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Father coughs and splutters, making me realize that I’m squeezing his neck a little too hard.
Red haze clouds my vision.
“I should kill you for this,” I whisper at last.
His face turns grey. His eyes bulge. Mustering the last of his strength, father nods. “Go on. Do it. I’m as good as dead, anyway. I’d rather die by your hand than sit here waiting for Hecoa to take me. The pain… it’s fucking intolerable.”
Coming to my senses, I release him. “What did you do to her?”
A lone tear slips down my father’s cheek. “She… was going to kill me. What else could I do? If only she’d accepted my offering. She was weakened with thirst and desperate.”
I rise to my feet, recoiling from him. “Youkilledher.”
Horror and revulsion course through me. My stomach roils. My senses are flooded with disgusting filth. Never before have I wanted to kill someone more badly than I want to kill him rightnow—this man that sired me.
How, though?
If my mother was a pureblooded vampire, she would be equally—if not more—powerful than I. How would my father and his mortal guards have managed to defeat her?
Knowing my father, the answer is obvious, but I don’t want to believe it.
I can’t change it, though; the long-suppressed memory that comes to the forefront of my mind. Of father taking me all of a sudden, and locking me here in this very room, and there were no less thantenguards standing around watching me like hawks, and at the age of seven, I wondered what I’d done wrong to warrant such a discipline.
I thought it was because I’d pitched a leather ball at one of the windows in the corridor, accidentally smashing it.
But he wasusingme against her.
Because not long after that, he came to me, and he was angry, and he told me that she’d died.
The illness caught up with her, my son. I’m sorry. But don’t worry. You’ll be fine. I’ll look after you. I’ll teach you to be strong, Corvan, and one day, all of this will be yours.
Funny how it all comes back.
Now it all makes perfect sense.
My hand drops to the hilt of my sword. I grip it tightly, my knuckles taut. I’mthisclose to drawing it and impaling him where he lies, but I need to hold on just a little longer.
For Finley’s sake.
I close my eyes and take a deep breath.
Her scent floats to me, calming me. I listen to the sound of her heartbeat; calm and steady in a sea of fury and malevolence.
She’s my essence. More precious to me than life itself. And I will make sure that the sins of our fathers are destroyed.
“If there’s one last thing you can do before you die that goessomeway toward reversing all the damage and stupidity you’ve caused, then you will tell me where Aralya is.”
If he refuses, I’ll make his dying moments worse than anything he’ll experience in the afterlife.
My father stares back at me, and he’s smiling.
Why is he smiling?
“You’re truly a Duthriss, my son,” he says, his hoarse voice filled with pride. “And yet, you’re clearlyherson. Don’t you understand? Nobody can unify this nation better than you. I might have consolidated power in the central regions, but the borderlands are fractious. There’s dissent in the south and untapped magic in the north. And you, my chosen heir, are a god amongst mortals. Why don’t you use the power that you have, Corvan?”
I say nothing.
I’m cold inside.
