“Harming her goes against the treaty,” Altair added weakly. “The Children promised that others with that same power will rise against us if anything happens to her.”
“If Ozul consumes the wind power, it won’t matter,” Lord Heron said confidently.
I could feel the blood drain from my face, and I had to brace myself on the doorway to keep from falling.
Altair seemed to draw himself up straighter. “I won’t do it.”
For a moment, Lord Heron was quiet, and only the roaring of the fire could be heard. But then he said, “Maybe your father was always right about you. Or have you forgotten what he used to say?”
The flames flickered and flared brighter, and then suddenly, images appeared in the midst of them. The man from the paintings that hung throughout the palace—Emperor Lamir—glaredout from within the fire. His hair was darker, without as much silver as it had even in the painting. He was holding what looked like a broken-off leg of a chair. Near the base of the flames, bloodied and crying, was a very young Altair. He couldn’t have been older than seven.
“Please, Father,” young Altair cried, holding up his hands to ward off the blows. “I’ll do better with the spear. Please stop hitting me.”
“Stop crying,” the emperor roared, beating him again, but never in the face. “Your cousin Talon has already mastered the spear, and he’s only a few months older than you!”
The beating continued, Altair’s wails having no effect on his father.
“Why was I cursed with a worthless son like you? I wish you had died with your mother.”
I flinched away from the savage words, the cruel blows, but I could see that this beating was not a unique event. It had happened before, and it would happen again, many, many times until his father finally died.
Altair now stood before the phantom images in the fire, shoulders hunched as if to ward off the blows.
“Worthless and better off dead,” Lord Heron said.
Altair shook his head roughly. “Stop it!”
“And then, of course, there’s the truth I helped you hide. The truth about what you did to him—your own father.”
The images changed to reveal an opulent bedroom. Altair quietly entered under cover of darkness, gripping a dagger in his right hand. His father slept quietly, bare-chested despite the cold. Altair walked over to his father’s bed, dagger raised, and in that moment of hesitation, his father opened his eyes.
“You wouldn’t dare,” he said and closed his eyes again.
The sound of the dagger hitting his chest was as loud as a punch, and when his father opened his mouth in shock, blood bubbled out.
“Finally you grew a pair,” he said, and promptly died.
He killed his father. He killed the emperor.It seemed impossible, and yet, I’d watched him do it, and I knew the emperor was dead. Obviously, the palace had covered it up and spread the word that Altair’s father was killed in battle.
The weight of it—seeing the truth of what happened to the previous emperor—felt like being suddenly doused with ice-cold water. I couldn’t move. I could only watch helplessly as Lord Heron and the creature continued their torture.
Tears streamed out of Altair’s eyes as he stood over his father’s body, and he shook so violently, I thought he was seizing.
“I freed myself of the monster that had abused me every day of my life, but I didn’t know what the consequences would be,” Altair said.
“It led you to Ozul, so that was well worth it,” Lord Heron said.
The flames told the story of how Altair had been tortured by the memory of taking his father’s life. He relived it almost constantly, until in the dark of night, he fled the palace on his eagle, Sky.
They landed in the mountains, and Altair had fallen to his knees, gripping his hair like he would tear it out. Sky tried in vain to comfort him, but Altair was deaf to all his attempts. Night had fallen by then, the moon hidden by clouds.
From the shadows a creature crept toward them. It hid amongst the flames in the fireplace, and I couldn’t see it with any clarity. Like they did in the hot springs, shadows coalesced into one writhing mass, which flowed toward Altair. And he hadbrought that thing back to this palace, where it now hid itself, slowly growing in strength.
“Bring me the girl,” the gravelly voice repeated.
Altair groaned and shook his head. “Send another servant,” he told Lord Heron, and with a sick twist in my gut, I thought of the disappearances. Talon had said people were vanishing. Could this be why? I didn’t want to believe it—but the thought took root and wouldn’t leave.
And Raven.
