Page 13 of A Kingdom of Lies
Should I have shouted for Althea? All I could think about was getting my father as far away from here as possible. Away from Doran. And I was prepared to fight my way out if the moment required, even with the low hum of warning as the ancient presence lingered through the atmosphere of Welhaven.
“I will not forgive you for what you have done,” I spat at the deranged king. I briefly caught a glance of my Father’s hand, which was wrapped in dirtied, brown-stained bandages. I could hardly look at it without the rage erupting inside of me. I knew what waited beneath the wrappings just as I knew what didn’t.
A finger. A finger that resided in Farrador.
Was that Doran’s plan? Goading me into attacking first?
“Believe, my boy, I do not require forgiveness. There is nothing I want from you anymore. As I have told you, I have everything I need.”
I smiled, knowing the man he had spent weeks petitioning for was still miles away, in the safety of Farrador’s walls. “Well, that is just not true, is it, Doran?”
“Is it not?” Doran returned my smile, one that seemed to glow from within his mischievous gaze. “You are not the only one who has had a reunion with someone of their blood today. You took something from me, but in return have given something as well. And for that I must thank you.”
I watched as the mad king raised a hand and placed it on the shoulder of the statuesque guard. The steel-wrought mask obscured their features, a monstrous face carved into the metal, one that would inspire fear in those unfortunate enough to be close to them. “I do not need to hear any more from you. We are done here.”
“Stay,” Doran purred, pouting slightly as though I had offended him with my wish for haste. “I have something I would like to show you before we part ways again.”
He leaned into the fey guard’s shoulder, hand covering his mouth, as he whispered into their ear. I couldn’t hear what Doran said, nor did I care. My focus was on my father. I wrapped my father’s arm around my shoulder and hoisted him from the floor. For a man of his age and size, it should’ve been impossible to carry him alone. But the weeks had been unkind to him. I could feel his bones beneath the thin, tattered layering of his clothes.
“Tarron was my prized possession. His mind sharp, his spirit unbroken. He was whole. Special, one would say. Besides his younger brother Lovis, who was stolen with my wife, all my other… offspring never seemed to be entirely… right. They were given a name in my Court, one that no one dared speak before me, but I heard whispers anyway. A title given to them from infancy for the demonic outbursts of aggression and anger. Some had even killed my Mounts…their mothersfor the smallest of matters that other infants would have simply cried out for: hunger, tiredness. Do you know what that title is, Robin Icethorn?”
“He did not want to know,” came the voice of the guard. A familiar voice that had me looking up at the guard, Doran never removing his unrelenting grip from their shoulder as he continued to gloat aloud.
“Then I will tell him. Robin, I had spent many years making sure my twisted children were killed. Even being the one to draw the knife across their little soft necks. I could not trust others to do what was required to younglings. Then I had a change of heart, when I understood their potential–”
“Get to the point.” I took cautious steps backwards, slowly moving through the overgrown foliage towards the concaved entrance and those who waited beyond it. Althea, Gyah. I needed them.
“Show him,” Doran commanded, but not to me. He spoke to the guard in his grasp.
The guard’s finger lifted, grazing the metal mask, hesitating as though he fought internally to stop himself from lifting it. And it was that hesitation that entrapped my attention upon him.
“My creations, the warped and monstrous ones, were called Berserkers.” Doran tilted his head downwards, grin extending from ear to ear. His lips split slowly, linked by lines of spit which he spoke through. “Do you understand now?”
The world fell away from beneath my feet. Time stilled as I settled my eyes on the guard again, recognising their outline, their posture. My focus had been so completely on my father that I hadn’t even contemplated the impossibility stood beside Doran until they removed their mask.
I spluttered a gasp as it fell freely to the floor.
“Hello, little bird.”
CHAPTER 5
The vision of Erix didn’t waver. I rubbed my eyes hard once, twice, and still he stood before me.
Itwashim. Not a trick of the light, an illusion crafted by Doran’s power over the light. The shine of his silver gaze confirmed that. But something was different. Dark shadows that hung beneath his eyes; the hollows of his cheeks deeper against the dulled tone of his usually sun-kissed skin.
“This isn’t real,” I muttered, body numb as Erix walked towards me. “Erix is… he is in Farrador.” My royal guard took a step forward, his footsteps crunching over broken stone. “Keep away from me. Stop! Whatever this is… end it.”
“I am flattered that you believe me to be powerful enough to conjure the unreal, but I am no god,” Doran said. “At least not yet. What you see before you is very much real. Touch him, see for yourself.”
A faint breeze picked up Erix’s scent the closer he came, warm cinnamon and crisp fallen leaves on a mid-autumn’s morning. Still, I refused to believe it.
“This was your plan,” I said, voice a pathetic whisper. My hold on Father grew tighter as Erix loomed above us. “You left me and gave yourself up.”
“I did, and now you have what you want.” Erix’s reply was as cold as the power that longed to escape my body. One single thought and I could devour this entire place in ice and wind.
“And I too have what I desired,” Doran gloated from behind Erix.
I stared at nothing but my guard, unable to formulate a word. Father groaned as I still fought to hold him up, and all Erix would do was look down at me with his empty, uncaring eyes.
