Chapter 43

Ceven

CEVEN’S SIDE HURT more than he’d originally thought, and with the next block, he tried to sidle back, to give himself an opportunity to leave and find Evangeline. But everywhere he turned, he was cornered by armored Nytes. He got lucky with his blows and Evangeline injuring Troy, whom he still couldn’t see in the crowds. And that made him nervous.

Steel pierced his shoulder, and he jerked. He forced a steady breath and kept a firm grip on his sword. It was hard to prepare for the next attack when he couldn’t hear them over the noise and there were too many bodies to watch.

I’m done for.

Another blow to the back of his leg made him fall, but he lifted his blade in time to stop the guard’s sword from cutting his skull open. This was bad. He needed to get back on his feet. Another stab. He rolled, but the purple sleeve of his coat slit completely open, blood seeping in its place.

Something slammed into the two Royal Guards in front of him, the three behind him distracted by something else moving in the fog. Ceven didn’t waste time and shoved to his feet, sword out. He shook his matted hair out of his eyes, which widened at a familiar face.

“Barto?” he said in disbelief, but his friend didn’t have time to respond as he kept low to the ground, using his claws to cut the guards’ legs between their mesh of armor as they howled in pain. He was quick, thorough, and everything Ceven needed right now.

Rasha was behind them, two swords out. Her body was a flood of acrobatic precision. Her braids danced with her lithe form, sashaying back and forth to the beat of metal. He couldn’t believe it. Why were they here? Why were they helping him?

“What are you doing? This is treason! This could cause a war!” Ceven used Rasha’s distraction to his advantage, stabbing the guard from behind. He hated such dirty tactics, but right now he needed to stay alive. He needed to make it out of this.

“Already looks like war,” Barto shouted back. “Shut up and accept our help. I still plan to kick your ass after this!”

He shook his head and shoved a sandy-haired guard who had been about to impale Barto’s right leg. Ceven yanked Barto to his feet. While gripping his friend’s arms, he twirled, and the knives attached to the bottoms of Barto’s boots sliced everyone close by.

“Watch where you’re aiming!” Rasha yelled, ducking in time to miss Barto’s boots of death.

His friend landed on his feet with his back touching Ceven’s. It reminded him of their time in the humid Atiacan jungle, standing side by side, surrounded by bandits.

Barto smiled, sharing the same memory. “This takes me back.”

Ceven tried to smile, but it came out like a twitch as a weight of emotion bowed down on him. Barto had come back for him. After everything Ceven had done, Barto had come back, defied the king, risked a war, and was currently committing murder for his sake.

“You can kick my ass from here to Atiaca when we make it out of this. I was a fool.” Ceven stepped out and feigned a left hit at the guard before striking right. He was close, but the guard blocked at the last second.

“I tried to tell you that, but you were never a good listener.” Barto lashed out in a sequence of kicks and punches. It was a flurry of motion, and the guard was slow to block with his large spear, giving Barto the advantage.

“Well, with you talking my ear off all the time, I had to learn to be selective.” Barto’s hand fell on Ceven’s shoulder before he leaped over him, striking the guard from above. Ceven sliced his legs at the same time. The guard tried to get out of reach but wasn’t quick enough, blocking Ceven’s blow but getting a fistful of Rathan claws to the face.

“We got this, prince. Now, go find your princess,” Barto yelled.

Ceven didn’t bother arguing. He knew Barto and Rasha could hold their own now that most of the guards had either fled to protect Sehn and the king or had been felled by his sword. Ceven went to sheath his borrowed blade and cursed when he realized he didn’t have his belt on him. He awkwardly tucked it into the waistband of his pants and jumped into the fog.

Pockets of clean air were scattered around, made from the flap of wings or the wave of motion as guards and Casters fought one another, other Nytes running and screaming. Two black-clad Casters jumped out in front of him with daggers, their hoods reaching only to his chest. Ceven withdrew his blade, but the Casters looked at him and ran back into the fog. He frowned but didn’t complain, trying to find a blond-haired girl amongst the calamity.

He found her sitting on top of . . . was that Vane? Blood covered her hands and dress, her face bruised and broken. Ceven snarled at nobody. Sehn had promised she wouldn’t be injured, that she would be protected. Of course, his brother had lied; Ceven just wondered, what else did he lie about? What was the true meaning of this mark on his arm? Ceven was going to kill him and whoever had hurt Eve.

