“That… is Lord Dantalion,” he said, the name carrying weight even in the way he spoke it, stripped of his usual sarcasm.
“He used to be a high-ranking Duke of Hell. Someone who once commanded thirty-six legions, but due to his atrocities and mass murder of his own people, he was stripped of his power and sent here as punishment.”
“Goddess,”I hissed.
“Yeah, you can say that again, girly, as he didn’t exactly need armies to fight his wars, not when he just sucked the life out of them and became the most powerful thing on the battlefield.”
“Fuck.”This time, the curse was uttered through my teeth. I felt my stomach twist at that, my gaze flicking briefly to the ash at our feet.
“Needless to say, he is known for his ability to control life, thoughts, and the will of others… a power he was never fully stripped of, despite their efforts.
“Their efforts?”
“Oblivion helped put him here,” Bo replied, making me suck back a quick breath.
“So now he wants revenge,” I remarked, although it wasn’t exactly much of a guess, as it was pretty damn obvious at this point.
“That and more, no doubt,” he replied before going on to tell me,
“It wasn’t just Oblivion; his father stood with him. Because once Dantalion had grown too strong, once he had gathered enough power to rival a God, that was when they knew they had no choice but to bring him down.”
“But why didn’t they just kill him?” I asked, as well, it would have seemed like the safest choice to me.
“They didn’t kill him because death would have been mercy, and this…” he gestured around us, his lip curling faintly,
“…this is about as far from mercy as you can get and is what he deserved. An immortal king of nothing to live out an eternity powerless and desolate… well, that had been the plan, anyway,” he added, muttering this last part wryly. The words settled heavily, but they didn’t answer the question clawing its way through me.
“And me, was that always the plan, Bo? How could you?” he winced at that before arguing,
“I didn’t know!” The force of his argument rang with something that felt painfully close to the truth.
“You think I would have done this if I had known?”
“Then explain it!” I snapped and watched as his chest rose and fell heavily, as he forced himself to steady.
“I was tethered, okay,” he said finally, his voice rough now.
“Tethered to you. Or to whoever Oblivion’s Siren was meant to be, but I didn’t know… fuck girly, how could I have known… and then that bastard got lucky, seeing as Oblivion’s Siren had some magic in her. I thought it was chance when you summoned me, I thought I got lucky, thought I had finally escaped… but it wasn’t that at all. I was led straight to you, pulled out of this fucked up land of Null, finally able to think on my own,” he said, the words coming thick and fast, like he just needed to blurt it all out, and by the end, I couldn’t help but feel for him. As if something inside me sank at his admission.
“You were used,”I whispered.
“Yeah,” he muttered, bitterness cutting through the word.
“Looks like we both were.”
My gaze flicked back toward the wasteland, toward where those hollow creatures had disappeared.
“And them?” I asked.
“They’re my kind,” he said quietly.
“Or at least what’s left of them. He takes control, traps you inside your own head, while your body does whatever he wants. You feel it all, but you can’t stop it as it feeds him, and let’s just say that there used to be a lot more of us.” A shiver ran through me at this, hating that he had lost so many of his people to such evil.
“That’s why you wanted to stay so badly?” I realized softly, and he gave a humorless laugh.
“Do you blame me?”
No, I didn’t.
