Gathering Darkness

by Morgan Rhodes

  The king nodded, his neutral expression unchanged. “Exactly as I figured.”

  Just then the throne room doors swung open.

  “Ah,” the king said. “Very good. This should help.”

  Magnus watched Gregor’s face go ashen as a girl, flanked by guards, her hands tied behind her back, entered. She had long, curly black hair and flashing light brown eyes. She wore a dirty canvas tunic over dark brown trousers, the clothing of a boy.

  She looked ready to kill.

  “I’ve come to believe this girl is your sister,” the king said. “She is, yes?”

  Gregor hadn’t taken his eyes off the girl for a second. “Release her.”

  “Not so fast. Here’s how this will go. You will tell me what I need to know. We will discuss the matter man-to-man without any need for violence. After that, you and your sister—Lysandra, correct?—you and Lysandra will be prepared for public execution. Apart from having to endure the presence of the crowd, your deaths will be quick and virtually painless. However, if you refuse to tell me what I need to know, I will have your sister tortured to death in front of a much smaller audience, which will include you. Should I go into detail about what will be done to her?”

  The calm demeanor with which the king delivered this news sent a chill racing down Magnus’s spine.

  He wasn’t bluffing.

  Why did the threat of torture set Magnus’s stomach churning? He hated his father, but he was a Damora. This threat shouldn’t sicken him; it should energize him.

  Lysandra had gone quiet, had stopped struggling, but the hatred in her eyes still burned bright. “Tell him nothing, Gregor. One way or the other, he’s going to kill us both.”

  Gregor was visibly shaking now.

  “Lysandra, forgive me,” Gregor said, causing the king to break out in the slightest of smiles. Lysandra’s face quickly became etched with worry, clearly fearful of what he’d say next. “Death is one thing. But torture. . . . no. I can’t let that happen to you.” He turned to the king, his face a mask of hatred as he began to speak. “Phaedra told me that the Kindred were ready to be awakened. That’s the word she used. Interpret it however you wish. But she warned me that they should remain unfound, even if it means the fading of both her world and ours.”

  “Nonsense. How could that be?” the king prompted.

  “Because mortals can’t control power like that,” Gregor snarled. “And anyone who thinks they can control it is a damn fool.”

  This boy has courage, Magnus thought, mildly impressed.

  “What else?” King Gaius hissed, ignoring Gregor’s insult.

  “She believes that when the Kindred finally awaken, the world will burn.”

  “Burn,” the king repeated. “What does she mean, burn? Surely she doesn’t mean the world will literally burn?”

  “I don’t know. I was sure she’d return to tell me more, to tell me how to help her, but it’s been weeks since I last dreamt of her. I swear on my parents’ souls I’m speaking the truth. I don’t give a damn about the Kindred. For all I care you can have it!”

  The king pressed his fingertips together as he studied Gregor. “What do you know of a young man in Paelsia who can harness the power of fire?”

  Magnus’s back stiffened. Ashur had shared this rumor with him, but this was the first time he’d heard his father mention it.

  “I’ve never heard of such a man,” Gregor said, shaking his head.

  “No matter, I suppose.” The king leaned forward. “How do I find the Kindred, Gregor?”

  Magnus felt a sudden sense of relief. For the king to dismiss such a fantastical notion so easily likely meant he’d found no truth in it.

  “You’re so sure that I know, but you’re mistaken.” Gregor’s harsh tone turned wistful. “I’m certain Phaedra means to contact me again—she wouldn’t just leave me. She was good and kind and wanted the best for the world . . . but she had enemies. She feared something . . . or—or someone.”

  “Perhaps she’s dead,” Magnus murmured.

  “Yes,” King Gaius agreed. “Perhaps this Watcher of yours is dead, and if so, she’s no use to anyone, is she?”

  “But Watchers are immortal.” Gregor’s gaze flickered uncertainly between father and son, his chest heaving with labored breath. Then he seemed to summon his courage again. “You need me. I’ve had direct contact with a Watcher who chose me above any other mortal. I am her proxy in this world. That makes me special, valuable. I promise to work for you, your majesty. I ask only that you spare my life and the life of my sister.”

