought me here. And now I know just where to bring Sinevia after I deal with you.”
“You may have trained me, but you’re a fool if you think you stand a chance against me, Wyran.” The prince stepped forward, weighing the sword and silently relishing the feel of a blade inhis hand after so long without. At least he knew one curse was broken.
“Oh, I’m not here to try to kill you,” Wyran smirked. “We of course know that would be futile, anyway. But luckily, your sister has much more fulfilling plans for you.” Ignoring Asterious’ perplexed expression, he stepped closer, hand on the hilt of his own sword. “Besides, is that all I am to you, Asterious? Your trainer? Not the man who mentored you every step of the way after freeing you from your father’s prison?”
“You manipulated me. You were no better than my father.” Asterious snapped.
“No, Asterious. That’s where you’re wrong.” Wryan shook his head, closing in. “I’m far greater than your father. Because I refuse to waste powerful resources when I see them. And I refuse to let someone who does stand in my way.”
Then it dawned on Asterious all at once. “You—youkilled the king. Not Sinevia.”
“About time you figured it out.” A darkness overshadowed Wyran’s face as his mouth lifted into a smile, not a stitch of denial in his voice. “Your father was paranoid. And lazy. He dealt with you the easy way. Locking you away in that prison and throwing away the key. But you see, it’s much more difficult to imprison the mind. To create a slave that doesn’t even realize they are one.” He grinned, touching the edge of his blade as he took another step forward.
“You think I’m your slave? You think you control me?” Asterious shifted, hands clenched on his sword, his world crumbling beneath his feet more and more with each word spoken.
“It was working rather well until that little whore came along and unshackled your mind.” Wyran scoffed.
Trembling, Asterious spat, blood and power raging beneath his skin as the Shadows around them wailed. “You think Sineviawill reward you? She’ll dispose of you as soon as you’ve outlived your usefulness.”
“Like you did? The moment I turned on your little witch, I became nothing to you.” Wryan closed the last bit of distance between them and swung, only to be met with sparks from Asterious’ onyx blade.
“You were already working against me. All this time, long before I met Caramyn.” Through clashing metal, the prince bared his teeth. “That’s why you hated her. Because you knew she’d show me what I could not see. Because she would be able to lead me here before you could help Sinevia steal the Veil’s power.” Asterious tightened his grip on the hilt, the crossed blades locked in place as he held his ground against Wyran. “All I want to know is…why?”
Wyran deflected, pushing him away with the edge of his blade. “Someone has to improve upon what your father started,” he hissed, coiling back like a viper waiting to strike. “And despite all the setbacks, I’d say the plan is still not totally ruined. You played right into it. You just led me right to the only thing capable of destroying you…and of opening the Veil.” Wyran gestured to the great wall of unearthly shadow power behind him, as its smoky essence coiled and curled like a void of ghostly serpents. “And as an added bonus, you even brought leverage.”
Asterious circled the glade opposite Wyran, every step measured, every muscle set for the next attack. “If you so much as think of touching Caramyn, I’ll—”
“You’ll what? Kill me? And therefore yourself? Then what?” Wyran’s gaze hardened like the steel in his hand.
“I…I don’t understand why you want any of this.” Asterious squeezed his sword’s hilt, his muscles taut with restraint. He wanted nothing more than to split Wyran in two and turn the snow crimson with his blood. “Why would you of all people want to open the Veil? What is it you’re after?”
“Your Highness, with all due respect, I’m astonished that after all this time you still have not figured me out.” Wyran sneered, cutting into Asterious with each word. “The Veil is not only a prison—it is a weapon. A sealed power so vast that even your father feared to name what lay beyond it. To squander it as a cage for magickind filth is weakness. Sinevia’s power is just a means to an end. She’ll raise me an army of the dead that she believes she controls. She will reduce you to a slave, no different from the rest of your kind. And with your Blade, I will have the power to unchain the Lightborn of my choosing from the Veil—not as citizens, not as allies, but as property. And in due time, alongside you and your sister, they will serve…or they will rot—at the feet of an Iron King.” Wyran’s voice crawled out like the haunting smoke of the Veil behind him.
Asterious faltered for words that wouldn’t come, still unraveling everything, his feet seemingly frozen in place by invisible weights. Wyran stood before him now, merely a few feet away, within a blade’s reach. “And thanks to that delightful ticking clock that is that heartbeat of yours, it’s all entirely inevitable. It’s simply a matter of time.”
“You willneverbe King, you lying, fucking bastard,” he growled, raw fury seething in his bones.
“Me? The bastard?” Wyran let out a cruel, wicked laugh as he closed the distance between them. “Poor Asterious…so starved and desperate for the acceptance of a father, that you overlooked all the warnings right in front of you.” Wyran clicked his tongue. “You foolish, pathetic boy.”
Something in Asterious snapped, and he surged forward, something far greater than rage rising in his veins. He swung the blade, and Wyran parried it with ease, that sinister smile still plastered on his face. Asterious called on that sliver of beastly power and shoved him backwards, swiping at him with the sword again before Wyran caught it in a cross-block.
