Chapter 19

Nylren

Father sits back in his chair, putting both feet up on the empty dinner table. I haven’t moved since the guards took Elanor’s body away, merely replaying the scene in my head, relishing in the surprise on her face when I put the collar around her neck.

She never suspected she’d walked into the devil’s lair and my own personal hell. Although Father’s charm is legendary, she would have never joined him willingly. And now, I will find a way to use her capture to my advantage.

I shall do as Father wishes so he never suspects my darkest desires. He seeks to break her, turn her into one of his weapons, and I will oblige his every command. While he loses himself in his obsession over her, I will spin my own web, setting pieces on the board, in the shadows. Father will be so enthralled by her potential, he will fail to see the growing threat.

“You did good, Nylren. I’m proud of you.”

Air is sucked out of my lungs by the words leaving my father’s poisonous throat, and a hint of guilt flares in my cold heart. If only he knew what I have in store for us.

“Your mother would be, too,” Father adds.

I still perfectly and meet his gaze as he mentions her. He so rarely speaks of her that I’m left on edge, waiting for more.

It’s not love I feel for her, but mere curiosity. The desire to understand the monster sitting in front of me, and find another way to gain power over him. Love, I feel for no one, not even myself.

I have no recollection of her. All I’ve ever known is what her absence created—an endless pit of hate and madness in Father’s heart.

The humans had no idea what they would unleash when they killed Airdan’s mate eons ago, days after my birth. They sealed their fate, condemning themselves to an eternity of servitude and death under my father’s rule.

It’s been his mission ever since. Cruel at heart, rather than doom them to extinction, he’s vowed to force them all to their knees.

Nothing enrages him more than seeing these frail beings dividing us and driving us to kill each other over them.

“Come. Sit.” Father motions towards my chair.

Still in shock from the words of praise, it takes me a moment to put my body in motion. I cautiously take place next to my father as my brain grapples with reality, unable to reconcile the horrors he’s put me through with this outburst of appreciation.

The relaxed Fae in front of me clashes with the mental images carved in my head. My face turns to his, but my vision blurs as memories flash in my mind’s eye. The sleepless nights spent suffering, unable to find a comfortable position, my body too damaged to bear even a shirt, each gust of wind setting my slashed skin, still oozing blood, on fire. The constant belittling and humiliation. The shell of a person I’ve had to become to survive. The things I’ve had to do.

“How did you find out?” He claps his hands with excitement and the visions disappear.

I clear my throat before answering.

“Her eyes.”

His smile widens, encouraging me to tell him more.

“They would twitch at the mention of Azran. And I found her sneaking around the palace last night, hiding in the staircase leading to your chambers, although she had no idea she got caught.”

“Wonderful.” My father brushes his hands through his hair, a force of habit. “That was observant of you.”

I keep the rest of the explanation of my discovery to myself. He doesn’t need to know the entire truth. In fact, he can never know the entire truth.

It is my best-kept secret and one I will take to my grave, for it holds the one thing I can never share with a living soul. Were someone to find out, they would hold the key to controlling me, absolute power over me.

Were someone to know my worst fears, they would own me.

Fear, in my case, for there is only one.

A mate.

I will never let myself live and breath for another, trapped and at their complete mercy, and gift my father leverage on a silver platter.

I chose my partners cautiously throughout the years, knowing they would all end up dead, hung, or tortured to death. Zavan had recently joined the long list of my ghost lovers.

I researched fated mates for decades, reading every text ever written on the matter. When research wasn’t enough anymore, I started abducting couples, holding them in a warehouse in Nyths to study and torture.

I studied their reactions to the presence, pain, or death of their partners. I even pretended to free some, watching as they embraced each other, noting how their scent changed when together, their essence merging, only to catch them again. I whispered their mates’ names as they laid strapped to a table, watched their pupils dilate.

That’s how I learned about Elanor and Azran.

“You sold her out the second you found out.” Father’s words stir me from my daydream. “Ruthless like your father.”

And I would do it again in a heartbeat. It was nothing personal. She actually tried befriending me, the foolish girl. She doesn’t know that there is no room for kindness in this world.

I learned that lesson early on. My father has never let me forget it, which is why I cannot let his poisonous words get to me and threaten my plan.

Although, I must admit that hearing these words from his mouth doesn’t leave me indifferent. I didn’t realize a part of me still yearns to hear them. Elanor is not the only foolish one, after all.

“I learned from the best.” I incline my head slightly, measuring my next words. “I’m curious, Father. How do the collars work?”

He looks away to study his ring-decorated hands.

“That’s the thing about immortality, isn’t it? After a while, the years blend together, boredom seeps in, and the only way we can keep ourselves entertained is to scheme and wage wars. We flirt with the prospect of our deaths.” He raises an eyebrow, daring me to question him. “But no one sees the bigger picture. There is no one alive who remembers how long I’ve walked this earth. I’ve made sure of it. No one to remember what I’ve seen and found.”

He pulls out a small notebook from a pocket in his velvet jacket and waves it around. The cover is so damaged, it’s a wonder it hasn’t disintegrated yet.

“Magic used to be everywhere until we became overconfident and excessively ambitious. Some tried rivaling with gods and the gods took back their gifts. But they were too soft in their punishment, for they left us with one thing.”

“Healing magic,” I answer bluntly.

“Precisely.” He opens the small book, taking a moment to browse through it. “All magic is interconnected, you see? I figured out a way to tap into it and reconnect with the lost forms of power. Nothing is out of reach for me, now.”

“And Braern helped you test it.”

Father slaps the notebook shut and a rictus forms on his lips.

“Braern was a fool, but a useful one. He was never going to live. He was far too treacherous to keep around, but he served his purpose.”

I nod several times, letting him revel in his genius as his fingers go to his neckline, disappearing beneath his dark shirt and revealing the glimmer of a gold chain.

My pulse pounds in my ears as I glimpse the pendant concealed around his neck. Hair rises on my forearms, which I keep hidden under the table, and a theory forms in my mind.

“This is what we’ve been waiting for, Nylren.”

Father removes his feet from the table, straightening his stance, and the pendant disappears.

“Azran and Elanor can yield powers that, once harnessed, will make me invincible. Then, we will set the humans in their rightful places, at my feet or in the ground.”