  “Gregor, no!” Lysandra cried out, her voice breaking up with horror and disgust.

  “Shut up, Lys,” he growled. “Do you want to die?”

  “I’d rather die a rebel than kneel before this royal sack of shit.”

  A guard backhanded Lysandra across her face so hard that she cried out.

  Gregor jumped to his feet, but Cronus pushed him back down. “Forgive my sister,” Gregor managed. “She’s always been hotheaded, but not me. I can see opportunity when it presents itself. You need me, your majesty. When Phaedra contacts me again, I will tell you everything, without hesitation. I’m not lying!”

  “No, you’re not lying.” The king reclined back in his throne, his hands grasping its golden arms. “You would do this, I can see that. You love your sister. That kind of loyalty is very important to me. Family is the most precious thing in this world. Family is the only way for us mortals to guarantee our own immortality. I respect the love you have for your family.”

  Gregor let out a slow, shaky sigh. “Good.”

  Father might really show lenience to this boy, Magnus thought. Despite his initial resistance, Gregor was ready to turn his back on his rebel leanings and pledge his allegiance to King Gaius in order to save his sister’s life.

  The king regarded Gregor in silence. “The problem is, I think your Watcher is either finished with you or she’s dead. And she told you next to nothing to begin with. She sounds worthless to me, unlike Melenia, who has made me great promises that I know she’ll keep. And to me, this makes you just as worthless.”

  “No, your majesty. That’s not true!”

  Lysandra struggled against the guard holding her in place, her gaze darting everywhere as if searching for a means of escape.

  King Gaius didn’t so much as glance in her direction. “Much gratitude, Gregor, for teaching me a very important lesson today,” he said. “Sometimes I allow myself to be led by impatience and anger. But I’ve waited a lifetime for the Kindred, and I can continue to wait until the time is right. After all, I already possess the key to unlock this mystery. I simply need to learn the proper way to use it.”

  Panic dashed through Gregor’s eyes. “I can help you. I can be invaluable to you!”

  The king smiled, baring his straight white teeth. “Don’t worry. You did prove to me that you weren’t lying. That’s a good thing. It means you can keep your tongue. And your sister will escape any overt unpleasantness. I’m not a monster who’d torture a young girl solely for his own amusement.”

  “So we will still be executed together?” Gregor said, his voice dull with defeat.

  “Not quite.” The king glanced at Lysandra. “Clean her up and make her beautiful—or as beautiful as a Paelsian can possibly be. I haven’t yet been able to present a female rebel to the people as an example of how I don’t make exceptions when punishing those who would oppose me.”

  “What about my brother?” Lysandra spat. A trickle of blood slid down from the corner of her mouth where she’d been struck.

  “Don’t worry. Your brother will still be there to watch you die,” the king said. “Cronus, bring me the boy’s head. I’ll make sure it’s put on a spike with the very best view of the palace square.”

  A pained shriek escaped from Lysandra’s throat. “No!”
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br />   Cronus didn’t hesitate. He drew his sword as two guards grabbed Gregor’s arms and held him in place.

  Words of protest died in Magnus’s throat. There was only one way this could end; Magnus knew his opinion was worthless now that the king had made his decision. Speaking up now would only make it worse.

  Lysandra screamed and Magnus turned to her as she fought and clawed to free herself from the guards.

  But there would be no stopping this.

  “I’m sorry I failed you. Fight, little Lys. Fight till the very end!” Then the sword fell in one clean, heavy stroke.

  Lysandra’s horrified screams wedged themselves deeply into Magnus’s chest, and he knew their echoes would haunt him from this moment forward.

  There was no fight left in Lysandra after it was done. The guards effortlessly dragged her from the throne room to take her back to the dungeon.

  Gregor’s body was removed as well, and his head was placed on a silver platter.

