Everything went still.
I shifted my stare down, but not by much. Because my mate hovered above the deck, freed from whatever had been holding him. His eyes glowed and an unseen breeze undulated his hair and fur. He looked as he had on the battlefield. Except for one huge difference. This time, Aras knew what he was doing.
Pulses of power lashed out from him, not only freeing us but also releasing his crew. Hulfrin sailors started to snarl and raced for the upper deck while I was still gasping in air. Aras didn't need them. He didn't need anyone's help to face his father. Risarren's arms were locked to his sides, much as Aras's had been, and he was rising to the level of my mate.
“My son!” Risarren declared. “I had no idea. No idea at all that your power would be even greater than mine. This is incredible! I am the greatest sorcerer on Serai, but you have unseated me. You will be a power this world has never seen before. And I can help you, Aras. I can teach you how to—”
“Cease!” Aras growled.
Risarren's mouth snapped shut. And I don't think it was willingly. His eyes went wide as my mate floated closer.
“I thought I had no family,” Aras said. “Raised by humans. I had nothing of my parents, not even their names. Not even the reason my mother died with me in her arms.” He paused to look at me.
“Aras,” I said. “You have me.”
“You have us, Son,” my father said. “We are your family.”
“You have the whole fucking dread,” Ellas said. “There are still a lot of us left.”
Flying in circles above us, my dragons heard this and roared.
Aras looked from them to his father. “Now, I have my answers. I understand why my mother died in that forest. I see what drove her running after my birth. I feel the power you speak of. I know who I am now. Half Hulfrin. Half Eljaffna. But I will never become a sorcerer like you.”
Risarren made sounds, desperate sounds, but his lips remained closed.
“Oh, I'm not saying that I'll reject this magic.” He held out a hand and something swirled around his arm, ruffling his fur. “It is magnificent.” He resettled his stare on his father. “But I will use it to protect those I love, not hurt them.” He looked at me. “I bet you never expected it to be me protecting you, Ly.”
I grinned at him. “No. But I'm not all that surprised. I've always felt your strength. I thought it was my soul that magnified it. But now I see that my soul was only a catalyst toawaken yours. The power has been inside you all along, my love. You are fucking incredible and I'm so proud to be your mate.”
Aras's grin was sublime. “I love you.”
“I love you too.”
His expression hardened as he turned to look at his father. “I would have sought a relationship with you, even knowing your part in my mother's death. That's how badly I wanted a family. But I don't need you. I have a real family. They don't want to use me, and they don't want to rule the world. They just want to be a part of my life. Still, I would have at least let you go. Patricide is not something I thought myself capable of.”
Risarren's stare went panicked.
Aras narrowed his eyes at his father. “But then you tried to kill my mate.” He pointed at his father. “You tried to kill my family.”
Squeaking noises came from Risarren.
“That changes a man,” Aras said. “Goodbye, Father.”
Aras didn't make a motion with his hand or any other signal to the spirits. They just knew. And they carried out his command instantaneously.
Risarren the Sorcerer, father of my mate, died a better death than he deserved. His neck snapped, his stare went empty, and then his head kept turning until it twisted free of his body. When he was truly dead, beyond healing, my mate stepped over to the body. It rose before him, both pieces. Aras held his hand out to me. I joined him and clasped his hand even though I wanted to hold him. Soon. I had to let him finish this first.
Surprisingly, he wanted me to do the finishing.
“Ly, can you burn his body for me?” Aras asked.
“Yes, of course,” I said. “Perhaps it would be better to take him out over the water.”
Aras nodded, and the corpse floated away from us and over the railing. When it was above the water, I summoned my Fire Magic and incinerated it. Ashes spiraled in the wind, floating away peacefully. Only when all traces of his father were gone, did Aras spin into my arms and embrace me tightly.
“You can still be sad,” I said as I stroked his hair. “He was your father, no matter what he did. You have every right to mourn him.”
Aras lifted his head and met my stare. “I can't. Not yet. Maybe after a few decades, when my anger has softened. Right now, I only regret killing him so quickly.”
