I wasn’t sure who was more surprised when it snapped apart, Dermet or me.
He looked down at his bare ankle. “She said you had the ability to break magic, but only in defense of others. She was right.” He stood on shaky legs, unfurling to his full height, and suddenly, I wondered if I should have left him chained up for a little longer, rather than let an unknown man free in a small space where I was trapped.
His eyes shone as he looked at me, flexing his ankle. “It’s broken. I’m free.” He tilted his head. “Come, we have to hurry. They’ll find out eventually you’re down here, and then you’re as good as dead.” He moved to thetalin the wall. “You’ll have to pick it up yourself, Avalon Halhed.”
I reached out and grabbed it, the impure magic immediately pulsing into me. Flashes of Lierick’s face and the adulation in his expression drifted through my memories, but I didn’t feelanything like that. Holding thistalmade me feel sick, and I quickly put it back on the wall.
Resting back against the stone, Dermet looked up at the undulating water ceiling. He sucked in a deep breath and blew it back out. “You need to take out your dagger and cut off my head. It needs to come all the way off, or the power might just heal me. Better still, kick my head over to the other side of the room. Then, when I’m dead, smash that cursed thing into a million pieces. It can’t ever be restored. Do you understand me?”
No, I didn’t understand. He wanted me to decapitate him? He was an innocent. A child who’d had to grow in darkness. I couldn’t steal his life from him. I was already shaking my head, and empathy shone from his expression.
Reaching out, he gripped my hand holding my dagger. His skin was cold and clammy, rough from dozens of criss-crossing scars. He let out a soft little sigh. “I can’t even remember the last time someone touched me with anything but malice.”
His eyes closed, and I lifted my free hand to his face, cupping his scarred cheek. He leaned into it, and I stroked my thumb along his cheekbone.
“If my father gets the chance to use me, use that”—he nodded toward the statue—“Ebrus will be forever destroyed.” He leaned down and kissed my cheek. “Don’t let it all be in vain, Avalon Halhed.”
Dermet’s grip around my dagger hand tightened, before he lifted it to his throat and sliced with more force than I could ever have mustered. I screamed as he dropped to the floor, his blood pooling at my feet too fast, soaking into the toes of my boots.
“No,” I breathed, dropping to my knees.
His eyes were sightless, his face slack. He was dead.
“No!” I shouted. “No, this isn’t fuckingfair.”
I didn’t realize I was crying over this stranger until my tears splashed onto his cheeks, his last words echoing through mymind. Crying, I grabbed my dagger back up and cut the rest of the way through his neck. I turned, vomiting to the side, last night’s dinner mixing with Dermet’s lifeblood. I closed my eyes—like not having to watch would make it better—and eventually, there was no more resistance.
No matter what he said, I couldn’t kick his head to the other side of the room. I couldn’t even look at it as I stumbled to my feet, and heaved against the wall once more.
“What have you done?!”
I spun around to see an enraged Feodore Vylan on the other side of the cavern, his eyes locked on his decapitated son.
Fuck.
Twenty-Seven
Vox
Hayle’s Spryrix was something to behold, especially when it was enraged. And it was very,veryangry. Stanlus used his magic, blocking the Spryrix’s attacks, but he couldn’t hold him back completely. The beast was too strong.
Stanlus got slower and slower as he began to bleed out. He was littered with wounds, but the chunk Hayle had taken while he’d first been stunned by the Spryrix was the worst. Stanlus was well trained, though, so he hadn’t stayed stunned for long, and Hayle had his own share of gashes in the Spryrix’s tough hide. They would need far more men to get Hayle down, and the guards just didn’t have the numbers. I was watching Hayle’s back, hearing Stanlus’s pained gasps. It was music to my ears.
Finally, Hayle swept out with his wings, knocking Stanlus from his feet, and Hayle pounced. “Wait!” Stanlus shouted, and Hayle paused. I didn’t trust this fucker, so I ran toward them, placing my sword at his throat. “I know things,” he panted.
Hayle snarled at him, and I laughed. “Unless it’s the way to the afterlife, I don’t think it matters what you know now.”
“What about the fact that your brother is still alive?”
I rolled my eyes at him. “Yaron is dead. I watched his lifeless body sink into the ocean myself.”
Stanlus gave me a cruel grin, his teeth pink from blood. “Not Yaron. Dermet.”
“Dermet died when we were kids.”
“Did he?” Stanlus rasped. “Your father was a cruel fuck, even by my standards. Always good to have someone to aspire to, though, don’t you think?” He cackled, and Hayle pushed his sharp-tipped claws deeper into his chest, making the laugh turn to a wheeze. “Don’t believe me? I bet your little whore is meeting him right now. I’m sure he’s tearing her apart like the animal he is, unless your father gets to her first. A little father-son bonding time.”
I stared impassively down at the man who’d been my father’s favorite boogeyman. “I hope you’ve made your peace with the Goddess, Stanlus.”
