“Mother.” My tone was flat, but it was a question. I checked her over myself. She inclined her head the barest, tiniest fraction of an inch. She was unharmed. I turned to my father. “She has done nothing.”
He waved a dismissive hand—as if the idea of him using her against me was nonsense. As if he had not been doing it since the first day I arrived in this corner of hell nestled in the armpit of Velora.
“She is here as a witness,” the king said. “She has seen this before.”
My gaze snapped back to her. “Mother?”
Her dark eyes were full of pain. No. She was shaking. It was the cold. It could not be because?—
“Is it as you saw, before?” the king demanded.
She pressed her eyes closed, as if she could not bear to look at me as she said it. “Yes.”
I did not even understand what was happening. What is like before—this illness? If Alair was sick, then surely there was a cure. The fae here didn’t have much magic left, but there were a few healers. Given enough time, his body would heal itself. He was only half fae, but that was enough. It always had been before.
“Take off his coat,” the king ordered. “Prepare him.”
I’d heard those orders before. I knew what they meant.
No.
My sword was back in my hand. Drawing it had not been conscious. Drawing it in the presence of the King was a capital crime.
My mother broke free of the guard who held her. She stumbled across the icy courtyard, losing her footing. Her chest heaved as she fought for breath. I caught her with my free arm, steadying her on her feet.
“Garrick, my darling, please,” my mother begged. She curled a hand around my face, her thumb grasping at my jaw. “You cannot save him.”
No.
I’d never compelled Alair before. He’d suggested it once from beneath a raised eyebrow, as a form of bed play. I’d balked. It felt like a violation. But I did not hesitate now. I reached into his mind, that joyful, happy place that belonged to the man I loved, to compel him to stand. I told him to stop fighting.
But there was nothing left of Alair to compel. Where it should have been lively and bright, I felt nothing but dark. A primordial, clawing darkness that speared outward, reaching for me, instead. I recoiled.
I slipped on the ice.
“Alair,” I rasped. It could not—no. How?No.
“Deliver the king’s justice.”
The words sliced through my grief. My heart could not process them, but my mind knew they came from the king. Alair was on his knees, all the layers removed from the top half of his body. The lean muscles of his chest, the tapered waist, the trail of dark hair that led downward… the man I loved, reduced to a thrashing monster of darkness.
My father wanted me to be the one to kill him.
“No.”
My mother made a low, keening sound at my side.
My father could not compel minds, like me. He could compel bodies. He could make me do it, and even as I screamed inside at my limbs, they would obey his commands. He would break me, and my mother knew it.
But even she underestimated his cruelty. I did not feel the horrific disconnect as my mind lost control of my body. My father did not use his magic against me. Instead, he met my gaze, his turquoise eyes a mirror of my own. A broken mirror. Then, with deliberate slowness, he dragged his eyes to my mother.
He would not compel or kill me. He knew I did not fear for my own life. He would torture and kill her.
“You are the Duke of Sein Talam,” the King said. “Do your duty.”
The guards grunted as Alair thrashed harder than before. Whatever had taken over his body, it seemed to sense that the end was near.
I did not believe in heaven or hell. But I could not stop myself from appealing to his soul, if it still lingered, if any piece of him could still hear me.
