We see what we want to see. Perception is slave to desire, the images that filter through our vision transformed, immediately altered.

  Even after he pressed the brick, and the latch opened, leading down into the sewer. Even after I passed the caved in passage that had collapsed the entrance to this entire section, which I'd almost undoubtedly seen from the other side after the battle with the lithid, puzzled by what had triggered the cave in. Even after he led me through a series of locked doors, each of increasing complexity, delving down, down, down, and further still.

  It was only when I saw the passage—the same one Thoth and I had walked a hundred times, ghouls scrabbling in tow—did I finally believe it.

  "Do you have enough contingencies?" I finally asked, watching as he took long strides before me. It echoed countless similar instances of my childhood, of following my father, waiting for him to turn around, to acknowledge me.

  Only to be left wanting.

  He scoffed. "Clearly not. You were practically barking at the door."

  The king paused at a place the hallways met. As before, the stone was unnaturally smooth, almost slippery. Subconsciously, I turned toward the laboratory.

  "Where are you going?" He asked.

  "What's that way?" I chucked my thumb at the closed iron door, locked tightly and looming.

  "Nothing of import. A smaller facility that hardly bears mentioning."

  The words stunned me more thoroughly than any blow.

  As always, he seemed perfectly attentive to my weakness. His cold eyes stared down at me, and I was a child once more, paralyzed in the heaviness of his thrall. "This is your final chance to turn back. One of the last—and hardest—lessons I learned is that a king should not know everything done to his benefit. Ignorance is a gift to those with soft hands and soft hearts. You are not soft. But you need not torment yourself with the particulars of every unpleasantry."

  I chewed my lip. "If it's done to my benefit—to the benefit of the kingdom—I want to know. No matter how ugly it is."

  "Spoken like the ignorant. Follow."

  He took the center path, one of several that were inaccessible after the apocalypse. I followed behind him, and while the small candle of hope I'd held flickered in my chest, I struggled, searching for any possibility beyond the dark prospects that haunted my mind. Maybe I'd misunderstood and there was some usage of the chambers I didn't understand. Maybe whatever he considered to be the 'larger' facility was something else, set to a completely different purpose.

  He's not evil. He's just a man. A man from a different time, with an antiquated understanding of the world he lives in. I've seen countless instances of it since my return. He can be reasoned with.

  As his wide steps took him further and further away from me, I struggled to believe it.

  The echoing footsteps came to a halt as he stopped before a set of double-doors, grabbing their handles and throwing them open.

  It was dark. Too dark to make anything out.

  With an utter lack of pomp or circumstance, he stepped aside, allowing me entry.

  Darkness beckoned me forward. A series of phosphorescent lights lit the metallic catwalk and little else. Even without seeing the full scope, it was clear that he was right—this room was far larger than the lab. The ceiling stretched out above me, and I wondered how much of the chasm it covered beneath the throne room, imagined its reaches grasping at the lush chairs that sat on the podium above, oblivious of the abyss.

  A ring of lights kicked on near the bottom of the room, and a momentary reflection off glass nestled in the darkness was the only warning I received.

  One by one, the lights kicked on, each with an audible click, illuminating circular rows of the same cylinders that filled the smaller facility.

  Only here, there were hundreds.

  All occupied. Bodies suspended in fluid, their skin desiccated and peeling, wide eyes seeing nothing, stares of accusation blank and hollow.

  I clung to the center console—it was burnished gold, much like some of the dwarven mechanisms in Couha'zen. Vertigo warred with nausea as my stomach heaved, eventually losing the battle as I staggered to the railing and vomited over the side. Heavy footfalls shook the catwalk as he approached. I half expected him to haul me over, send me plunging to the pavement below. Instead, a strong hand rubbed the space between my shoulders.

  "What have you done?" I wiped my mouth, suppressing another spasm. "What the hells have you done?!"

  His hand slipped from my shoulders, and he stared down at me, unfaltering. "What was necessary."

  "The fuck it is. The fuck—How can any of this be necessary?" I extended an arm to the chambers, utterly revolted.

