Page 19 of Blood of Two Crowns

Indignance and anger were a buried blade in my chest.

Surely, notallof that fucking suffering was necessary.

“… Even if Miroslavhadbeen able to free me, Zurie would have killed the both of us, and he would never have been there to save you when you were born, or in the future. And therewillcome a time when you need him to.”

“… He took me from her when I was born?”

Rumiel’s expression darkened. “Zurie ordered your death when he told her that you were destined to usurp her throne. And your fate, left in her hands, had you grown up with her...” Rumiel’s throat dipped as his features tightened further. “It would have destroyed you.”

My lips parted in shock… But I’m all too familiar with pain and betrayal. No matter how terrible. Hardening my heart to it is second nature. Something glittered in Rumiel’s gaze as he observed.

“I realize that technically she is your birth mother, but… perhaps you wouldn’t be too troubled if some heinous accident befell her? Unless you… would like to get to know her, of course.”

Laughter bubbles out of me, and the two of us share a dark grin.

Nothing like a little murder and vengeance for some father-son bonding.

My laughter died as realization washed over me.

“Did you know that this would happen? Did Miroslav know?”

A corner of Rumiel’s mouth faintly tipped up at one corner. “I have lived for millennia, Nakoa. And I will live for many millennia more. What is a hundred and twenty years in that span of time if it means that I get to share the rest of my life with my son?”

Ohhhhh fuck.

Hardening my heart to pain and betrayal was one thing...

But love?

Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck.

My jaw clenched furiously as Iwilledmy tear ducts to stop producing saline. It seemed they were the one organ unsusceptible to my magic.Akash damn it.

Of all the revelations Rumiel had spoken, the most powerful was the fact that this male hadwillinglylived in a tomb for the last 120 years so that I could become who I am today.

Unable to stifle my emotion, I turned away from him to face the mountains looming in the distance. I squeezed my eyes shut, drawing in a deep breath.

Akash, please, please, please.

What I wanted even more than his comforting embrace was for him not to give it to me because if he did, I wouldn’t be able to wrestle back the sob desperate to escape me. The fact I could alsofeelhis desire to hold me, to make me feel hislove,only made it that much worse.

He sidled next to me to share the view and a great sigh of relief is punched out of me when he changed the subject, bless him.

“I’m from a realm called Ouranissa. Are you familiar with it?”

I’d only read about it in historical texts where it mentioned primals, gods, titans, archestratim, and nephilim resided to rule over the divine realms and guard the hell realms.

My voice was a croak of barely quelled emotion.“Vaguely.”

“In addition to protecting Ouranissa, the divine realm where I’m from, I served Azrael, the Vassileon realm’s God of Death, as courtier, or liaison, of sorts. Vassileo consists of one living divine realm and multiple ‘living’ and ‘after death’ hell realms. I originally came to Bellorum to bargain on Azrael’s behalf because the hell realms had grown restless and discontent. Both the dead and the living in Vassileo longed for freedom from hell. They had begun to revolt. And Bellorum and Avernus lie just on the other side of the barrier, diving into our own living and after-death realms. I was sent here to pave the way for their exile, essentially… Which is how I came to meet Zurie.”

My brain felt like it was clinging to a rickety rowboat amidst a turbulent sea in the middle of a thunderstorm, considering all the revelations Rumiel continued to flood me with. To imagine that if a realm hadn’t begun a revolt, Azrael would have never sent my father here, and I would never have been born, along with all the other infinite things that had to occur leading up to that… The fact that I had been the leader of the Uprising, a revolt against Zurie, made this all seem too bizarrely orchestrated to be a mere coincidence.

“There was only one ruler in Bellorum receptive towards Azrael’sadvances.”

Oh, let me guess.

Rumiel gave me a mirthless smile. “Surprisingly, Zurie refused.”

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