He coughs out his next words. “Funny how the mind can make us see what we wish to. You already hated me for what I did to your kind, so it must have been easy to convince yourself it was me who drove that blade through your father’s chest.” A bloody smile stretches across his lips. “But it wasn’t.”
“Liar,” I breathe, pressing the sword deeper into his chest.
His next words are little more than a hysterical whisper. “Let’s just say that your first encounter with a prince wasn’t when you saved Kai in the alley.”
No. No.
“It was when he killed your father.”
The world spins around me, threatening to throw me to the ground. This can’t be happening. He’s lying. He’s a liar. He’s—
“His first kill, too.” The king continues with a bloody, reminiscent smile. “It was the first mission I sent him on, and I think the boy may have even cried after. Look at how far he’s come. Look at how well I’ve trained him. Now he kills at my command and barely bats an eye at the dozens of deaths delivered by his hands.”
I can barely breathe. The boy who taught me how to dance, healed my wounds, asked me my favorite color under the stars—
“You’re lying,” I choke out.
He lets out a raspy laugh. “No, you’re lying to yourself, Paedyn.”
The memory of the night my father died suddenly seems so fuzzy, so unfocused. Where I once thought I saw the face of the king, I now see a blurry body. I can’t make out any of the details, can’t seem to recall anything about my father’s killer.
I shake my head. I can’t think about this now. I refuse to let my reeling thoughts of Kai distract me from the task at hand.
Because now I will kill his father.
Once again, I find symmetry to be a sickening thing.
I will not fail.
The king’s smile is bloody.
I will not falter.
Hysterical, mocking laughter follows.
I will not feel remorse.
“Weak. Just like your father—”
The sword I drive through his chest shuts him the hell up.
My next words are hollow, horribly calm. “This is for my father.”
He lets out a weak, wheezing gasp as he lifts his head off the ground to stare at the damage I’ve done. His eyes widen at the sight of his own sword buried deep in his chest. A gurgling noise follows his gasp, blood spilling over the corners of his mouth and gushing from his wound.
Nothing—I feel nothing for this man dying at my feet, dying by my hand.
“And this,” I twist the hilt of the sword, drawing a scream from the king as more of his flesh rips and shreds, “is for Adena.”
He lets out a strangled sob when I yank the sword out, throwing it to the ground. I spin around, finding my dagger lying several feet away. Each step towards it has me feeling stronger despite every wound weakening my body.
The silver swirled handle of my father’s dagger is slicked with rainwater, blood, and mud—matching me. Drops of water stream down my face, stinging my open wounds as I turn the dagger over in my hand. I flip it once, twice, feeling its familiar weight.
“And this is for me, you son of a bitch.”
I let the dagger fly.
Chapter Sixty-Six
Paedyn
The blade finds its target, guided there by my hatred, my heartbreak, my heartlessness. It sinks into the center of his throat, instantly ceasing his raspy breaths.
I’m shaking all over, staring at the corpse of a killer who’s staring back at the creature who just became one.
The king’s head is lolled to the side with my father’s dagger lodged in his throat, his eyes wide and watchful. A tear slips down my cheek, mingling with the beads of rainwater rolling down my face. I wipe it away with bloody hands, unsure why I feel like crying.
Is it regret?
No. Not regret. Not remorse. Not anything remotely close to guilt.
It’s relief.
I take an unsteady step towards him, intending to grab my dagger and bolt.
Something catches my eye.
I spin towards the movement despite my body screaming in protest. My eyes land on glossy, unblinking ones. The girl is small with dark skin and even darker hair. She blinks, her eyes clearing before a look of horror settles on her face.
And then she’s sprinting.
A Sight.
I blink in the rain, staring after the retreating form of the girl who likely just recorded me killing the king. I barely have time to process this before I hear heavy footsteps echoing down the stone tunnel to my right.
I hesitate.
My dagger.
I need it. I have to have it. I—
Whoever is heading through that tunnel is coming fast. I need to get out of here now. I have no idea whether this person is friend or foe, and I have no intention of finding out.
I don’t have a moment to spare. Not a single second to grab my prized possession, and my breaking heart is my most painful wound right now.
Then I’m running.
Every part of me is on fire. My body is screaming, streaked with blood, staggering with weakness. But I can’t stop. Once I make it farther down the road, there will be woods to my right and—
A knife whizzes past me, skimming my forearm with its sharp blade.
I whip my head around and stumble to a stop at what I see.
Every bit of his body is covered in blood. His hair is a mess of inky waves, sticky with sweat and streaked with blood. A thin blade is gripped between his fingers, his hand raised and ready to send it flying towards me.
And something snaps into place at the sight of him.
I’m suddenly back in my old home, hidden behind a cracked door as I watch a sword plunge into my father’s chest. The sword held by a boy with wavy black hair, a boy with gray eyes full of fear, a boy who just became a murderer.
I shudder as my eyes sweep over that same black hair, those same gray eyes, and the same murderer before me. The sight of him now suddenly has the memory of that night clearer than it ever has been before.
Pieces of the puzzle that is my scattered memory begin to fall into place.
That night so long ago, my mind made me believe it was the king who killed my father, made me blame the man I already hated. And in a way, it was the king who killed him, just not by his own hand. It was his son who sunk the blade into my father’s chest.
My breath shudders as I stare at him.
It suddenly all makes sense.
The attraction. The connection. The familiarity. I was so easily drawn to him because deep down I knew him, recognized him, remembered him. He was familiar to me.
And now my father’s murderer is going to murder me.
We stare at each other, and I see the boy who’s been the king’s instrument of death his entire life, commanded and controlled to be a killer. He was made this way. Made to mirror the monster his father is—was.
But that doesn’t make him any less a murderer.
It’s his eyes that are more startling than his ragged, enraged appearance. That gray gaze is like smoke billowing from the hottest fire, and yet, cold like chips of ice, piercing like the tips of icicles. Those eyes betray the horror he feels, looking like they did the night I saw him take his first life.
I did this to him. I killed his father.
But he killed mine first.
He knows what I’ve done. I doubt he would forget the distinct look of the dagger I’ve pressed against his throat so many times—the same dagger that is now protruding from his father’s throat.