Chapter 91

The enormous black Dragon took three hulking steps towards me then shifted, Tharix appearing before me and cloaking himself in clothes of shadow just as I'd seen him do before. This time, however, he didn't mimic my outfit, instead crafting plates of interlocking black armour of his own design, spikes rising at his shoulders and elbows, the fit tight but made to allow him to move.

"So," I said, hefting my axe in my hand and shifting my weight subtly.

When this fight began it wouldn't end easily, but I was going to bet that severing his head would be the move to make.

"So," Tharix replied, cocking his head as he inspected me. "It looks as though you have been feasting on death tonight, brother. And here I thought I was supposed to be the monster among us."

I pushed my tongue into my cheek, not much liking that assessment. "I fight for the honour and liberty of our people. I fight against tyranny and oppression, and most of all, I fight to put the right monarchs on the throne of our kingdom. What is it you fight for, brother?" I sneered the last word at him, letting him feel the contempt I held for that title, and he blinked at the acid in my tone.

"I thought we'd been more…civil of late," he said slowly.

"Answer the question and we will see how civil we can be from opposing sides of a war."

"Well, that is a hard question to give an answer to, I'm afraid. Because I haven't fought in this battle, so I can't tell you what I'm fighting for when I am little more than an observer to this chaos."

I frowned at him, taking in his spotless appearance and raking my mind for any sign of him before he had come careening across the sky and hurled me off of Xavier's back.

"Why not? Is our father holding you in reserve?" I asked, knowing the mind of the man who had sired us all too well.

"I have been ordered to join the battle," Tharix replied. "I'm just trying to decide which side to fight on."

My lips parted on words which did not come. I stared at him, really stared and as I looked I found him to be…different. The darkness which had once lurked within his eyes was missing and to top that, he no longer conjured that foul reek of death with his appearance. There was a stillness in his expression which hadn't been there before and the shadows coiling through his fingers were no longer stained a solid ebony but glimmering with flecks of silver.

"The shadows were cleansed," I said, jerking my chin at his hands. "Were they holding you captive too?"

Tharix looked down at his hands with a short breath of laughter, the distraction the exact opportunity I needed to strike at him and yet…I held my ground.

"No, brother, I do not think I was ever a creature who could have been controlled so thoroughly. But…yes, my mother lost some of her grip on me. I no longer hear her hissing venom in my ear. I no longer feel compelled to please her. In fact, I no longer feel very much of anything towards her at all."

"You expect me to believe that?" I scoffed. "You come to me, naming me brother and claiming some connection between us because of that vague blood tie, and you expect me to believe that you would so easily dismiss a blood bond with your own mother?"

"I have come to you because I seek something which I am yet to put a name to. I want to feel the things you seem to feel so very easily. I want to taste the wind and feel my heart race for a reason so much better than physical exhaustion, and I think you know what it is to experience all of that. Blood is one of the very few things I have. My tie to four people in this world a truth about myself which is undeniable. But I tire of our father's belt and my mother's manipulations. I do not think I will find what is missing from me in their hostile company."

I clenched my jaw, not wanting to hear those words, not wanting to feel the twist of fucking pity which was wrenching at my gut, nor have any kind of understanding of what it was he was searching for. But I did. I knew what he would never find while trapped within the company of my father and Lavinia. It was what had saved me after all.

"Death came calling on me," Tharix added conversationally, as if the two of us weren't perched on a mountaintop while war waged on below us, the screams of those facing their end coiling up to taint the air.

"I know the feeling. And I doubt you came back the way I did, so how did you escape it?" I asked, curious despite myself.

"The Ferryman took the souls my mother bound to me. He was…" Tharix pursed his lips, clearly unwilling to go on. "Well, suffice to say, he didn't deem whatever I am worthy of reaping. So, here I am."

He held his hands wide, and I realised that he held no weapon in his grip. He wasn't standing ready to fight or even watching me with the kind of shrewd observation that would suggest he was ready to defend himself. He was offering me a free shot at him if I wanted it. Well, either that or…

"You want me to offer you a place in our army?" I asked, narrowing my eyes at him. We had discussed the possibility of trying to turn him and dismissed it. Those tortured souls were bound to him, and his creation was a thing beyond our comprehension. But if what he was saying was true then not only had those souls been taken into death where they belonged, but he was no longer tainted by the darkness of Lavinia's shadows, meaning the man who stood before me was simply that. Half Fae, half Nymph, a product of our father's ambition and cruelty – not so very different to me.

"Are you?" Tharix asked, a malicious grin lifting the corner of his lips like the idea of that betrayal thrilled him.

"That kind of deal would have to be made by one of the True Queens – ideally both," I hedged, but his smirk only grew.

"Oh, I think the king consort has some sway. Besides, your queen made a deal with me – she owes me."

"Owes you what?' I asked, narrowing my eyes at him and making a mental note to have words with my wife about making dodgy deals with ferocious creatures because she was making altogether too much of a habit of it.

"That was left up to fate. Just as fate threw you into my path today, brother. So the question is, what will you do with me now that you've got me?"

I stared at him for several long moments, then let out a huff of frustration, silently cursed my wife and sheathed my axe.

"I'm headed for the Jade Castle," I told him. "And when I get there, I plan on decapitating our father. Do you have any issue with that?"

Tharix grinned. "Do you know, just this morning, I was thinking how much better he would look without a head. It will match with his missing hand."

I held out for all of a few seconds before barking a laugh and grinning back at the brother who I hadn't asked for but now found myself lumped with.

"Well, maybe we are related after all."

"Come on. I can get you into the castle if that's where you want to be." Tharix shifted in the blink of an eye, his huge Dragon form towering over me once again and despite my better judgement, despite my knowledge of what he was and where he had come from, I found myself moving closer to him.

I could only hope I wasn't losing my damn mind and that I was right to follow my gut on this because if not, I was about to serve myself up on a silver platter to the man I had come here to kill.

But for some unknown reason, I did trust Tharix, and as I climbed up onto his back and hid myself away with concealment charms, I let myself bask in the thrill of knowing that I was finally going to get close enough to my father to end this.