But when he ran towards her, flames licked at his brain. Searing hot pain flashed across his skull, and he collapsed, gripping his head.

Kill the king. Kill the king. Kill the king.

His arm flared in response, and he tore off the ripped fabric. Beside the cuts and slashes the Royal Guards had given him lay Sehn’s blood promise. And it was glowing.

Kill the king. Kill the king. Kill the king.

He took another step toward Evangeline, and his legs buckled. “Kill the king . . . I have to kill the king,” he roared, fighting his own mind. At least Ceven didn’t have to wait long to find out the truth. Only lose his arm . . . His brother had conned him into losing his spitting mind.

Ceven gritted his teeth, but when he looked up, the fog had crept closer—no, it was a different color. Blacker, thicker. In the distance, something illuminated red. The king.

King Calais, now surrounded by only three Royal Guards, made for the double doors. Wait, he was aiming for the framed painting of King Peredia I. And behind it was surely the entrance to the tunnels.

 Kill the king! Kill the king! Kill the king!

Ceven clenched his sword tighter. He strained his senses, focusing on the glowing red figure. Like a Rathan who’s picked up a scent, he leaped into the black fog, eyes on his prize.

Others framed him on either side, black-clad Casters running next to him. He gripped his sword tighter, but they didn’t engage with him. Instead, they sprinted ahead. There were three . . . no, four . . . maybe seven attack the king’s guards. They were small, a lot shorter than the Aerians, but like Avana, they glowed and zoomed at a pace faster than any Rathan he’d seen.

The king withdrew his sword, the thick blade the length of one of his great, golden wings that fanned out. It dissipated the surrounding fog. The floor was littered with bodies, soldiers, and innocents alike. Corpses sprawled out to the point you couldn’t see the marble. In the distance, remaining Nytes fought, but the shouts and banging had lessened. Ceven needed to kill the king now, before the chaos settled.

He went to launch himself at his former father when a gust of air smacked his face. King Calais landed in front of him, his long golden wings sweeping the floor. The first few buttons to his vest had come undone, his pale chest peeking through. No tattoos. Ceven thought it odd that he subjected his soldiers to the dark magic invading this city and its castle but refused to do it to himself.

King Calais’s eyes glowed, but his expression still betrayed nothing as he settled on Ceven. “Ceven, my son.”

Ceven raised his sword. “I haven’t heard you call me that in six years.”

The king extended his leg, one foot following the other, walking closer. Ceven’s muscles tensed. Calais stopped when they stood a head apart. Their eyes locked, neither backing down. 

Ceven’s chest heaved, his arm burned, every inch of his body screaming to hit the king as hard as he possibly could. “I loved you. I could’ve still loved you.”

The king cracked, the smallest sliver of a laugh taking reign. “Don’t claim something you know never would’ve been true. Even if you were my true son, you and I are as different as night and day. Sooner or later, you would have come to hate me.”

King Calais held up his sword, but it shook. His purple robe slid back, showing the frail, veiny arm of an old man. Ceven had once looked up to the king as someone all-powerful. He’d stared at paintings of him on the battlefield, heard the stories of him felling the rebel attacks from Atiaca before it became its current empire. Ceven had created this illusion of this mighty foe he could never tackle. He was so caught up in it he didn’t even realize the king was far past his prime, that he hadn’t been strong or powerful for a long time. But instead of feeling smug, all Ceven felt was pity.

“It doesn’t matter, because you never bothered to try. I could have been a great son to you. Better than Sehn.” Ceven tried to hold on to his anger, but it wavered. The only thing holding the sword to his former father’s throat was the burning in his arm and head.

Kill the king! Kill the king! Kill the king!

 “Don’t pretend otherwise,” Calais said. “You always were a weak-hearted boy. Sehn possessed more leadership than you ever did.”

Ceven knew he shouldn’t listen to his words, that anything he said held no merit. Not when this man claimed to hate him all his life. Still, the words hurt him. Ceven could’ve been a great leader, a great king, but nobody ever believed he could. He was starting to think it, too.

“But if believing in a fairy tale will make it all better for you to kill me, it would only be fitting for the son whose father lived in frivolous fantasies instead of reality.”

Ceven jerked. That was the second time the king had ever mentioned his real father.

The king laughed. “Then again, maybe I’m the hypocrite, for wanting to start a war because of a broken heart. Maybe all this time, I was the weak one. Because I loved your mother so much.”

