Chapter 116

Silas

The Guild headquarters were silent at this hour. In that no man's land between night and day, the clubs had shut down for the night and most people were sleeping off whatever they'd drunk.

But not my father.

I padded through the corridors of the Guild's primary building, passing by closed doors, hearing nothing other than slow breaths or silence, right up until the point I reached my father's office. My hand went to the doorknob, sweat prickling across my skin, but I sucked a breath in, then another, forcing my lungs to obey a regime I set, not the adrenaline coursing through my veins. Every other male member of my family had done what I was about to do. Father had killed my grandfather and he his father. I had no uncles because they had all died in the same attempt to take control of The Guild. It was tempting to dwell on that, to consider how many people before me had failed to win a duel against the Raven. Gods knew I had done that often enough in the past. That and a total disinterest in manning the Guild's helm had stayed my blade, I told myself.

But no more.

There was a crucial difference between me and other contenders though. I didn't twist the knob and enter his office intending to survive this. I'd try my damnedest to do so, Jessalyn's stricken expression stark in my mind, but… Her safety was more important than her happiness, so I jerked the door open.

The office was empty. The cold, still air, the ashes in the fireplace and the fact that the stink of cigars had all but faded told me Father had not been here for some time. I stalked over to the desk, checking the surrounds for booby traps, then used one of my knives to turn over the items left there, but I found no clues as to where he had gone.

Which made me think I knew exactly where he was.

I walked out of the office, down the corridor to the training rooms.

I'd trained in this place since I was a boy. The first time I was all of five years old and I had an audience of all of the Guild members currently unoccupied. They'd hooted and laughed each time I fumbled. At the time, I'd been focused entirely on getting better, faster, stronger. But now? I thought of Benny, Desi's son, and questioned what madness it was, to teach such a small child to fight.

And kill.

It was only a few years later I'd learned how to do that as well.

My father liked to say Selene and I were gifts of raw iron from the gods and only he could refine us, work us, hammer us into a shape that was useful, but I wondered. I could've gotten Jessalyn with child just now. Would I see that child travelling the same path? Would I ‘train' them from an early age in the same manner?

No, my heart cried, no! as I walked into the training room and there he was.

"Took you a while," Father said, looking back over his shoulder at me, turning insultingly slowly to face me. "Had to tup that little lass of yours first, did you?"

"If you were wise at all, you'd keep all mention of my mate out of your mouth," I snapped.

I was reacting not acting, letting him set the tone and that was not wise, but still. Something burned inside me, born from a small spark that Jessalyn had struck, and once alight, it would not be denied. All of my doubts, resignation, even ennui became its fuel, burnt to ashes leaving just this.

No man who threatened my mate would be allowed to live.

"And what're you going to do about that, son?" Only my father could use a word like that with such scorn. All connections, all relationships were nothing but liabilities to him.

"The only thing I can do," I replied between gritted teeth. "You had to know this was coming."

"Feeling bold because you're wearing the blood of your enemies?" He smirked at the marks Jessalyn had left. "That doesn't mean you'll end up wearing mine."

"It's my blood," I corrected.

"Good, because you'll end up with a lot more of it on you before this is done."

I was falling backwards the moment I heard his tone shift, my head jerking away as his knife sliced through the air. I felt the breeze against my skin, my heart pounding for a second until I realised that was all I felt. My own knives were up and in my hands, my body snapping back and ducking under his guard to slice out. Fabric parted with a sigh, but not his flesh. My other hand followed the first, the knife finding the channel I'd cut and then sliding through it, successful this time.

You never forgot the feeling of a blade cutting through flesh. The resistance to the knife's edge is completely different, considerably more dense than even the padded jacket my father wore, but I didn't have time to dwell. I was forced to twist through the air, throwing myself sideways to avoid his downward strike.

"I thought sending you to play at being a soldier would make you sharper, but it's made you sloppier," Father announced, his weight on the balls of his feet, ready to attack.

His words washed over me. There was a time I lived and died by his approval, but that moment was long gone. Instead, I just watched his lips move as if he was speaking another tongue, my eyes focused much more intently on his body language. There it was, that slight tensing of his torso. His right shoulder was rising, announcing that was the hand he would strike with, so it made no sense for me to lurch in that direction, did it?