  “Well done, Cronus.” The king nodded, and flicked his hand. “Now take it away.”

  “Yes, your majesty.” Cronus’s expression was ice cold and emotionless—just as it always was after carrying out executions. It was the face of a man of stone rather than flesh and blood.

  Cronus left father and son alone, with only a bloodstain where Gregor had been kneeling as evidence of what had happened only moments before.

  Magnus was silent. His mind had gone black, no thoughts, just a dark, heavy cloud.

  “It had to be done,” the king said.

  “Did it?” His reply came out sharper than he’d meant it to. “A private execution of a rebel you’d previously found useful? No, I don’t think it had to be done.”

  The king shot Magnus a look of surprise.

  “You did that because you wanted to relish in the look on that girl’s face as you murdered her brother right in front of her,” Magnus went on. “You enjoyed it. You wanted to break the spirit you saw in her so she would accept her own fate without a fight. So her fiery spirit, which lingers despite having been locked up in your dungeon, doesn’t rile up the execution crowd, which I know you’ll pad with your most loyal minions. Well, let me be the first to congratulate you, Father, because you succeeded.”

  The king narrowed his eyes. “What is wrong with you, boy? Why must you oppose everything I ever do?”

  Magnus found it difficult to breathe as every bit of frustration, doubt, and anger directed at his father, feelings he’d tried so very hard to repress, surged to the forefront. “Because not everything you do is right!”

  “I only do what I must to maintain my power here in this era of transition, so that one day you won’t have as much to struggle with. This is a dangerous time for us, son. There is no room for dissent.”

  “Is that why you ordered a piece of shit like Aron Lagaris to murder Mother? To lessen my struggle?”

  The words were out before he could stop them, and they earned him a satisfying look of shock from the king. Why stop now?

  “Funny, I thought you knew everything that happened in your kingdom, thanks to all your spies and informants,” Magnus continued. “But you didn’t know this tidbit. You didn’t know that Aron confessed to me, confessed that you had him take a knife to my mother in the dead of night, ending her life so you could blame it on Jonas Agallon.”

  The king’s expression of shock leveled out to neutral. “You’re the one who killed Aron.”

  His secret was out. Now he had nothing to lose. “I’d planned to bring him back here to answer for his crime, but he tried to kill me. Obviously, he failed. Seeing the life leave his eyes wasn’t as satisfying as I’d hoped. But he wasn’t the real criminal. He was only the weapon. You killed my mother and—”

  “And now I assume you want me dead as well.” The king cut him off and rose from his throne, descending the steps so he stood face-to-face with Magnus. “Of course you do. Here.” He placed a silver dagger in Magnus’s hand. “I will give you this one chance to end my life, if that’s what you really want. Here and now. Do it.”

  Magnus’s hand trembled. “This is a trick.”

  The king kept his gaze fixed on his son. “Althea was working against me. She opposed my quest to find the Kindred—she always did. She hated me and wanted to keep me from any power that might strengthen my reign. She wanted Lucia dead and I believe that she meant to kill you as well, to prevent me from having a true heir. She had to die, Magnus.”

  Magnus’s very bones shook. The hilt of the dagger felt like ice against his skin. “That was not your only option.”

  “Yes, it was. I know some of my decisions have been harsh, but they’ve all been necessary.”

  Lucia had told Magnus that their mother wanted her dead because she feared her magic, that she’d been giving Lucia a potion to keep her asleep for so long . . . but Magnus didn’t believe that was reason enough for the king to murder her. Punish, yes. Banish, perhaps. But death? It didn’t make sense to him and it never would.

  “But Mother—” he began.

  “Althea wasn’t your real mother.”

  The blunt statement hit Magnus like a fist to his gut. “What?”

  The king gazed at him steadily. “She lost the baby she believed was you and went mad with grief. Shortly before this, another child had been born of my seed, and I gave that child—you—to her. You brought her back from the brink of insanity. She believed she was your mother up until her last breath, but she was never of your blood.”

  Magnus stared at him, his mind reeling. “You’re lying.”