“Who is he? My real father?” Hot rage filled him, controlled him, pulsed in time with his blood rune, but he fought it. He didn’t want to kill the king. It felt wrong to murder a man who could barely lift his own sword. Then the rest of Calais’s words hit him. Go to war because of a broken heart . . . “Mother . . . the man she had an affair with . . . he was Mouchian? You’re going to war because of that?” It was a guess; for all Ceven knew, he could’ve been Atiacan, but the king’s bitter smile confirmed it. The treaty had been a ruse after all.

“We never would’ve been powerful enough to go against Sundise Mouche as we were. We needed an edge, one that Ryker had provided us, and an in, which Sehn brought about.” He looked around, but his face showed no emotion. “But it seems they had known all along. It’s a shame they struck first before we could rise to our full potential.” Calais’s eyes pinched in thought.

One that hinged on the deaths of hundreds of humans. Ceven shook his head. “That would’ve been suicide. So many would have died, and for what? That all happened years ago!”

The king fixed his cold stare on Ceven. “If you truly loved that girl, you wouldn’t have asked me that.”

Ceven opened his mouth, but he couldn’t find the words.

“You came here to kill me. So stop wasting your breath.” The king tossed his blade to the side and rushed him at a speed Ceven thought him no longer capable of. He grabbed Ceven’s sword, his bony white knuckles clenching tightly against the blade. Ceven jerked back on the sword’s hilt, but King Calais yanked it forward, thrusting a fist into his gut. Ceven coughed, the wind rattling violently back into his lungs.

“You remind me so much of her. I can’t stand it.” Calais swung another fist at him.

Ceven dodged the punch this time, expecting it. “When did you find out? And why didn’t you tell me? Why keep me around if you were only going to hate me?” Ceven tried to remain in control of his emotions, but his father’s words sparked a fit of fire within him. “You know what? I’m glad you’re not my real father. An empty shell of a man who would never know what humility and compassion were, even if they smacked him in the face.”

King Calais lunged. Ceven raised his sword in defense, but Calais knocked it aside. He grabbed Ceven by the front of his shirt, his face a breath away. “Don’t speak to me of things you know nothing about. Everything I’ve ever done has always been for this family,” he snarled. “All you’ve done is throw my dead wife back in my face, disobey me every chance you got, raising scandals by being with that blasted human. You never understood why I did what I did. You’d never understand!”

The king gripped Ceven’s limp blade, pressing it against his own heart. Ceven saw red, felt red, was red.

KILL THE KING! KILL THE KING! KILL THE KING!

“No, I never will, because you never gave me the chance,” Ceven ground out, fighting the instinct to shove the blade. Calais was taunting him, like he always did. He didn’t really want to die . . . right?

The king turned his head, and Ceven followed his gaze. Sehn approached them, his purple robe flaring out, the bottom coated in red from the corpses he stepped across. He held a dagger in his hand, slick with blood, and a circle of crimson highlighted his shoulder, but Ceven didn’t know if it was his own or someone else’s.

Ceven’s gut clenched as the king looked at Sehn with utter respect and adoration. If only he knew his own death was orchestrated by the very son he loved so much . . .

“Sehn, my boy.” The king left Ceven’s side, striding to his brother. There was a slight limp in his walk, as if he had been hit a few times in the chaos. “I’m glad you’re okay; I was so worried—”

Sehn shoved his dagger into the king’s heart.

King Calais’s eyes flew open, surprise loosening his lips before he looked down at his chest. He coughed, falling to one knee. He gripped his heart, and when he coughed again, blood dribbled from his mouth. Calais looked up at Sehn, trying to speak, but he choked on his words.

“No!” Ceven ran to his side, holding the king’s chest, as if he could somehow stop the flow of blood. After everything . . . everything the king had done . . . grief still gripped him.

The king didn’t respond, the light fading from his eyes. He sagged, but Ceven caught him, lowering him gently to the floor. King Calais was dead.

“How could you!” Sehn yelled.

Ceven blinked and whipped around. His brother pointed a finger at him, shouting at the top of his lungs. The fog was gone, and the guards and few civilians, cowering in the corners, turned to them. Sehn sank to the ground, holding the king’s dead hand. “Father, no.” His brows furrowed, and tears stained his cheeks. “How could this have happened?” He then looked at Ceven.

And smiled.

No, the puss-filled Aerian was going to—

Sehn’s words carried across the entire throne room. “Kill him, for the murder of our king!”