Page 2 of Cursed By the Dawn

King Gabriel stood in the center of the passageway, holding one of Mithras’s chalices. He swirled the glass between swollen fingers, rings clinking against the sides. He wore white silk and red velvet, his formal attire. The only armor on his body were gold pauldrons carved to look like lions chasing the sun, and tall metal boots.

“Father,” Mithras gasped, not understanding. His hands clenched uselessly at his sides. He had no weapon. Neither sword nor shield to defend himself. “What have you done? What is this?”

“So quick to condemn,” his father said, words echoing with the terrible, grating undercurrent of something inhuman. “You interrogate me like I’m a monster lurking in the shadows of your bedchamber. A pity.”

Mithras’s heartbeat thrummed madly in his ears. His father didn’t sound like his father; gone was the charismatic, booming voice of Noctis’s revered king. No, his mouth had instead become a fetid crypt.

And his eyes were twin pools of blood.

Gabriel’s teeth grazed the glass, grating against the rim in a chilling squeal. He was a ghost of his true self, a deviant king with stringy blond hair, an unkept beard, and skin the pallor of a corpse. Guilt rose like bile from Mithras’s stomach, clawing up his throat, but he shoved it down. He had worked tirelessly alongside Erebus to destroy the errant demons that haunted Noctis. Countless hard-fought battles. Endless nights of strategizing. Long days searching the most abominable corners of the Dream Realm. But in the end, it had been useless.

The demons had outmaneuvered him, infesting his own father while he was distracted.

The demon reached for the sacred entrance to the Weavers’ tombs, hand hovering over the golden gate. Mithras’s breath lodged in his throat. If he ran, if he shouted for more knights, they wouldn’t be quick enough. And then he’d be leaving a monster to roam the Weavers’ tombsunchecked. And if the Weavers were sleeping, their supine bodies would be ripe for the demon’s depraved ideas.

He’d have to handle this alone.

“Step away from the tombs,” Mithras demanded, carefully drawing Richter’s sword as he took a step forward. It felt as though he were wading through the dregs of some terrible nightmare, his legs far too heavy and numb for the horrors that stood before him. “You aren’t welcome here.”

The demon’s head rolled back in triumph. “I’m the king, boy. I go wherever I please.”

“You’re no king. You’re merely a demon masquerading as one.”

“Am I?” The demon chuckled. “Would you like to hear the terms of our bargain? Your father was quite eager to make it.”

“Out of his body, demon,” Mithras snarled. “Father, are you in there? Can you hear me?”

“No.”

The chalice slipped from the demon’s fingers, crashing to the floor. The wine spilled out, mixing with the blood of the dead guards at his feet. Suddenly, the demon was in front of him, brandishing a blade of his own. Mithras held his ground; it took everything within him not to flinch.

“Your father bound me to the mortal world for five hundred years. A mere blink for a powerful demon such as myself,” the demon inside Gabriel rasped. “And once five centuries have passed, I will consume him body and soul, ruling both the Dream Realm and the Kingdom of Noctis with an army of demons at my side.”

“Lies. My father would never bind himself to a devil. He is far too honorable.”

“Honorable?” The demon’s lips tilted up in a garish mockery of the king’s smile. “Humans always consider themselves honorable. Claim that they’dnevermake a deal with the wicked. But when a sword is at their throats and death is rattling their sanity, they will beg for just about anything.”

The demon swung his blade up, pressing it hard against Mithras’s throat. The movement was fast—faster than he’d ever seen his father move. Richter’s sword crashed to the ground, useless.

“Tell me, what will you beg for, little princeling?”

“I will never beg,” Mithras choked out.

“Your father begged. He felt death grabbing him by the skull and decided he did not want to surrender.” The demon dragged the blade up Mithras’s neck, stopping it just underneath his jaw. Mithras whimpered, hating that he even allowed the sound to slip out. “So he asked for immortality instead.”

“Five hundred years is not immortality.”

The demon grinned. He nudged Mithras’s jaw with the blade, forcing the prince to crane his neck toward the ceiling. “To most mortals, five hundred years seems endless. A vast sea of time. But you are right, of course. To a true immortal such as myself, five centuries is but a grain of sand in an hourglass. Time will pass quickly, and then I will be free from this mortal coil and rule the Kingdom of Noctis and the Dream Realm as my rightful self.”

If Mithras didn’t react—

If he didn’t reactnow, he’d—

Mithras was furious at his despairing train of thoughts. He couldn’t die. Hewouldn’tdie. And so he grabbed for the demon’s hands, muscling the blade from his throat. His arms shook as he fought for control of the blade. The demon was strong—unnaturally strong—so Mithras had no choice but to be stronger.

I will not die.

With a final grunt, Mithras raised the blade and pressed it against the demon’s stomach.