“You call me a monster when I’ve done no wrong to you?”
Richard’s eyes widened.
Then he froze in place, narrowing his eyes at me.
As if he recognized me from somewhere.
He pointed a small finger, a sneer contorting his boyish face with poignant hatred.
“You. Aren’t you the bastard of that fool, Tazzias? The one who fled to the Fallen King, bending both knee and backside for his favor?”
The more Richard spoke, the louder the accursed, soul-tied beast inside of me snarled, malignant hatred for the boy coloring my soul the deepest black.
“Have you seen yourself? Probably not. You must shatter every mirror you pass. No angel can have all of those stitches, scars, and not be some kind of monstrosity. Papi always said so.You could never be a friend to any of us. You could never bewanted, you odious creature. Foul thing. Just look at you.”
The little angel lifted his chin, his face curled with hatred the longer he looked at me. Looked at the scars I bore from the hèls of a king who’d kidnapped me because of the knave he called Papi.
“You are an abomination. A scoundrel!” Richard spat at me again. “Aslave.“
I stilled. The blow rattled me to my core. It was obvious what kind of drivel Marcèllian had poured into his mind since he was a seedling. Hatred wasn’t born. It was taught. Passed on from generation to generation like a torch that had to be kept alight by any means necessary.
He was a child, yet he viewed me as an abomination.
A title, acurse, reserved for the Fallen Angels. For hèlsborn. For Spirit Harvesters. This self-righteous brat calledmean abomination.
Onmyisland.
“Have you no respect for your king?”
I snarled. The Nanmiess grew, blackening the glade. The sunlight could no longer pierce through, leaving the boy and I in total darkness. Richard found his courage and lifted his chin higher.
“You are no king. You have no throne. We reject your crown and your blood. We curse the very sound of your name, Everthorn Bastard. Monstrous thing. You arenothing.”
The beast inside demanded control.
And I handed it over.
In good, living consciousness, it would be a difficult thing for me to snuff out the life of a seedling as little as fifty cycles. But the creature in my soul from Zemshaza’s curse...
I blinked. Richard went from standing above the root he was sitting on earlier to floating in the air. Obsidian tendrils reachedfor his body, curling around his slight frame. The boy screamed. I gleefully listened to the music. Richard began begging, pleading for his life. He screamed at me to let go. Screamed to be released back to his Papi.
I screamed like that once.
Zemshaza had looked at me in that dirty cave he called a cell, and laughed. He found my pain amusing. Thought my blood was delightful. He clapped cheerfully at the crack of my bones, and the tears through my flesh. Because Marcèllian wanted Mortevain Island, he handed over every Everthorn he could to get it.
Richard begged for mercy.
Instead, he was given my justice.
It was a long time before my vision cleared. I saw the wreckage of what the beast inside had done through me. The glade was bathed in the golden ichor of Richard’s blood, and the scattered feathers of his torn wings. Souls flitted around the angel’s body, hissing and gnashing their teeth. I looked at him. Broken. Mangled. Dead.
I searched within myself for pity.
I had none.
“Blood for blood,” my Nanmiess hissed in song.
I nodded. I’d only begun to wreak the havoc that would adequately avenge the wrongful destruction of my family.