Ha.

My father announced nothing to anyone, not unless he wanted you to see it, so I took it as given that wasn't the direction he would strike from and I was partially right. His first strike came from the left, but he swung wide in an attempt to still hit me, forcing me to twist my spine as far as it would go to take advantage of his now bared ribs. My blade punched down, sliding between two of them, but too far down to do any real damage. That left my entire back free and unprotected. His lips formed a snarl, his eyes shining as he raised his other knife, ready for a downward strike. If he hit right he'd puncture my spine, my heart and all of this would be for nothing, so I jerked my knife free and spun away.

Only to feel the white hot burn of his knife as I sliced my shoulder and arm.

It wasn't a bad cut. If it were, I wouldn't have felt anything at all, the nerves severed as I bled out. Instead I felt the sluggish drip of blood from my fingertips, then focused on his. The muscles along the ribs didn't respond well to abuse. I watched his breath hitch, his weight shift to his left, wanting to ease the burden on his injured side, right before he nodded.

"So you haven't forgotten everything I taught you." He started to move slowly around the training ground floor and I mimicked his moves. "Focusing on honour and protecting the country hasn't blunted all of your instincts. Perhaps you are ready to take over from me."

"In a pig's eye," I replied, but there was no heat in my voice.

The burn of the cut was the only thing I felt as everything else was scrubbed away. I'd learned to mask my feelings around my father years ago, because any admission could and would be used against you. It didn't feel good to fall back into that flat affect, but there was nothing else for it. I'd never survive this attempt to end him, never mind achieve my goal, if I let him get in my head.

Which was precisely why he started talking.

"Don't remember telling you to fall in love with one of your marks though, did I?"

I didn't respond to his words or his sly smile. There was no point in denying what I felt for Jessalyn. He knew, I knew that I was in love with her, and all that was left was to ensure he could never touch her again.

"Not such a bad thing, getting close to a princess, but how will that work? Get to snuffle around her skirts when she sits on the queen's throne beside the Bastard, will you? Her obedient little lap dog. The courtiers won't like that, will they? What if she bears a son with hair of coal, not gold? Once the threat on the border is resolved and everything calms down, you'll be right back where you were."

I saw the gleam of gold in his teeth as his grin widened.

"The son of a whore and thief. Not good enough to father a king. Not good enough to even touch the hem of the queen's skirts, let alone squirm your way under them."

"Shut up," I said, my first mistake.

"Doesn't matter what the wolf shifters say, that you're a puppy pile–" he said with a sneer.

"A pack," I corrected.

"They don't give a shit about what the wolf shifters think, despite the fact we'd never be able to hold this land without them. Mark my words, boy…"

He watched me stiffen, his eyes shining with amusement.

"You'll be out of your ear before either one of them gets a crown placed on your head."

"So we'll walk away." I stepped closer, which was in itself an insult. It made clear the fact that I didn't consider him a real threat, despite his skill. "From all of it. That never even occurred to you, did it?" I lowered my weapons, watching his smile be replaced by real rage. Find the motivation throbbing in a mark's heart and then exploit it, he'd told me. Well I was about to do that now. "Because that's the only way you can comprehend the world, through a series of selfish, venal actions. Why did you steal Jessalyn from the camp, when we had taken pains to keep her out of this?"

"Keep her out of this?" He shook his head then turned on a dime, striking out at me. I watched the knife sail through the air, then his other one, but moved out of their paths. "There would be no revolution without the girl, so how could you expect me to leave a pretty thing like that where you stashed her?"

He danced backwards, in anticipation of retaliation, but I didn't move. Get 'em talking, Father had said one training session. People couldn't resist an opportunity to tell their side of the story, allowing you the chance to get the drop on them, I just never expected that to be true of my father.

"I thought for sure you lot would get all heroic once you discovered the fate of the first princess," he continued. "At the very least the second, but you just turned a blind eye."

"But not anymore." I saw Magnus' destroyed form on the marble floor of the throne room and felt a vicious kind of satisfaction. We'd finally taken him down and that left only one more piece to clear from the board. My grip tightened on my knives. "Not anymore, Father. Magnus is dead, but he was only one of the monsters that ruled Khean."

