I can hear their pulses. Steady, predictable. Mortal.
I can smell their blood as it percolates through their arteries and veins. I know exactly how to get it.
They can’t escape my attention.
They’re like prey.
There’s a raised platform at the far end, upon which sits an imposing throne, with armrests and legs carved into a lion’s paws. Atop the backrest sits a likeness of a lion’s head, teeth bared in a vicious snarl.
I know this, because I’ve seen that throne before. I can see it now, silhouetted through a gauzy curtain that obscures the figure sitting upon it, turning them into a dark shadow.
Why hide?
How ridiculous.
I walk right up to the dais and rip the curtain away, revealing the figure within.
Ansar stares back at me.
For a moment, we’re both quiet.
My brother has… changed.
Ansar Talavarra-Duthriss is as tall as I am. He’s filled out—no longer the slender, delicate looking youth I remember.
He has a lean, powerful physique. His complexion is deeply tanned—he’s obviously been spending time outdoors. His hair—as dark as his mother’s—has grown long, curling over his shoulders.
He’s pierced his ears in the fashion of Padra—with priceless jewels befitting a son of House Talavarra.
Set in gold, a perfectly symmetrical obsidian pearl hangs from each earlobe, its surface gleaming with iridescence. The pearls are perfectly tear-shaped and almost identical.
Incredibly rare. Unfathomably precious. Such a pair could buy a minor lord’s castle.
And curiously, his eyes, once deep brown, now exude a faint emerald-hued glow.
I can feel his magical aura, the same way I feel magical energy when Finley’s power is activated, only where she feels warm and bright, his is suffused with iciness and anger; it seethes and flickers, prickly like static.
But that isn’t the most startling thing about him.
Ansar wears a sumptuous robe of dark green—so dark it’s almost black. The fabric shimmers in the dim light. A deep v-shaped opening reveals his bare chest—and thousands of intricate glyphs tattooed into his skin, rising all the way to his neck, ending just below his jawline.
I recognize the characters, even if I don’t understand them. It’s an ancient language from across the ocean—from the lands beyond Batava.
Ancient Perigian is what we call it. I’m sure it has another name, but I don’t know much about the world beyond the vast deserts of Homana.
Ansar has changed indeed.
Clearly, a lot has happened since I left.
What has driven him to become like this? Father and Tarron’s information was correct.
My little brother is the one raising the dead.
I stand before him, my danger-sense prickling, my fingers itching with the urge to grab my sword and impale him through the heart before he has a chance to open his mouth and utter the spells that would defy the very laws of the gods themselves.
I would kill my very own brother in a heartbeat.
But I can’t.
Not until I find out where Aralya is.
Maybe he senses the intent behind my thoughts, for a hint of a smile curves his mouth, breaking his expressionless mask.
For we both know that there is no physical barrier that could prevent me from killing him now—or the ones standing behind him, hiding their faces behind yet another curtain that hangs across the rear section of the dais. Deep blue silk, contrasting with the golden ceiling, hiding their faces.
What’s with all the bloody smoke and mirrors here?
I temper my urge to kill them all.
Soon.
They know they can’t defeat me.
So what’s their ploy?
“Why?” I say at last, breaking the silence.
Ansar sits there on his lion-shaped throne, deceptively calm. He rests his chin against one hand and shrugs. “You see why. A son of Duthriss has been given such power. Everyone knows you were never just going to sit in Tyron and tend to your lands in peace.”
“I was, until you provoked me.” It occurs to me that Ansar was behind the attempt to steal Finley away from me—before she ever arrived.
Anger fills me again, and this time it’s glacial.
I could do the unthinkable right now, but I must be patient.
Ansar laughs softly. “My brother. Do you think I don’t know you? You and our father might have wanted to have very little to do with me, but ever since I can remember, I’ve been watching you. Admiring you. Despising you. I know you better than you think, Corvan. You know, I always wondered what it would have been like if I were the Golden Child of House Duthriss. I never understood why our father was so blinded by you. Obsessed with you. So much so that when he got a hint of our plans, he sent that girl to you. That half-dryad.”
“How did you come to know of it?” My voice becomes terribly cold. I can barely contain my rage. How dare he speak of her like that; as if she were a mere inconvenience to be eliminated?
“You’ve been away from the court for too long, brother. It always mystified me that you were so disinterested in the affairs of the other houses. Hubris, perhaps? Did you overlook the fact that Dorava Solisar is my mother’s distant cousin? There are no secrets between them.”
It’s news to me, but I’m hardly surprised. Nobles are always marrying amongst themselves, and a daughter of an offshoot of House Talavarra would have been considered a suitable match for a newly titled baron.
“That’s how we learned of the dryad. When we found out that you and the dryad’s child had indeed met, I knew you would become even more powerful. So we took the mother. It’s so typical of father to keep something so precious locked away and of use to nobody, just so he could keep her. But that doesn’t matter anymore. The old bastard’s dead, after all.”
So he knows.
My thoughts must be a little obvious, because Ansar chuckles softly. “Brother, I can sense it.”
“So you want me gone,” I say quietly, “so you can sit on the emperor’s throne? Then how are you any different from me?”
He extends his arms so his forearms are facing upwards. Then he pushes back the long sleeves of his robes to reveal even more Perigian writing. But these aren’t simply inked into his skin. They’re branded. “Unlike you, who’s been gifted everything, I’ve had to work for my power. You have no idea what I’ve been through—what I’ve sacrificed—just so I can grow strong enough to match you. And still I can’t, because in the end, you mowed down all my undead armies. Do you think you’re bloody Hecoa’s reaper, or something?”
I say nothing. It’s obvious that my little brother harbors more than a few ill-founded misconceptions about me. All lies fed to him by his mother and grandfather, no doubt. They would have fostered and nurtured this enmity; this twisted rivalry.
He’s as much a pawn as I was.
Goddess’s curses. I really should kill him.
But part of me can’t help but feel that there’s a lot more to this than what I see on the surface.
“Rhaegar Talavarra, show yourself,” I growl, staring at the opaque curtains. “There’s no point in trying to hide from me. You as well, Leticia.”
Why do I somehow feel like a schoolmaster, catching the bad behavior of a group of wayward youths?