that he still wasn’t going to draw this out. Toy with the king, just a little, savoring the sweet scent of his fear.
He deserved that and so much more for what he did to Haven.
Another wave of light magick left Archeron’s hands. He was growing desperate.
“I spent half a lifetime enslaved to the bitch-queen that just destroyed an entire palace using Netherfire,” Stolas drawled, strolling around a mound of smoldering ash. “The things she used to do to me would make you tremble with fear, King. Do you really think the flimsy spheres of magick you’re producing are going to do anything but piss me off?”
Desperation formed in Archeron’s visage, his gaze glossy and wild eyed as he snarled, “I’ve seen your death.”
Stolas shrugged. “We all die eventually. Trust me, I’ve done it once already.”
There was something depraved flickering beneath Archeron’s panic. The feeling it gave Stolas was akin to passing a lake where a demon lurked just beneath the surface, its putrid and rotting flesh infecting the water.
“I made Haven see it too,” Archeron rasped. “Over and over and over. Made her watch you die in a hundred different ways, so that when you finally do, it will destroy her.”
Stolas froze as the fear he kept hidden came to life on that bastard’s lips.
“You’re not the only one who has access to the Demon Lords’ dark . . . talents. Eventually she will see you for what you are, and she will end you.”
Stolas tilted his head as he murmured, “Did you know, after she returned from the Nether, she cried so hard I thought she was going to break apart in my arms?” The memory of her moans of anguish sliced through his own pain. “You took her extraordinary love for others and you twisted it, weaponized it against her.”
Archeron retreated a step only to find a wall in his way. A strange look of finality settled over his features. “You only see her goodness. I did too, once. She is quite charming in a stubborn, naïve sort of way. But such immense power cannot be trusted in a mortal. It needs to be broken, chained, and controlled. Harnessed for the good of Haven and the realm.”
“By you?”
“Better me than you, Noctis filth.”
“That’s where we differ, Sun Lord. You see her fire and it terrifies you. You want to smother those luminous flames until everything that makes her wondrous and amazing becomes small and dim and ordinary, a spark you can ignite at will.”
“And you don’t?”
Stolas chuckled darkly. Such ignorance. “No. I want to stoke that magnificent inferno until this entire miserable realm is aflame and the greedy tyrants like you are nothing more than forgotten piles of ash.”
“And if she burns you too?”
A wicked grin flickered across Stolas’s lips. “Then I’ll die fucking warm and content.” His wings began to unfurl as a blinding rage took hold. “You, on the other hand, are going to die cold and alone, and much sooner than you anticipated.”
Archeron appraised Stolas, a cunning glint in his gaze. “Your magick is gone, you are grievously wounded, and you have no weapon.”
“Doesn’t matter.” He stepped closer, moving stealthily now. “I’m going to tear you apart with my bare hands for what you did to her. But first I’m going to drain the little magick you have left.”
Archeron gave a soft laugh. “Feeling the poison, are we?”
“Nothing your magick can’t remedy,” Stolas murmured, his attention riveted to the artery pulsing in Archeron’s neck. He hadn’t blood-let from anyone in a long time, but he would make an exception for Archeron.
“Are you sure about that?” Stolas dragged his gaze upward to see the working side of Archeron’s lips wrenched into a sneer. “I should thank you, I suppose. Once she’s mine, Shade Lord, her wolf will be too. Think of the armies she and that beast will destroy under the banner of the Sun Court.”
A flash of movement filled Archeron’s palm as he conjured what appeared to be another weapon.
Not a weapon—
Stolas lunged for the king just as Archeron activated the device, a circular gold disk engraved with demonaic runes.
A portal whooshed to life between them.
Instead of Stolas’s fingers closing on Archeron’s neck, they curled uselessly over smoke and ash.
41
Haven was mired in smoke and blood and worse. Her throat burned, her eyes stung, every muscle in her body ached. As soon as she’d spied Archeron behind Stolas, a final wave of the Shade Queen’s forces had descended on their tiny group. It was a