Chapter 105

My hand trembled as I gripped the edge of the window, gazing across the battlefield and taking stock of all my losses.

"Vard," I croaked, and my Seer moved to my side. I grabbed his jaw, forcing him to look, my nails pinching into his skin. "What is this? Your monsters fall. Your weapons fail. What use have you brought to this day?!"

I threw him to his knees with a blast of air where he grovelled like a snivelling toddler.

Grinding my jaw, I turned back to the battlefield, my palm growing sweaty and the back of my neck all too hot.

I enhanced my eyesight with magic so I could see far out into the battle, and I frowned at what I discovered. There, among that terrible tide of new warriors that had joined the Vegas' army, I saw the faces of the warriors wielding those strange swords of light.

"No," I gasped, backing up, terror thickening my throat. "It cannot be. What concoction or trick is this?" The Savage King charged among those soldiers, fighting alongside his loathsome daughter, his black sword coated in purple Hydra flames scoring through my warriors, while his bitch wife was there, her own sword sending pulses of energy out into the Fae and knocking them flying.

A shaky breath shuddered its way over my tongue as my gaze locked on the impossible, tracking from one face to the next. Radcliff. My fallen brother. The one I had struck from this world like an errant fly, there to fight in the masses with a wild smile on his lips and his eyes alight with the fight he fought against me. Me! His own flesh and blood!

"Vard," I growled, snatching him from the floor and pinning him to the window by his neck, and forcing him to look out upon those very faces. He enhanced his eyesight so he could see better. "What is this? What is happening?"

"The Savage King," he rasped. "By the stars. The dead have risen once more."

"No!" I boomed, defying that possibility. It was not true. It could not be. There was no way, no path from death to the living. And yet…hadn't my own flesh and blood walked that path already? Hadn't I seen Darius in this very room with my own eyes? What foul magic had that Vega bitch concocted now? Oh how I cursed the fact that I had not ended the life of Roxanya while she was a mere puppet in my grasp, before she had lured my Heir away from me and become this creature of endless vexation.

I snarled, releasing my worthless Seer and seeking out Lavinia where she fought on among the stalwart remains of my forces. My lasting hope. Her shadows were pouring across my enemies and eradicating them in pure, savage viciousness. But Phoenix flames tore through her Nymph Legion, shredding through their bodies and burning them like kindling, marking the passage of the other Vega whore.

It was only a matter of time before the blue-haired wretch made it to Lavinia, the other Vega I should have eradicated when I'd had the chance.

Perhaps my queen would destroy her, but I knew…I damn well knew what choice was left to me now.

"Sire!" A guard raced into the room, throwing the door wide. "Intruders in the castle. The guards are holding them off but many are dying. Your Bonded have moved to intercept them but if they fail…" He gulped at the violence which flashed through my expression at that suggestion. "It won't be long before they make it here. A-and it seems, perhaps, forgive me, but your Heir, Tharix…he-"

He faltered, eyes wide with terror.

"He what?" I snarled.

I had long taken note that my new Heir had made no appearance in this battle. His shadow Dragon had not been out there winning this war for me, despite sending him into the fight myself and commanding him to take his place among my forces. But now, instead of tales of his victories in my honour, his name was spoken with trepidation by the tongue of a terrified guard.

"He fights alongside Darius, your Majesty. Arm in arm. The two an unstoppable force. And they make a path for this very chamber," he blurted, spitting the words from his tongue as if expelling them faster might lessen their force.

Those words rolled through my chest like burning wax, the sting of them invoking a fear in me which I could not deny. Tharix had betrayed me. He had been corrupted…

I glared out at the Phoenix fire which blazed in the writhing mass of the battlefield, trying to understand how this had happened. When this had happened.

Tharix had gone missing. I had thought him lost to some sick pleasure, perhaps making a toy of one of the servants and basking in their slow demise. Never had I considered that he could have been tempted away from my walls, away from his loyalty to those who had given him this gold-touched life.

Betrayal once again gilded my flesh. Was I cursed to suffer it so often? Were those surrounding me so intimidated by me that they couldn't bear the weight of my shadow despite all I offered them in exchange for their loyalty? A better world. A place at the side of the greatest ruler this kingdom would ever know.

Smoke seared my tongue, my eyes flashing green and scales erupting down my arms before I managed to hold the shift back.

I swallowed, forcing such pitiful emotions away and making my decision. Tharix would die with the rest.

"Seal the doors and bar the passages," I barked. "None get through here or I will have your head!"

The guard bowed and fled, sealing the door behind him and racing off to do as I bid.

I exhaled heavily, moving to the golden chest that lay on the desk as mutters of concern broke out among my advisors. Madam Monita was shaking, seeing some fate in her scrying bowl that frightened her beyond words. But I did not need to hear it. I felt it in the stirring of the air, in the way the wind was turning. The stars were scorning me, and for what purpose? Even Clydinius had abandoned me on the brink of victory. But I was no fool. I would turn from this battlefield now and come back another day to win my war.

I tightened a leash of air around my arm over the mark that bound me to Lavinia Umbra, contracting it firmly so she would feel it too. It was a warning, a command to retreat. I needed her now. I needed my Shadow Queen and off into the dark we would go until we could gather the numbers required to win this war another day. Or better yet, steal our way into the sleeping chambers of our enemies and gut them one by one while they slept in foolish belief of their supremacy. Yes, that would be our plot. Our goal. A plot I should have enacted when those Vega brats first returned to this kingdom unwanted.

I opened the chest to unveil my pouch of stardust and froze. Smoke spewed between my teeth as I took in the empty space, void of my means of escape.

"Vard," I said, my voice thick with a tremor that I despised the sound of. "Where is my stardust!?" I roared so loud the ceiling shook and my advisors flinched.

Vard gasped, shaking his head. "I do not know."

"Of course you do not. Because your Sight is useless and you foresaw nothing of it going missing. You have failed me as you always fail me!" I bellowed, panic setting in as I realised my means of escape was now lost.

My fingers curled into a fist and I swung for him, punching him hard enough to send him toppling to the floor as a Dragon's roar tore from my chest.

The sky beyond my vantage point was a roiling storm of vicious beasts, Dante Oscura at the heart of it, making it by no means easy for me to attempt to fly out of here in my Dragon form. But if not by wing, then how was I to leave this place?

"W-we can take the escape route," Vard stammered, and I nodded, clinging to the suggestion and snatching it up as my own, snarling fiercely as I strode to the fireplace, kicking the brick that would open up the secret passage.

As Vard came running over, I caught him by the neck and shoved him onto the darkened staircase beyond. If by any chance someone had found this secret staircase then he could meet with them ahead of me.

I cast one last, furious, deflated and disbelieving look out of the window which adorned my abandoned throne room and cursed the name of Vega for the millionth time. How had this happened? We'd held every advantage, our victory so assured that I had been celebrating it from the moment our forces collided, but now look at me. I was scurrying into the dark like one of those foul Rats who dared buck against the rightful order, who dared question the supremacy of their superiors. It was a bitter pill to swallow indeed.

My gaze flicked to the sky, to a small patch of blue beyond the roiling grey where the glimmer of a thousand watchful stars shone down. This was a test, I reminded myself. A test of my mettle. If they wanted me to do this through cunning then so be it. I would return for my crown before long.

"Follow me," I barked at my advisors, and they hurried to obey, none of them wishing to remain in this place with my traitorous Heirs en route to it.

The Vegas and my sons may have had me on the run, but if they thought they would come and claim the king's head for their efforts, they were going to be sorely disappointed. I would flee now but before long, I would return to seize this kingdom and wipe every one of their names from existence. Because the Acrux King would never fall.