He wasn’t sure he managed to tell her before the world went black.
Chapter 19
Andrian thought he’d known rage before.
He’d felt broken fury when he’d learned of his mother’s death. A wanting anger when he’d been unable to resist Mariah at the Selection. A desperate rage when an Uroboros was sent to kill her in her sleep.
He’d sunken into rage when the Royals took Mariah’s family, dwelling beside her and the beast of her anger. Had felt that fury crack and splinter when they’d failed.
Butthis, whatever it was that consumed him now, was wild. Savage. Unyielding and out of control.
He fuckinglovedit.
His chest heaved, lip lifted in a snarl. His hair fell across his forehead and into his eyes. He stood beside a dais, a longsword in his right hand.
Julian Laurent knelt below him. The man who’d murdered his mother. The man who’d tried to murder his queen.
A dead man.
Andrian wasn’t sure how he’d gotten there or gotten the sword. He gripped it tighter, lawless fury rippling through him and setting his soul free.
“Thank you all for joining us on such short notice.”
Kol’s voice tore through the hall. It didn’t quench Andrian’s rage, but it did draw his attention up, sweeping across his surroundings.
They were in the great hall of a castle—Khento, his mind whispered to him. People gathered in the hall, none standing closer than twenty feet from the bound and kneeling Lord Laurent. Andrian recognized those in the front row: Lord Shawth, sniveling rotund face sweaty and pale; the heads of the other four Royal houses flanked him, cowardly fear dripping from them; to the far left, golden eyes wide with shock, stood a young man whom Andrian refused to look at.
He will only distract you. You have a job to do here.
Andrian didn’t bother fighting the voice. He settled into it, listening and accepting, dark tendrils wrapping around his mind and sinking in deep.
Kol smiled.
“It is with great sadness that I come to you all to report a betrayal.” The dark god rose from his makeshift throne, shadows seeping from his shoulders. The sunlight streaming through the windows pulsed brighter, as if drawn to feed his darkness.
Something scratched at the back of Andrian’s mind. Something about the god of the sun, something he did…
Kol’s eyes scorched the side of his face as a heavy pulse thundered in his skull. Andrian wavered on his feet, teeth gritting, breaths becoming shakier.
Something was wrong. This was the wrong side?—
Kol is not your enemy here. He has not laid a hand on a single person you love. That was always Julian, the traitor.
Your childhood. Your mother. Mariah. Do not forget who harmed them.
The pulsing faded. Andrian’s glare refocused on the man he’d long believed to be his father.
No true father would do those things.
He almost lurched forward a step, almost barreled down that dais, but he held himself still. Kol sauntered past, hands in his pockets, an air of casual authority around him as his shadows trailed in his wake.
Andrian’s shadows recoiled from their maker, submissive and compliant.
“Earlier this very day, Lord Julian Laurent confessed to his sins.” Kol stopped at the bottom of the dais. “He confessed to sabotaging my efforts prior to my return. He confessed to trying to prevent my return altogether.” He paused, glancing at Andrian.
“He confessed to the murder of his wife.”
Audible gasps filled the hall. An urge to lift his gaze from the kneeling lord and glance at the blond-haired man in the crowd rippled through Andrian.
