Page 118
Atlas
The darkness drew closer as if it had leaned closer to listen.
“A king does not waste his words on servants and second sons,” he went on, and there was no cruelty in it, which was somehow worse. No, only the weight of certainty. The arrogance of a thing that had outlived every kingdom that ever thought to challenge it.
“You have crossed half a world and bled at my threshold to walk into the one realm every wise creature in either world has the sense to avoid. Tell me, young king of Theïkós… have you come to conquer my lands.”
It wasn’t a question. It was an amusement he was permitting himself, the way a great cat permits a mouse to run a little.
And then his gaze dropped, at last, to the woman in my arms.
Something moved behind his face then, a flicker of a predator marking a thing it had not expected to find in its own den.
He looked at her grey, still face, at the black veins climbing her throat, and at the way I held her against me as though my arms could be a wall between her and the whole of his terrible kingdom. Which was no doubt why one dark brow rose by the smallest degree.
“And what,” he said softly, “is this? An offering, just for me?” The blue eyes lifted back to mine, cold, mocking, and insufferably entertained. “How thoughtful. Though I confess I am at a loss as to what you imagine I should do with it. I have ruled the dark since before your gods drew breath, little king, and not once in all those long ages have, I found myself in any particular need of a human.”
“We did not come to conquer anything.” It was Theron who answered, smooth and unhurried, one king to another. “We came because something of yours has been stolen, Shadow King. Taken from this realm and turned loose on worlds it was never meant to touch.” He let that settle and watched it land. “I rather thought you might wish to see the proof of it for yourself,” Theron added, and for the first time, the cold blue eyes sharpened with something other than contempt.
He was silent for a long moment. Then he lifted one clawed hand and made the smallest gesture, no more than the turning of two fingers. And all at once, the watching court was gone. The figures in the alcoves, the eyes burning along the galleries, the whole silent army of them simply faded away back into the dark from which they had come. Doing so until the vast hall stood empty but for the seven of us, as even the warriors who had brought us here melted away.
Only the ruined creature at his right hand remained, and not for long.
“You as well,” the Shadow King said, without looking at him.
“My king.” The voice ground out low, and for the first time, the marble face turned toward us, as though measuring what it might cost his master to be left alone with armed strangers out of another world. “I would counsel against…”
“I did not ask for your counsel, Rhadamanthys. I gave you leave to go.” His blue gaze slid sideways, “You may take it, or you may stand there and discover whether I meant it kindly.” Even I swallowed hard at the threat, and there was very little I feared in my life.
Something flickered in those golden eyes of the one he had addressed as Rhadamanthys. Not fear, I realized, but the deep and weary displeasure of a servant who has watched his master do unwise things many times before and expected he would do so again. Yet he didn’t argue. Instead, he bowed stiffly and slowly before withdrawing into the dark. But I didn’t miss that he went no further than he had to, nor that he took the dismissal as the insult it was.
The Shadow King’s attention returned to the rest of us, or should I say to Aster, and to my brother, still standing at my flanks.
“The rest of this is a conversation between kings.” He flicked the clawed fingers toward the doors. “My people will see your Minotaur and your kin somewhere they may wait in comfort.” I looked around the place and nearly slipped by muttering that I highly doubted that. The place looked more like a tomb than anywhere comfort was found. I was even surprised he knew what the word was, as it had no meaning here, that was for damn sure.
As for my brother and my second-in-command, not surprisingly, neither of them moved.
“With respect,” Aster rumbled, in a tone that had very little of it, “we’re not going anywhere.”
“Where my brother stands, I remain.” Lazaros had set his feet, his jaw, every line of him gone hard. “You’ll have to send more than shadows to move me from it.”
The Shadow King let out a slow breath through his nose, the sound of a being whose patience he wore for show and was on the point of setting aside. He turned that hard gaze to me, then to Alexandra, who was fading in my arms. He said nothing at all and let the silence make his argument for him.
He was right, and I hated to admit it when I gave the order,
“It’s all right.” The words came out rough. “Lazaros. Aster. Go with them. Wait for us, I have a feeling we won’t be long.” I lifted my eyes to my brothers at last. “Please.”
I thought Lazaros would refuse me even then, but relief surfaced as his shoulders dropped, and he gave me a single, tight nod. He gripped my arm hard enough to bruise as he passed by. As if he feared it was the last time he would ever see me.
Fuck, I hoped he was wrong.
Aster wasn’t finished. His jaw set, a protest was already rising. But before he could get a word out, Theron’s hand came down on his great shoulder.
“You heard your king, young bull.” His voice was low and not unkind. “Now is the time to do his bidding, not to argue it.”
My friend looked as though he might argue that too. Then he released a low breath through his nose and followed Lazaros.
After their figures disappeared, the great doors closed, and it was just the four of us. Three kings, and my reason for living slowly dying in my arms.
