He stared at me for a moment and then laughed. “You really think that’s possible?” Another laugh parted his pale lips. “I know who you are. I’d recognize that face anywhere.”
Kieran stepped forward.
I held up a hand, stopping him.
The Duke smirked. “You haven’t been gone long enough to forget how mortals are, Maiden. How they are so damn gullible. How much they fear. What they will do to protect their families. What they will believe to protect themselves. You really think they will simply accept the Atlantians?”
I said nothing.
Emboldened, he stepped closer. “And you think the Ascended will do…what? Trust that you will allow us to live if we do whatever it is you want?”
“You trusted the Blood Queen,” I said. “And her name isn’t even Ileana. Nor is she an Ascended.”
Several sharp inhales sounded, but the Duke showed no sign that what I’d said was news to him.
“So,” I continued, “I imagine anything is possible. But as I said, I would’ve given you another chance. You sealed your fate when you ordered those people to be impaled on your gates.”
His nostrils flared. “The veils were a lovely touch, weren’t they?”
“Very lovely,” I replied as Delano emitted a low growl.
“We didn’t—” one of the other Ascended started, a male with deep brown hair.
“Shut up,” the Duke hissed. “You will die. I will die. All of us will.”
“Correct.”
His head jerked back to me.
“What matters is how you die,” I stated. “I don’t know if bloodstone is a painful death. I’ve seen it up close and personal, and it appears to be so. I’m thinking if I sever the spine, there would only be a second of pain.”
The Duke swallowed as his smirk faded.
“But what was far more painful was how the ones in pieces died.” I paused, watching the corners of his mouth tighten. “Answer my question, and your death will be quick. Don’t? I will make sure you feel as if it lasts a lifetime. That’s up to you.”
He stared, and I practically saw the wheels turning in his mind, searching for a way out of this.
“It’s a terrible thing, isn’t it?” I stepped closer to him, and the essence pulsed in my chest. “To know that death is finally coming for you. To see it right before you. To be in the same chamber with it, for seconds, minutes, longer, and know that you can do nothing to prevent it.” My voice lowered, became softer and colder…and smoky. “Not a single thing. It’s horrifying, the inevitability of it. The knowledge that if you still have a soul, it is surely bound for only one place. Deep down, you must be so afraid.”
A small, visible shudder coursed through him.
“Just like those mortals you led outside the Rise, tore into, fed off, and left to turn. Just like those in the cells and those on the gates.” I searched his pale features. “They must have been so terrified to learn that death had come for them at the hands of those they believed protected them.”
He swallowed once more. “There are no more Ascended. There never has been. No one wants to rule at the edge of the realm.” His chest rose with a deep breath. “I know who you are. I know what you are. It’s why you’re still standing, alive to this day. It’s not because you’re a god,” he said, his lip curling. “It’s because of the blood that courses through your veins.”
My spine stiffened. “If you say it’s because of who my mother is, I will not make your death quick.”
The Duke laughed, but the sound was as cold and harsh as that space inside me. “You think you’re a great liberator, don’t you? Come to free the mortals from the Blood Crown. Free your precious husband.”
Everything in me stilled.
“Kill the Queen—your mother—and take these lands in the name of Atlantia?” The spark of eather was in his eyes then. The corner of his lips curved up. “You will do no such thing. You will win no war. All you will accomplish is terror. All you will do is spill so much blood that the streets flood with it, and the kingdoms will drown in rivers of crimson. All you will liberate is death. All that you and those who follow will find here is death. And if your love is lucky enough, he will be dead before he sees what’s become of—”
Unsheathing my bloodstone dagger, I thrust it into his chest, piercing his heart and stopping the poisonous words before they could penetrate too deeply. And he felt it—the first splintering of his being, the first tearing of his skin and bone. And I, for one, was grateful for that.