Chapter Thirty-Seven Samuel

Chapter Thirty-Seven

Samuel

S amuel hesitated at the door to the King's laboratory, his hand hovering inches above the handle. He hadn't seen the King since the day they had been shown where the blood of Aeravin came from. They had been working tirelessly to put together the clues, to find the killer.

To stop it all before Isaac was put at risk in a pointless, ridiculous ceremony.

But they kept coming up empty.

He didn't know if he could continue to do this. He was walking a tightrope, dancing dangerously close to destruction, and if he kept down this path it wouldn't just be his life that was changed. His very soul would be stained beyond all recognition.

The Guard at his side coughed, and Samuel realized that he had been standing there for over a full minute. Squaring his shoulders, he took a deep breath and stepped through the door into the somber, sterile room. The King didn't even glance his way, too busy in a whispered argument with Isaac.

Well, Isaac was arguing. The King just stood there, a glass of amber liquid in his hand as he stared out into the night.

They also weren't alone. There was a third person in the room, a middle-aged man with his hands bound behind his back and his legs chained to a heavy metal chair. He looked up, his blue eyes shining with fear, but the gag in his mouth prevented him from saying anything.

Samuel cleared his throat, and both Isaac and the King turned to him. "Ah, you're here," the King said, but Isaac just whispered, "Please."

The King shook his head, a quick but harsh nod. "Enough. Do not forget your place." Isaac stepped back, as suddenly as if he had been slapped, looking completely and utterly defeated. "Now be gone."

Samuel lurched forward, but Isaac was already heading towards the door. He wouldn't meet his eyes, but he did say, gently and softly, "I'm sorry."

For what, Samuel didn't have the foggiest idea, but the dread in his stomach grew stronger. Whatever the King was planning, it must have been something terrible if Isaac had tried to stop it.

And he already knew how terrible the King could be.

Then Isaac was gone, leaving Samuel alone with the King, who tossed back the rest of his drink. "Well, I never thought I'd see the day," he muttered, with no small amount of annoyance as he stared at the space where Isaac had just stood. "But no matter, we have other things to focus on." He gestured to the prisoner, raising his empty glass to him. "Meet Erik. He's going to help with the next step of your training."

Samuel couldn't help the fearful glance he shot Erik, who just stared down at the floor. He didn't even seem afraid or angry. He was just quiet and empty, like a husk devoid of all soul. "I… what precisely are we doing?"

"De la Cruz should be thankful for what we're doing tonight. Even he should see that it'll only be to help him." The King smiled, and it was a cruel thing. "It's time we found out the limits of your power."

"Limits?" Samuel echoed, and the King frowned.

"Don't look so timid, Samuel. It's time you let go of this idea that your powers are something unsavory, an unfortunate necessity. This is something you will have to come to terms with if you want a place in my court. If you want to be part of it, you must accept that power—that justice—is not kind."

Samuel turned back towards Erik, remembering how the King had said that when he had killed that poor girl. The traitor. "And tonight we deliver justice?"

"Precisely." The King stepped forward, standing next to Samuel. "This bastard doesn't deserve mercy. He is a treasonous snake and was part of a plan to assassinate me."

Samuel blinked at the man, emaciated and pale, and had a difficult time imagining him as a threat. "I didn't realize there was—"

"It was years ago," the King interrupted. "And I ensured no word of it got out. I cannot have the crown looking weak, after all. But I've been waiting all this time to find the perfect punishment for him. At last he can be of use."

"I see." Samuel tore his eyes away from Erik, who hung his head low. Whatever spark he once had—bright enough to stand up to the Eternal King himself—had long ago burned away, leaving this broken and empty man. It seemed almost too cruel to contemplate, but Samuel was learning that the King specialized in that. In finding the exact right way to draw out the most pain possible.

It would have been awe-inspiring if it wasn't so horrible.

"What will you have me do?" Samuel asked at last, and the King relaxed for the first time that night.

Samuel had given up the fight, and the King knew it.

"We test just how much your gift can affect the body, not simply the mind and the will." He poured another glass of the amber liquid and brought it over to Samuel. "Here, this will help you relax, son."

Samuel stared down at it, hiding the flinch as he stared at the whisky. He hated being called that. Son . Like the King could ever be a father to him. Like he'd ever known what a father was like.

It was all bullshit.

"I don't need to be drunk," Samuel said, at last.

"Are you so sure?" The King tilted his head to the side, his green eyes cold and piercing. "You seem… uneasy. This will help lower your inhibitions."

"It's not my inhibitions that are the problem," Samuel snapped, with more venom than he intended, but it earned him a smile.

"No, it's your fool heart." He pressed the glass into Samuel's hand. "And while that might be admirable in some people, you cannot allow it to hold you back."

Twisting his wrist, Samuel watched the whisky swirl in the glass. It was actually tempting, and he could already feel his power stirring in his chest, aching to be used. "My heart is the only thing that has kept me from becoming a monster."

"Only fools think of things in terms of men and monsters, and it's time to stop pretending you are less than you are."