"And I'm the other."

His smile twisted, becoming something else altogether and I fought to determine what. Was that regret? I stared openly, hands hanging by my sides instead of raising them and my knives to attack. His lips twitched, then he shook his head.

"Monsters have ruled Khean since the very beginning. First the beast men. Our cousins were the only ones who walked this land, before the women came. Some of their children couldn't take fur, had no wolf, so they formed their own settlements in the way of men and one rose above them all."

His head tilted sideways.

"Was he more ferocious than the others? Was that what made him king? I haven't been able to find records of that, just those of his children and his children's children. It's a bad business, hereditary power. It's why we've never stood for it in The Guild. You have to prove yourself worthy of taking my mantle." He stood tall then. "By taking my head. Kings don't do that though, as Arik's father told me many times. Their power comes from their bloodline occupying the same space for time immemorial, creating a kind of inertia. Children are raised to expect there to be a king on the throne. They grow up to be adults who don't question his authority, even when they should. They stand by as this man, this boy who slithered from between the thighs of the right woman, does horrific things and they do nothing. You… did nothing."

I couldn't let the weight of that press me down. Arik had seen something in the throne room, in the tunnels, beside the king. His mutterings made clear that, but I had to believe that the dead princesses were at rest now.

Or they would be when I was done.

"And all you did was ensure that more suffered, Father," I replied. This was a hunch, but I needed to follow it through. "The Guild doesn't get involved in politics, not unless it furthers the aim of our people, but you did." I nodded slowly. "You did. You went to Arik and put forth a deal to him, and when it was made clear you wouldn't get far with that, you turned to Magnus. You helped him take the throne. You placed him in the perfect position to harm so many. You sent him Giselle. None of this furthered The Guild's aims or lined our coffers." I fell into a loose stance, ready to move at a moment's notice, and he nodded in response. "You are not worthy of being the Raven."

"No, you're not."

My eyes snapped upwards to see my sister there, body braced against the roof beams, right before she dropped. She dragged my father down with her, arm wrapped around his neck and tightening as he started to struggle.

"Selene…!" he wheezed.

"The very same." Her smile was as sharp as my knife, not faltering for a second as she choked my father out. "I know what you planned, to revolutionise The Guild. In the face of a weak king, an idealistic bastard son and a monstrous illegitimate one, you saw an opportunity."

He couldn't confirm or deny this, his heels kicking at the floor, trying to find purchase as he fought her hold.

But not for long.

Guild members emerged from the shadows, called here to witness the death of the Raven. I should've put the call out the moment I walked in here, announcing all my intentions. Instead my sister had been forced to do just that, because I wasn't the only one seeking to challenge my father today.

"Expose the monster for what he was to destroy any faith the powerful might want to invest in Magnus, then raise up the bastard."

My father's fingers were white as they clawed at her arm but they got little purchase. She wore a silk catsuit that was made for just this purpose. It made it so much harder to gain a grip.

"The bastard would be grateful, need advising, and would want to replace those lords that had shown the monster loyalty with those he could trust." Selene's eyes met mine. "From our number."

She'd known the entire time what would happen and why. While I played at soldier, she became a candidate for Raven. I realised she used the information networks she'd developed while a Temple sister, building a picture of his true intentions. When she nodded I expected her arm to jerk, the sound of my father's neck breaking anticlimactic in a way. He went limp, his eyes staring up at the ceiling as I moved closer.

"I have challenged the reigning Raven," she said, throwing her arms wide, the theatricality of the gesture unlike Selene, though perhaps I didn't know my sister at all. "And I have won. By our laws, I am now the new Raven of Khean." Her eyes locked with mine. "Unless anyone cares to challenge me now?"

I shook my head, just a tiny thing at first, the movement growing as I considered what she had done. I'd continually made my denial clear. Was this what Arik had felt once Magnus was dead? A feeling of freedom that fair took my breath away. Father was dead. I was not his heir and so… I didn't know what that made me, but this.

Jessalyn's, I was entirely hers, just as Rose was Selene's, the woman emerging from the crowd to pull my sister into her arms and slam a savage kiss down on her lips.

"The Raven is dead," Weasel drawled. "Long live the Raven."