The hatred had returned to Gaius’s voice. Magnus met his father’s cold eyes. “Your ongoing hatred for Cleo seems incredibly misplaced to me. The witch who cursed Elena is the one you should blame.” Magnus let out a breath in shock as he realized something. “You do, don’t you? That’s why you’ve condemned so many witches to their deaths over the years—to pay for that witch’s crime. You might say you despise Elena, but you still love her—even beyond death. Why else would you have taken Grandmother’s potion?”
“Think what you want.” A muscle in the king’s cheek twitched. “The potion was the only way to burn away the grief, the pain, and leave only strength behind. But now that strength is gone, stripped away when I fell from that cliff. The pain and grief is back, worse than ever before. And I hate it. I hate everything about this life, what I’ve had to do, how I’ve spent all this time obsessed with nothing but power. But it’s over now.”
“So you keep promising.”
Magnus needed out of this noisy, smoky tavern. He needed the time and the space to clear his head.
When he stood up, the king grabbed his arm. “I beg you, my son, send Cleiona away before she destroys you. She doesn’t truly love you, if that’s what you think. No matter what she tells you, she speaks only lies.”
“The King of Blood begging. Now I’ve heard everything.” He sighed. “I’ve had enough to drink for tonight. Such a pleasure to have had this chat with you, Father. Try to make it back to the inn without dying. I’m sure your mother would be very upset.”
He left without another word, hating how conflicted he felt about what to think, what to feel.
In the narrow alley outside the exit he’d taken, someone blocked his way to the main road, a large man with wide shoulders and a dark look on his face.
No one else was in sight.
“Yeah, I thought I recognized you the other night,” the man said. “You’re Prince Magnus Damora of Limeros.”
“And you’re horribly mistaken. Sorry to disappoint.” Magnus tried to elbow past him, but the man’s large mitt of a hand shot out to clutch his throat, drawing him close enough that Magnus could smell the ale on his breath.
“Ten years ago, your father burned my wife alive, claiming she was a witch. What say I do the exact same to you as retribution?”
“I say you let go of me immediately.” Magnus glowered at him. “Your need for vengeance has nothing to do with me.”
“He’s right.” The king stepped forward and pushed back his hood. “It has to do with me.”
The man gaped at him as if not believing his own eyes.
“Apologies for the loss of your wife,” the king said, the single lantern above the exit door lighting his near-skeletal face. “I despise witches for reasons far too long to list here and now. But I’ve rarely executed one who hadn’t dealt in blood and death. If your wife is now in the darklands, that’s exactly where she belongs.”
The man’s face reddened with rage, and he stepped forward with a sharp blade in his hand. Magnus watched his father as he stood there unmoving, his skin sallow, his shoulders hunched. He wouldn’t—he couldn’t—fight for his life.
Did he want to die?
The man’s attention was fully on the king now, burning hatred in his eyes as he surged forward.
Magnus moved before he even realized his own intentions, grasping the man’s hands, stopping the blade before it met its mark.
“If anyone deserves the right to kill my father, it’s me,” he growled. “But it won’t be tonight.”
He wrenched the sharp blade around so that it sank into its owner’s chest instead. The man cried out in pain before he slumped to the ground. A pool of blood flowed freely from the fatal wound.
There was a moment of utter stillness in the alleyway before the king spoke again. “We must leave before anyone comes by to witness this.”
Magnus had to agree with him. He wiped the blood from his hands on his black cloak, and quickly they returned to the Hawk and Spear Inn.
“Don’t take that act to mean that I don’t hate you,” Magnus said.
The king nodded grimly. “I’d think you were a fool if you didn’t. Still, despite your hatred for me, I want to give you something.”
“What?”
“The air Kindred.”
There was no way in the world that the King of Blood would hand over a piece of the Kindred to anyone, not even his own son. And yet, the king led Magnus upstairs to the room he’d been in for two straight days.
Magnus scanned the space. “Where’s Selia?”
“In the courtyard.” The king nodded toward the window. “Your grandmother likes to do her Oldling rituals nightly at this hour under the moonlight, which is why I was able to slip away.”
The king went to the straw bed, lifted up the blankets, and felt beneath the mattress. He frowned. “Help me lift it,” he said.
“That weak, are you? So you really would have let that man kill you while you simply stood there waiting?”
“Just do as I say.” The glare his father shot him was much more familiar than any talk of sharing and regrets.
“Fine.” Magnus went to his side and lifted the mattress so his father could search beneath.
Shock flashed through the king’s watery, bloodshot eyes. “It’s gone.”