"I am just a man," Samuel said.

"Not just any man." The King placed his hands on Samuel's shoulders, leaving him no choice but to look up at him. "You are an Aberforth and a Blood Worker. You are the last of my line. You should be a god amongst men."

But he didn't want that—or at least he had tried his whole life not to. The darkness was a part of him, but still disparate, held back by the strength of his will alone. Every time he was weak, every time he broke—every time he used his power in this mad quest for mastery—it was a bit harder to tuck that power back away. He had started to crave it, the rush that came with using it, the sense of control that he never had before.

And this? This would only make it all the harder.

He took a deep drink of the whisky, the burn giving way to something warm, almost pleasant, in his belly.

"You need to stop thinking of your power as only evil," the King said, his voice soft, not quite a whisper. "I would have hoped you had learned that by now, realized that it can be used to protect, to save yourself and those you care about in times of need."

Samuel could envision it immediately, how the words would flow from his lips, the imagined enemy stopping dead in their tracks. "They have to obey me."

"Not just that." The King stepped back, looking him over. "You're not trained for combat, you never have been. But you have another way to take care of a threat. Permanently."

Unable to contemplate what he might mean—even to dare thinking about it—Samuel took another deep sip of the whisky.

But the King didn't give him that out, choosing to continue, to whisper the words that Samuel feared to hear. "You could order them to stop breathing, for their heart to stop, to drop dead at your feet."

"I thought you said that I am not a monster."

"Is it monstrous to protect others? To protect the ones we love? The ones we have a duty to serve?" the King asked. "Isn't that exactly what we should be doing? Not everyone is a Blood Worker—there are countless Unblooded in Aeravin, in the world. Weak and defenseless. And not a single person like you. So, shouldn't you do everything you can to protect them?"

Samuel turned away, the alcohol turning sour in his stomach.

"Just imagine it, Samuel. We all have enemies." The King's voice was as cold and serious as death. "Not just me and you. Pretty little Shan LeClaire. Foolish Isaac de la Cruz. They both play dangerous games and if they are ever at risk, wouldn't you want to help them? Sometimes you only have a moment—a breath—to act.

"And you don't ever want to waste it."

Samuel blanched, but the King just watched him impassively. Of course. They hadn't found anything on the killer. The Royal Blood Worker still had duties to do—and public appearances to make. Samuel just didn't know if it was hubris or some kind of twisted kindness that motivated the King to dangle such potential in front of him, but either way he knew he had to be prepared.

Perhaps it was the result of living so long, seeing so many born and die. One stopped seeing them as people.

It's what made him such a powerful King, and something less than a man.

Speaking through a suddenly dry throat, Samuel said, "We don't even know if that would work." It was one thing to tell a man to kneel, to force the truth from his lips, to force him to remember something he had thought forgotten. But to force him to actively work against his own survival instincts? To end his life—the thing that most clung to so strongly?

Samuel acknowledged that he had a great and terrible power, but he wasn't so arrogant to assume he could do this.

"That is what Erik is here for," the King said, turning back to their guest. He had listened the whole time in enforced silence, but somewhere along the line he had started trembling, violently shaking in his seat. "I picked him specifically for you. I realize your morals still bother you, but this man is a traitor and a murderer, and I am not so cruel as to force you to kill an innocent." He stalked behind Erik's chair, wrapping one hand around the man's throat.

"He killed not just the Guards but servants as he made his way to me. A girl, only sixteen, left dead on the floor in a pool of her own blood. My valet, a man who had served me for more than two decades, who left behind a wife and two young children. He tore families apart in his insane quest to kill me, and for what?" Tearing off the man's gag, he looked at Samuel. "Ask him."

Tossing back the rest of the drink, Samuel stepped closer to Erik, close enough to smell the fear and sweat that rolled off him. "Is what he said true?" Samuel asked, letting the power flow through him and hang heavy on the air.

"Yes," Erik gasped, his voice hoarse, harsh, like he hadn't used it in years. And perhaps he hadn't, locked away in the King's dungeons. "I killed six servants on my way to the King."

Samuel let out a harsh breath. "Did they have to die?"

"No." Erik flinched. "They didn't."

"So why did you do it?"

"Because they were complicit," Erik snarled. "Because it didn't matter. All that mattered was getting to the King. Any cost was acceptable."

The King wrapped the gag around Erik's throat, pulling it back until he started to choke. "It was a foolish plan, ill-thought-out. Erik and his compatriots had no idea what to do once I was gone—they just wanted me dead and did not care who got in the way."

"What happened to the others?"

"They died in the attempt," the King said, relaxing his hold. Erik sputtered for air; it seemed that death would not come to him so soon. "Our friend here was the only one unlucky enough to survive. But now he can join his allies. All you have to do is say the word."

Samuel looked Erik in the eyes. "Do you regret? Their deaths?"

The answer was immediate. Erik didn't even try to fight it. "No."

The darkness stirred in his veins, and a single word fell from his lips.

" Die ."