Madness of the Horde King - Zoey Draven Page 0,139

weapon. All Jarun would tell me was that he didn’t even realize Ollisan had killed them until it was too late.”

“Oh gods,” Vienne whispered.

“Ollisan told him that if my parents lived after what they had witnessed, then the both of them would be cast out of Dothik, that Jarun would never be allowed within the capital again. They would be as good as dead. So Ollisan killed them both…my mother, my father. Quickly and efficiently. Devina was still alive then. I heard her screams as I ran up the alleyway.”

Her screams that would forever haunt me. I still heard them at night, in my sleep, though I realized those nightmares had been less frequent with Vienne sleeping at my side.

“She was fighting Ollisan when I returned, scratching and clawing at him. Jarun was trying to restrain her. I saw my parents bleeding on the floor, their eyes open but lifeless,” I said, familiar nausea beginning to rise in my belly. “Then I saw Ollisan plunge the dagger inside Devina in his panic.”

I felt Vienne’s hands come to my face and I blinked, pinning my attention on her, feeling the world begin to come into focus again.

“I’m here. Always,” she whispered and it was exactly what I’d needed to hear. Because I could feel myself beginning to drift and I needed her to anchor me to this place, to this time, to her.

“The moment Jarun saw me, he fled,” I told her. “He left her, the female he had promised his life to, lying there in her own blood, her dress ripped, her body battered, her parents dead next to her. And Ollisan…I had never known hatred could run that deep. I had never known hatred could be that overwhelming. Truthfully, after that moment, I—I don’t quite remember what…”

I felt a familiar chill at the back of my neck. My breath hitched and when I looked towards the shadows…Devina was coming into view. She was threading around pyrokis, coming towards us.

Had this memory called her to me?

“What do you remember?” Vienne whispered, still crying. For me, for Devina, for the tragic events that had brought the end of her life.

“Ollisan’s blood all over me,” I rasped, my gaze on my sister. When I pressed my fingers against my scar, I found my hands were shaking. I had never spoken of this before. “When…when I think back to that moment, what I regret is knowing that my sister must’ve seen that as she died. I should have been at her side as she left this world, for her wound was mortal, but at least I would have been there. Instead, I had butchered Ollisan until his blood coated every inch of my flesh. That was her last image of this world. It was horrifying and monstrous, filled with death and hatred.”

“Oh, Davik,” Vienne murmured, watching me trace the scar on my face. “Did…did he give you the scar?”

“Lysi. With the same dagger that killed my parents and my sister. A reminder of that night. Always.”

Vienne looked anguished at my words, while my sister was watching me carefully from the shadows.

“I am sorry for that. I should have been at your side,” I murmured. “I—I never should have left you in the first place.”

Vienne saw where my gaze was pointed. She knew that Devina had appeared, for the first time all week, and I felt her wrap her arms around me, holding me tight.

Devina was within arm’s reach now. She reached out to touch me, which she had never done before. I didn’t feel it, as I’d expected to. It felt more like the prickling at the back of my neck whenever she appeared, an energy that I sensed.

“After that night, I buried Devina and my parents in the forest outside the city, as close to the wild lands as I could reach. I tossed Ollisan’s body—what remained of it—into the forest next to the Dothikkar’s road. As for Jarun…”

Vienne tensed in my arms.

“I tracked him down. For weeks after what happened, he had been hiding within the capital. I took him out into the forest, near where I’d thrown Ollisan’s body. He told me what had happened that night and the circumstances leading up to it. Confessed it all to me,” I said, my gaze meeting Devina’s. “I did not feel anything when I killed him.”

Vienne looked up at me, her eyes sad but knowing.

“I did not feel relief. Or even anger. I did not feel disgust or hatred, not like I