And then the corner of his mouth turned up.
“Very well.”
“We have an agreement?”
He nodded. “And I have to say, I am enjoying this swiftly developing ruthless edge of yours considerably. It will serve us both well with what’s to come.”
I grunted, then called my frost and shadows back.
He didn’t just drop his hand, he linked both of them behind his back, a signal, it seemed, that he wouldn’t touch me again.
For the time being, at least.
With him, it kept coming back around.
Thankfully, we made the remaining journey back to the palace in silence.
Fucking overwrought thing that it was.
Rising like a monument fit for a true megalomaniac, it towered above everything else with pointed intimidation, claiming ultimate dominion, just like its creator. It was made of loads of needle-towers seemingly grown together. The main body was broad at the base, then climbed in tiers, each one boasting thin turrets and spearpoints. The highest central spire looked like it was almost puncturing the sky. The whole thing glowed with deep-blue magical threads.
I rolled my eyes to myself, then focused on clearing my mind.
To keep out all the poison.
To remain levelheaded.
To be able to do this fucking thing.
And most of all…
To. Take. Him. Down.
Impatience was raging through me.
It had been ever since I’d been removed from theNihilumbratorture.
It was why I’d asked for the books.
To keep my mind busy, to focus on something that wasn’t… this.
That I was still physically compromised when I needed to be at full fucking power and capability. And when I was in a hostile, dangerous place. That hostility and danger were masked and kept from being overt in a very insidious way by Ruxnoth, and the way he’d instructed his necromancers—those loyal to him—to behave toward me.
Like everything was fine.
Like this was a place where a real life could be lived and built.
Like he and I were the same—abominations that the world wouldn’t tolerate, now having found a place where we could be free and unleash all that we were, that just one thing needed to be accomplished first.
If Ruxnoth was truly the victim he claimed to be, a misunderstood and unfairly feared and persecuted being, he could have just asked me to wrap my power around his to lend my eternal nature to the Fuel Core. That’s right—he’d shown me the conduit that powered this place—the Fuel Core that he infused his power with, then used this Core to spread it accordingly and strategically throughout the realm.
I knew for a fact that his initial claim to me when we’d first come face-to-face about just wanting a home and needing more power to keep it going, had been an outright lie. During our tour,I’d been taking readings, feeling the magic, the power, getting the proper scope of things. The Fuel Core’s makeup, what it could do, what it actually needed regarding a boost, had proven that yet again.
I’d seen through his lie a while ago, but being here now, it just fucking nagged at me that I’d ever once believed it. That abomination line… likening his situation to mine… using my emotional vulnerabilities there against me… it was likely what had gotten to me back then.
“Fuck,” I muttered, taking one last bite of a seared rib, then pushing my plate aside across the floor.
It was hard for me to eat if I wasn’t in the mood for it, just for the purpose of needing to.
