Then I feelhisenergy.
It’s subtle, just like at the training grounds and the bakery. It’s something I don’t even have the words for, but it’s the weight someone carries when they’re not only a Zenith, but a respectedone. Almost as if the magic of the black skull mask marks them for me.
Who would have thought that one day, I’d be bringing the Scorpion his daughter?
I’m ready to meet this bastard,so her heart can properly scar over, so I can hold it for myself.
Stone gives way to wood-covered ceilings as we enter a room that smells of aged, salty timber and candle wax. Barrels furnish the space with carved-out seats. Rope that’s threaded tightly holds a candle chandelier whose smoke doesn’t darken the wood above—made from the forests of Skull’s Row then. Wreckage from a repurposed ship?
Not the point.I focus internally on what my body is processing. I’m aware of the location in the room that claims to harbor Ritter’s energy, but I look everywhereelsefirst, exploring the push and pull of those who serve him and wondering where the fuck Cypress is.
None seem surprised to see me, either. My skull mask means very little among other Zenith, other than as a last-ditch reminder that if I disappear,manypeople will hunt them down.
The three stripes on my back guarantee that.
Assurances bought with blood and oaths.
It’s Jane’s utter confusion staining her aura that makes me look to where I can feelhisenergy. My brows knit into a deep furrow.
“Ern?” Jane’s voice is a stark difference in the room, and it all quiets.
Her eyes fixate on a man who comfortably leans on one armrest of a meticulously crafted seat fashioned from reclaimed wood and iron; the top curled into the tail of a scorpion.
The man looksexactlylike Ern from Ern’s Tavern, and it even stuns me to see him sitting in a seat that clearly doesn’t belong to him, and yet everyone here acts as if it does.
I stare so intently at someone who’s supposed to be a barkeep that it’simpossibleto miss the way I can’t read a single thing from him.
A curt gesture from Ern empties the room.
As everyone departs, I’m even more aware that Ern is someone with a unique identity, and yet the signature of his aura is empty.Why does Ern feel so much like the Scorpion when I didn’t feel this before? Wouldn’t Jane have known if Ern was her father? Is something wrong with her memory?
And why can’t I feel him?
No emotions.
No fluctuation in what he feels.
No information.
Jane’s disappointment and confusion makes me angry, because if this is a rouse?—
As the last person leaves the room, Ern’s face changes in ways that make evenmyjaw drop. His face elongates, his nose sharpens, and his facial hair rescinds to reveal a clean face. Tattoos emerge where clear skin was.
The Scorpion.
J A N E
My jaw drops from blinding uncertainty. “What the fuck.”
“Ofcourse,” Soren growls.
It’s…him.
My father’s face.
Familial roots, miserable feelings of abandonment, and over a decade of loneliness collide into a wreckage. My breath is utterly robbed from me as I take in how the Scorpion is dressedunpretentiously in black pants with a messy gray tunic tucked into it. A long black leather coat shrouds him, one with tattered edges.
He’s so simple, yet sharp, in appearance.