  “Your true mother was Sabina.”

  He felt gut-punched again, and he staggered back from the king in horror. Sabina, his father’s mistress, an evil, power-hungry witch. Dead now, killed by Lucia’s magic. “Another lie! Sabina tried to kill me—she tried to kill me after she tried to seduce me.”

  The king lowered his brow. “She was a complicated woman, I’ll admit that much. Her passions sometimes went beyond what even I could understand. But it doesn’t change the truth. You’re mine and Sabina’s only son. She hid her pregnancy from everyone. Only Sabina, I, and the midwife who helped you into this world ever knew what really happened.”

  “No.” Bile rose in Magnus’s throat. The world had shifted on its axis; the ground was now unsteady beneath his feet.

  The king gripped Magnus’s shoulders so tightly he winced. “You have the blood of both a witch and a king running through your veins. Every witch has ancestral ties to the Watchers. You have that. That is why I’ve always seen something special in you, something superior.”

  Magnus couldn’t accept this. All his life he’d known Sabina as his father’s mistress and advisor, but to Magnus she’d never been more than another irrelevant presence he’d had to tolerate. He hadn’t mourned her death for a moment. He’d hated her.

  She would never be his mother.

  Magnus’s stomach was in knots, his heart a dark, heavy weight in his chest.

  He wanted to drink. To allow that pleasant fog to spread through his mind until it obliterated all thoughts. “Why haven’t you told me this before?”

  A shadow of reverie crossed the king’s face, making him appear older than his years. “I should have. I’m sorry I didn’t. But now you see that Althea had no true claim over you. You are free of any lasting allegiance to her. She was a cruel and heartless woman. She always was.”

  No, she wasn’t, Magnus thought. Not always.

  “So often I saw how starved you were for the love of a mother who wouldn’t give affection to you. Her mind was faulty, her sanity shaky, especially these last eighteen years. All of this led her to make the mistakes that sealed her fate. She was standing in my way. In your way. You must accept these truths if we have any chance of moving forward. You are my son. My heir. We are one and the same.”

  To be like the king—str
ong, ruthless, dominant, relentless in pursuit of his goals. This was what he’d always wanted.

  And Sabina had been the same in so many ways.

  “Everything I do is for you, Magnus. Everything. Please forgive me for withholding this truth from you and for anything I’ve done that has hurt you in the past. My only goal was to make you stronger. I love you, my son.”

  The king pulled Magnus close in a tight embrace. Magnus stood like a statue, stony and silent, his mind trapped in turmoil.

  He let the dagger fall from his grip and clatter to the floor.

  His father had never embraced him like this before.

  And for just a moment before he pulled away to leave the throne room, Magnus let him.

  CHAPTER 12

  JONAS

  AURANOS

  Jonas’s mood was as black as the night sky.

  That evening he was in a village called Viridy, a half-day’s journey northeast of the City of Gold. It wasn’t his first visit; he had begun to use a tavern there as a central meeting place. He’d sent Felix on ahead to meet him there tonight, while he had spent the last day and a half following a whispered rumor about some rebels and a group of Paelsian slaves who’d escaped from the road camp alive. But that rumor had proven to be false.

  Even though King Gaius’s rule brought out a palpable edge of uneasiness amongst the people, affluence still glittered in Viridy like gold, much like every other Auranian town Jonas had visited. The streets were paved not in dirt and rock, but sparkling cobblestones. The storefronts were made not of clay, but of sturdy stone and wood.

  This was the home of thousands of citizens who paid high taxes to whichever king sat his royal arse on the throne, but still they lived well. No one starved, wandering the streets in rags searching for their next meal. No one froze in alleys because they were denied warmth or shelter during a cold winter’s night, as they did in Paelsia.

  But unlike someone who’d actually experienced pain and squalor, the people here didn’t appreciate what they had. That they took it all for granted put a sour taste in Jonas’s mouth. He had no doubt they’d collectively crumple if their easy lifestyles were ever stolen from them.