  "The dwarven siege weapons—"

  I staggered away from him, "—Oh gods. Oh, my gods—"

  "Listen to me." He shouted, his overwhelming voice echoing in the chamber. "The dwarven siege weapons require a monumental amount of energy—"

  "—just stop—" I whispered.

  "Every traditional source they once drew from is extinct. I searched for an alternative, for years, finding nothing, always coming up short. When the Crimson Brand scoured the cabin of the revenant who held you captive, they found the foundations for this. Diagrams for a device that would allow siphoning of mana directly from the source."

  I buried my face in my hands.

  She was right.

  "You took…" I shook. "The work of a madman who intended to confine me to a cage, with every intention of tormenting me until I awakened, looked at it, and decided—you know what, that seems like a pretty good idea?"

  "Yes." He said bluntly. "Because it was."

  Slowly I lowered myself to the grating, clinging to the guardrail of the catwalk for support. From beneath, their faces stared down at me, illuminated by the dull yellow light of the mana lamps, sickly and eroded.

  Stolen novel; please report.

  "Did you ever even believe in it? Any of it? In the letter I sent? Did my intentions, my plan to avoid disaster, never reach your ears at all?"

  "Why do you think. This. Happened?" He snapped.

  My eyes widened. I turned to him, boots carrying me forward in trudging steps "…What?"

  "Aye." He crossed his arms across his wide chest. "Your warning was heeded. As soon as the first predictions were verified. At first, I thought of it as little more than a promising conflict. Thaddeus sent a litany of spies to follow in her footsteps. Dozens died before the first report came back." His face twisted in frustration. "She was even stronger than you'd suggested. More force of nature than man—let alone woman. I couldn't accept it. That someone so formidable had somehow risen to prominence beneath my very nose. So we sent more. Mages this time, capable of imprinting memory orbs. Even less of those survived, but what they brought back was enough." His mouth pulled downward, and for the first time since I'd known him, he seemed genuinely lost. "I cannot best her, son. And if she is beyond me, what chance do you have?"

  It was something I'd always known, but hearing him say it, actually admit it out loud, rocked me to my core.

  I swallowed. "Regardless of what you saw, regardless of how capable she is. There is a world of difference between accepting that, and this." I thrust my hand to the side.

  "Less than you believe." He returned.

  "How do you figure? Explain it. Because gods help me, I want to understand."

  "Look at them. The multitude you see before you." He took a step forward, looming over me. "That is but a fraction of a fraction of the souls lost in a wide scale war. Even factoring in those processed before this, it all adds up to a pittance compared to the mortality we face should she levy the sort of force your visions predicted to bear."

  Could there be truth to that?

  It was a dark echo of thoughts I'd directed towards Thoth, countless times. That I'd be willing to do anything if it meant having her gone. For the first time, doubt crept in.

  I shook my head, overwhelmed by the visceral. "Did they volunteer? Sign up to be crushed like grapes into wine, all for the good of the kingdom?"

  "Do the peasants and commoners of kingdoms volunteer to be razed when competing forces trample their homes to ruin?" He snarled. "Don't be stupid."

  "So… they didn't… then." I walked away from him again, feeling the overwhelming need to vomit resurge, despite already emptying the contents of my stomach twice over.

  "Their names were collected, as well as their ages and potency of their magic. When this is over, they will be memorialized, their names edified as heroes who saved the kingdom."

  "Where?" I asked him, mouth stretched into something ghostly and inhuman. "I see no wall upon which their names are etched."

  He pointed to a cabinet beside the console. "There are other ledgers. But you'll find some beneath the desk."

  What I found was a multitude. Countless leather ledgers stuffed on top of each other with little to no organization, names and ages scrawled, though the former was rare.

  Unidentified Infernal Female - 16-20

  Unidentified Light Elf Male - 80s

  Unidentified Light Elf Female - 40s

  Unidentified Dwarven Female - 30s

  Every page of the thick ledger was filled, additional information scrawled into the margins. I went to the others, hoping to find them mostly empty, hoping that this had only just started, that there was time to stop it, to change course.

