Page 184 of Of Blood and Aether
“I understand that you are attached to this realm, Your Grace,” Abraxas said slowly. “But have you considered that you could save it yourself, if you just come home now? Return to Hel, and when Dagon dies, you can Ascend as king and even Caen would have to bend the knee. If you have yet to encounter the second Harbinger, the prophecy wouldn’t…”
He trailed off, and then his pale eyes widened.
“Oh, but you have, haven’t you?” Abraxas breathed, and Kieran’s hands instinctively met with the daggers at his side. “Your aura…”
“Not. Another. Word. Abraxas,” Kieran hissed, staring him down.
With the emissary’s gaze locked on his, a visage of sheer shock and disbelief, his prince nicked a single fingertip against the edge of his dagger, drawing blood. It wasn’t as difficult, this time, to draw upon that same dark force that he had used to subdue the Ravenhound. He dragged that bleeding forefinger against his wrist before Abraxas could even try to stop him, and the raw umbral power shot through his veins.
“That is none of your godsdamned business, Abraxas. You will not breathe a word of this. Not to my father, not to my brothers, and certainly not to those godsdamned Crones,” he said through grit teeth, focusing all of his energy into pouring the arcane exertion of his will.
“Your aura…” Abraxas repeated, shuddering under the weight of the compulsion. “The solys… the Light entwined… Who are they? What have you found, Kieran?”
The aether in his veins turned to ice.
“If you bring that information back to Hel, Abraxas, I will follow you. I will return to the Plane of Shadows just to flay you alive, and cast your body into the Pits of the Undying. Before I hunt Caen down and do the very same to him.”
The dark imperial magick was thrumming throughout his body now, emanating from his skin. Again, his Shadows began to whisper their sweet nothings, their promises of indomitable might like chains, attempting to wrap around his throat and pull him under. This power had a mind of its own—an insatiable desire to devour him whole, to force his hand towards the most base, carnal instincts of his ancestors. There was a reason he had kept it buried deep.
Sweat dripped from Abraxas’ brow as his knees buckled, his attempts to resist his prince thwarted. This was the Vistarii legacy—subjugation. Oppression. An unbroken bloodline ofconquerors who held more power than they deserved to wield. The throne of Hel was beyond redemption.
“Understood, Your Grace.”
It was not enough.
“Swear yourself to me, Abraxas. I want a blood oath.”
Kieran could not trust that his influence would extend once the emissary returned back to their home realm, but he didn’t want to kill the man if he didn’t have to. A pathetic weakness, perhaps, but in the scant few pleasant memories that Kieran had of his childhood, Abraxas had been there. Abraxas, and his mother.
“If that is your will, it shall be done, my prince.”
He tossed one of his daggers to Abraxas, who caught the blade with a trembling hand. He expected to see resentment in his uncle’s eyes,angeras he forced him to carve the sigil of binding on his own wrist, to repeat the incantation. Kieran was forcing him to betray the crown, to withhold vital information that could have led to the salvation of the Shadow Plane, of his people,theirpeople. For that, Kieran had expected nothing less than hatred.
Instead, he saw softness. As the rune sealed and bound the emissary to secrecy, Kieran saw gentle understanding.
“No matter how this unfolds, I am… I am happy for you, Your Grace.”
“I beg your pardon?” he asked, incredulous.
“I am comforted to know that you have finally found something you’ll fight to protect,” Abraxas explained. “Your solys.”
Your guiding light.
“I never said I was protecting anyone. Or anything,” Kieran bit out, hoping his tone could shroud the relief that he felt, knowing he already had Abraxas bound by a blood oath.
His uncle knew too much.
“You didn’t have to, Kieran. It is woven into your aura. That Light… It is inextricable from you, now. You found the Conduit. The other Harbinger… Gods. Their presence is exquisite. They have imprinted on your soul.”
The Harbinger of Hel swallowed any acknowledgement of those words in silence as Abraxas spoke, blood oath or not.
They could not have her. He would die first.
Still, Abraxas managed to stare straight through his soul, those pale blue eyes alight with awe as he spoke.
“And so it begins.”
To Be Continued...
