23

Vic

“There wasn’t another way?” Vic demanded.

“Not that Silver saw,” Argent said. “And not one I can see either.”

They sat beside each other on a bench, in the now-empty amphitheater.

The Queen of Swords remained regal, still powerful, but she’d sunk into herself a little.

Vic had been there. He hadn’t known how to process his father’s death. Unlike her, it hadn’t snuck up on him. The cancer had announced itself pretty loudly.

Nor was Vic’s father supposed to live forever, not to mention he hadn’t been murdered by Vic’s brother.

Death had departed, leaving Vic behind without a word or a promise to stay in touch. She’d been there, then she wasn’t. That seemed to be her way.

The city was quiet, subdued. The other elves seemed shocked, uncertain about how to react. That or they were terrified of their new, unpredictable king.

Vic could understand. He could. Billions of lives, the animals and trees, that had been what the Sea Elves had wanted to drown.

“He was insane,” Vic said, eyeing the blood staining the dais. Blue, it shone like ice, like tears. “Wasn’t he?”

Elves in white had taken the body. They’d wrapped him in cloth and carried him away. No one had come to clean the blood, and Vic wondered why.

As he watched, it changed, morphing into flowers, a pool of pale-blue blooms with perfect white leaves.

Argent watched them rustle in the breeze. Her pale eyes picked up their color.

“Not exactly,” she said. “He was old. Older than your civilizations. He still saw everything through that lens, that time when we ruled alone.”

Vic did not want to argue with her. She’d just lost her father, and he knew how that felt.

But he’d also heard too many times how racist people were always given the excuse that they’d grown up in another time. People who beat their kids came from somewhen else so it should be excused, right?

Vic had some uncles like that. He had aunts who made the excuses for them and wondered if he’d ever get that old, so stuck in his ways. If humans could become so rigid, how much older and beyond growth was a king from the dawn of time?

And being immortal didn’t excuse his plans, what he’d condoned.

Dammit, Vic thought, Silver had been right to stop him.

“Could it still happen?” Vic asked. “Could the Sea Elves still drown the world?”

“Without our support?” Argent pondered. “Or with the guarantee of war if they tried? No.”

They sat a while longer, watching the flowers, watching the sky slowly spin by.

“Whatever he was thinking, whatever he’d meant to do,” Vic said. “He was still your father, and I’m sorry for your loss.”

“Thank you,” Argent whispered.

Silver approached them. He still wore his robes and long hair, but he’d added an edge. A weight had settled onto his shoulders, and he looked more like the gangster he often dressed as.

That unseen shadow contrasted to the perfect blue sky and the occasional bird, the paradise of the floating city. This beautiful place had its own darkness, and it resided in its people.

“You used me,” Vic said to Silver. “You used me to get a gun in here. My gun.”

Vic clenched his fists so hard they hurt, but he didn’t stand. He knew he could not strike Silver, not here, not ever. Reaper or not, the elf had powers Vic could never match.

“Yes,” Silver admitted. He seemed so young and so old in that moment. An ancient being and just a boy. “He would have been prepared for a sword. I would not have won on his terms.”

“You killed your father,” Vic said.

Silver turned to Vic. He was crying again.

“Yes,” he repeated. “I fought with him about this, privately of course. I pleaded. I begged. But he would see no reason. He saw the Sea’s plan as noble, the righteous way to save the Earth from your kind.”

“Did you know?” Vic asked Argent. “Did you know he’d do this?”

She shook her head. For once she seemed speechless, struck silent by her grief.

“He wanted me to succeed him,” Silver said. “But he was never going to give me the throne. That is how it is among our kind. We wait forever for change, but it never comes naturally.”

“You sound like he wanted you to kill him,” Vic said. “Like he expected it of you.”

“In some ways, he did,” Silver said. “And in some ways I don’t think he could ever have let go. He would have struck me down first.”

Vic couldn’t understand. He just couldn’t. A healthy man, an immortal, had longed for death because change was scarier than dying.

Life was precious, that was what the elves endlessly preached. They went on and on about it. So how could they just let that go? How could Silver just snuff it out?

Vic swallowed and admitted that his feelings weren’t entirely about the shooting.

“How long have you planned this?” Argent asked, bringing Vic back to the moment.

“Long enough,” Silver said. “I imagined it would come to this someday, but I never thought he’d go so far so quickly.”

“You killed your father,” Vic repeated.

How many times could he say it? When would the truth of it sink in?

“Yes,” Silver said. “I did. He pushed me to it, but I pulled the trigger. And I’ll live with it forever, as long as I reign, until I become so rigid in my thinking that someone must kill me in turn.”

Vic shook his head. This other world was beautiful, fantastic, but it was not better.

He understood Adam’s cynicism now, how he always talked about the elves in a jaded tone.

For all their morals and charm, the elves were no better than humans, than the people Vic dealt with every day. They were just as capable of crime and murder.

Death had said these were their laws, not Vic’s. He didn’t belong here. Even if he could somehow change how they did things, he didn’t have any right to.

And what about Adam? What about his brother killing their father?

The Binders were bound by the same laws, the same system as Vic. They weren’t alien elves with duels and ancient customs who’d never seen a gun.

That was the real question, the one Vic had been putting off since they’d brought him here.

Where did things stand between him and Adam?

Could he fix them, and did he want to if it meant setting the law aside?

“Vicente?” Argent asked softly, looking to him.

She’d sensed his withdraw, that he’d reached some conclusion. She’d straightened, but kept her distance on the bench. Her eyes were still pale, still sad, but some of it was for him now, for the innocence he’d lost today.

“I think I’m ready to go home,” he said.

“Back to Oklahoma?” she asked.

“No,” Vic said, shaking his head. “Home.”