Page 27 of A Kingdom of Monsters

I saw red, rage coursing through me so suddenly that I hardly noticed when shadows began to leak from my fingertips.

I was done with this—done with letting him stay here as if he hadn’t tried to destroy the damn room we stood in less than three months ago. I was done with civility, and with tolerating his encroachment on my position. I wasn’t even sure I wanted to be the fucking king anymore, but I’d die before I let Ambrose have the role by default.

I took an aggressive step forward. My power lay in illusion, but the illusion of pain wasn’t all that different from physical pain. If I wanted to, I could break him right now. I could feed him so much pain that his mind would snap, his body believing it had died and trapping him in an immortal state of agony.

Rashly, I let go of the hold I always kept on my power and let just the smallest tendril of pain reach out and scratch his mind. I held my breath.

There was a long pause where I waited for him to crumple in his chair as so many others had, but as the seconds ticked by nothing happened. I blinked in surprise.

The illusion of pain had never failed before. The shock of it was enough to jerk me back into rational thought, and I took a step backward breathing heavily.

What the fuck was going on?

“If you’re going to stand there thinking so hard you may as well keep researching,” Ambrose said, his tone maddeningly calm. “We have hundreds more books to go through.”

“I told you,” I barked, my anger still riding me. “This is pointless. If Grandmother knew something she would have told us.”

“Not necessarily.” He gave me a condescending glance. “If I saw that you were about to drink poison and die, but then warned you that would happen, you’d likely not drink the poison at all rendering the vision moot. Often the act of staying silent is part of ensuring the future goes in the correct direction.”

“Is that what you’re doing, now?” I asked bitterly. “Staying silent and letting us all drink the proverbial poison?”

He looked up, and his expression was inscrutable. “If it was I wouldn’t tell you, would I?”

“I know you’re up to something.”

“Always,” he agreed, blandly.

I faltered, taken aback by his admission. “I know you’re downplaying your visions. You seem to have forgotten that I lived with Grandmother Celia, too. I know what seers are like.”

Ambrose frowned, but he couldn’t pretend not to know what I meant.

Seers—good ones, at least—were always slightly disconnected from reality. Grandmother Celia had been so enmeshed in the future, that as she grew older she was hardly ever aware of the present. Speaking to her directly was challenging, and even when she was lucid she was always cryptic and often condescending. As if, because you could never know what she knew, you must know nothing at all.

Ambrose had never been exactly like Grandmother—at least not during the handful of conversations I’d had with him since he left to become the Dullahan. The smug prick was certainly just as condescending, yet, for some reason he wasn’t displaying any of the usual…fog…that always shrouded his kind. What if he was plotting something? Or worse, attempting to sabotage us…

“I’m not hiding anything like you’re suggesting,” Ambrose insisted, almost as if he’d read my mind.

“Then you’re doing something. You’re toopresent.”

Ambrose turned toward the window, showing me his back. He stiffened, and ran a hand through his hair. “I haven’t had a clear vision in days.”

I sneered. “Bullshit. If I didn’t know better I’d call you a liar.”

“But you do, so don’t waste your breath.”

“Grandmother Celia always—” I began again.

“Celia and I are not the same,” he interrupted.

I faltered, doubt and confusion settling over me. He couldn’t be lying—at least not without giving some outward sign of pain, but how could it be possible that he hadn’t had any recent visions? “What’s wrong with you, then?”

“It’s not me—” He abruptly broke off, not finishing his sentence as he whirled to face the door.

The door flung open and Lonnie marched into the room looking harassed. She slammed the door behind her with enough force to rattle the window panes, and stood with her arms crossed glaring at no one in particular.

I blinked in surprise. Indeed, I wasn’t sure I’d ever been less pleased to see her—not when I’d just been about to hear whatever Ambrose had been hiding.

Then, I noticed her dark expression and my entire focus shifted. “What’s wrong Rebel?”

---