Who else could have mastered the dark armour? Or touched the Shadow Stone? Who else could have survived the fire of the Corrupted Blade?
‘Tell me I’m Simon’s son,’ said Will. The plea sounded very far away. It seemed to fade like the last of his hopes as the truth rose between them.
‘You know you’re not,’ said Devon, ‘My King.’
My King. The horror of confirmation, the truth that he hadn’t wanted to face.
Simon hadn’t failed seventeen years ago when he’d killed Will’s aunt Mary. He’d succeeded. He’d brought the Dark King back that day, with the Lady’s blood.
Will wasn’t a champion of the Light.
He was the Dark King, reborn into this time.
He had found his mother bleeding in the garden behind the house, three dead men on the ground and more men on the way, though he hadn’t known it then. He’d heard the screams and dropped the wood he’d been collecting, running towards the sound. There had been so much blood, on her hands, on her neck and chin, spreading through the blue fabric of her dress. ‘What happened?’ He was on his knees beside her. ‘What can I do?’
‘The knife,’ she’d said. ‘Give me the knife.’
She was too hurt to reach it. So he’d picked it up and given it to her. Bloody fingers stroking against his cheek, she had drawn his head down towards hers, as if to whisper some final benediction.
Then she’d plunged the knife towards his throat.
The hand he’d thrown up to protect himself was all that had saved him. The knife had gone through his palm instead of his neck, like a nail through wood. But the cry he’d let out had been drowned out by his mother’s scream of frustration. She had let go of the knife, her hands closing around his throat, squeezing the breath out of him. He tried to pry them off, his world narrowing to a black tunnel. He’d thought, stupidly, that she was fighting some spectre of the imagination, that she was confused, still struggling with the men who had attacked her.
‘It’s me!’ he’d gasped. ‘Mother, it’s me!’ He’d thought if she just knew who he was, she’d let go.
She had known who he was. It’s why she’d tried to kill him.
Scrambling backward, he’d pushed her off, gasping in air and clutching his bleeding hand to his chest. He had stared at her from a few paces away, half sprawled in the dirt. She had been too weak to come after him, barely able to move.
‘I shouldn’t have raised you. I should have killed you.’ She had had blood in her mouth, the same blood that was all over his clothes and smeared on his neck. ‘You’re not my son. You’re not the child I had to give up.’
‘Mother?’ he’d said.
Her eyes were widening as if at some vision. ‘Oh God. Don’t hurt them. Don’t you hurt my girls. Will, promise.’ Desperation in her voice.
‘I promise,’ he’d said.
He hadn’t understood. He hadn’t understood anything. ‘I’ve failed. I’ve failed. Damn you,’ she said to Will bitterly, and there were men coming out of the house towards them. He could see them carrying knives like the one that he’d pulled out of his palm. Like the one that had cut her open. She’d turned her sightless eyes to the men and shouted to them, ‘Run!’
As though they needed a warning. As though he was the one who was dangerous.
Had his mother found him as an infant? Or had she given birth to him after an unnatural pregnancy? Will didn’t know. He didn’t remember his past life, or the choices he had made in it. But he had learned enough about the Dark King to know that he would have chosen the most twisted path, the one full of vicious horrors. That thing is not my son.
‘How did you know?’
He said it to Devon, dully. He had to drag himself out of his thoughts to look up at Devon, and when he did, the boy was only a few steps away, pale and inscrutable.
‘I’d know you anywhere,’ said Devon. ‘After ten thousand years, I’d know you. I knew who you were the moment you walked into Robert’s store.’
‘Why didn’t you tell me—’
He broke off. Devon’s pure white hair was stark against the black landscape. His skin was so pale it was almost the same colour. He looked at Will as if he knew him better than Will knew himself.
‘The last time I saw you,’ said Devon, ‘your armies were killing my kind; a thousand unicorns lying dead on the battlefield. Simon thought you’d reward him. What a fool! You’re as ruthless now as you were then. You let the Stewards take you into their Hall, then you slaughtered them. The Blood of the Lady was your mother, and you had her killed.’