  What I found was thousands, upon thousands, upon thousands.

  And he'd confirmed there were more.

  "This… is what summoned the lithid." I realized with damning clarity, glaring at him in overt accusation.

  "The monster you slew? Yes." He shrugged. "An unexpected pest and constant nuisance. Ridding us of it did the kingdom a great service."

  “It wasn’t just some monster. The demons in my camp claimed the lithid was contracted. Tied to a mortal.”

  Gil shook his head. “I thought you took it to heart. The adage that we cannot always choose our allies. Unions of convenience are how dynasties are ensured. Isn’t that the entire point of what you’re doing?”

  “Converting yesterday’s enemies into today’s allies is hardly the same as aligning with a monster that feasts on souls.”

  “Isn’t it?” He pressed. “It was a parasite. But useful, given our interests were aligned. It needed to eat to survive. Sourcing that sustenance was trivial given the situation–and putting it to work likely saved more lives in the long run than what would have happened if it were allowed to run rampant.”

  “Gods. You can’t start a fire and take credit when it only burns down half the forest.”

  Directly across from the catwalk, an infernal stared directly at me. Her blank eyes were half-lidded, and her horns spiraled much like Maya's. She was older, but not by much, only a few years.

  Hold on.

  Something occurred to me, a sneaking suspicion that twisted at my guts. I grabbed the ledger and leafed through it, looking through the names and designations again with focused intent.

  "Would you put that down?" Gil growled.

  "No." I tore through page after page, searching without finding, alternating between scanning the listings and scanning the faces of the people in the tubes.

  "What are you even looking for?"

  I snapped the ledger shut.

  Then, with an odd sort of calm that betrayed nothing of the turmoil I felt, I asked the question. My mouth worked silently, before I finally gave it voice.

  "Where are the humans, father?"

  There was no answer. It was the first time he hadn't been ready with one.

  I pressed him, letting the ledger drop to my feet with a clang. "Even if they outnumber us, even if magic is more common among their number, there should be at least one in every thousand, no? So where are they?"

  When he spoke, his voice was filled with disgust. "You'd have me condemn our subjects to this fate?"

  I wheeled on him, vibrating with a rage so potent it threatened to ignite me from the inside. "They are all your subjects. For fuck's sake, you invited them here. Passed laws forbidding their enslavement. Unbarred the gates. Welcomed them with open arms."

  His visage grew dark, angry. "And as they always do, they came in great numbers, pillaging, eating, consuming everything they touch." His face twisted in revulsion. "At least in this, they contribute back to the longevity they drain so much from."

  "Don't start lying now," I seethed, pressing in on him. He looked down at me with wild eyes, his fists clenched at his side. "This is the only reason they're here. The only reason the gates were opened. This was your intention from the start."

  He breathed heavily from his nostrils, not saying anything, just standing there.

  The scale of it floored me.

  Pieces sliding into place with echoing finality.

  Everything he'd done, since the beginning. Every move he'd made, every kindness he'd extended was in service of this. A steady stream of mana for our weapons.

  And I’d been stupid enough to believe it was genuine.

  "All this time… I thought you were different." I shook, my vision blurring. "That you were better. But you never changed. You were just… waiting."

  All this time. Every stride I'd made forward, undercut at every turn.

  We were done. Worse than done. I could never trust him again. Not after this. He made Ephira look like a traveling bard by comparison. Abdication wasn't enough. Banishment wasn't enough. Every second he was alive was a second he would use to undermine me. Every second he remained in power, more innocent people would die.

  I called the flame, draining every drop of mana I had into a widening inferno that ran rampant from my fingers, snapping my wrist out before he could react, bathing him in enough fire to leave nothing beyond the bones.

  A large hand, utterly unscathed and bare of any protection, reached through the fire and grabbed my head. Then I was wrenched downward.

  The last thing I felt was my skull shattering against the railing.

  Then it all went black.

  Again.

  Read ahead on the Patreon!

  Join the Discord and get Chapter Pings