Page 5 of The Illuminated
“Why am I not hearing words of gratitude for your King?” he asked, his arms crossed in judgement.
“Thank you,” I forced out, before he could seal my airways.
His eyes held mine as he spoke to a very shocked Mary beside us. “You’re dismissed,” he said without even the slightest nod in her direction. But then with a slow turn of his head, he looked at her. “And not a word of anything I’ve said to anyone.”
“Of course, my King,” she said quickly, then scurried away.
When he turned back to me, I sat up, feeling the scrutiny of his gaze.
“Why don’t you fight back anymore? Our relationship was more fun that way,” he challenged, danger marring his sharp features and swimming in his piercing blue eyes.
“Why? So you can pull another Darth Vader and get off on my lack of oxygen? It’s not worth it anymore,” I said, rising to my feet.
“Am I supposed to know who that is?” Lucius raised a brow. “I must admit I was… harsh,” he continued. “But that was before I knew just how weak your magick was in comparison to mine, and before I realized how little knowledge of the truth you held in that little head of yours.” He stepped closer again, only a foot of distance between us as he stared down at me. “By all means, be honest. That’s what I would expect from my Queen.”
“You don’t want honesty,” I dared, my power coming to life all around me. I was finally recharged from the fight and the injury, and this magick sensed when I needed it.
“I know you don’t want to be Queen, though I can’t for the life of me figure out why. Do you still genuinely believe in those cute little revenge fantasies? That you somehow have a greater purpose? Maybe even that you can defeat me and take the throne for yourself?” He took another step forward, watching me carefully as I took a small step back. His eyes shifted from mine down the length of my body almost too quickly for me to notice.
“Of course I don’t want to be your Queen. I don’t want to be youranything.You murdered my mothers in front of me, first of—”
“Idid no such thing,” he snapped. “The guards I inherited from my father, rest in eternal torment, did that, and they’ve since met his same fate. Your heretic mothers wouldn’t have died if they had merely turned you over to me in the first place. Instead, they refused to recognize my legitimacy and dug their own graves.”
White hot fire thickened in my blood, sending tingles of electricity to my clenched fists. Voices from the great beyond whispered their tales of Lucius’s cruelty, egging me on and fortifying me with unbridled strength. He had me backed against the wall, the fireplace beside us suddenly roaring to life.
He laughed, and it was a boyish, nearly playful sound, like we were just a pair of friends teasing each other. “Aw, you really do think you stand a chance against me, don’t you? I can see the truth written all over your face, every day. Like you believe yourself to be some kind of pious chosen one, sent here to be everyone’s savior from the cruel, tyrant king.” He shot me a mocking look of sadness with a pouted lip, and then he leaned his hand against the wall next to my face. He smiled when I flinched. “Isn’t that so?”
I tried to steady my breathing, hyper-aware of his every movement, his body now ensnaring mine like a predator. “I don’t want to rule over a kingdom built upon a dungeon full of tortured witches, not to mention the literal slave labor that sustains this castle.”
His patience for my honesty already seemed to wane, his smile fading into a sharp warning glare. “It’sservicenotslavery. We’re not barbaric human filth,” he spat, seemingly struggling to contain his own anger as his features contorted and then softened. “Do you have any idea the conditions of this place before I was King? How my father and his lesser men treated women? The kinds of things they supported and believed? They wanted to create a world of human-like traditionalism, rife with nonsensical power structures and an oppressive rule sustained by fear. They were planting traditions of inequality and oppression in replace of the old ways, not the freedom, egalitarianism, and mutual respect I have fostered in my castle and cities.”
It hadn’t seemed like freedom when I watched Seraphina—the woman from my coven who’d lived in a nearby city—get dragged off by some kind of official for accusations of heresy. She was thrown in the dungeons below this very castle to be tortured alongside countless others. Nor did keeping all the elites in a constant state of ignorance and elixir-fueled hedonistic pleasure seem like mutual respect. However, the things he said about the elders he overthrew gave me pause, even as I doubted the truth behind anything that came from his mouth. It seemed to align with what Sebastian had once told me about his parents, and Taryn about hers—that the old had to be cleared out to make way for the new—and that whatever culture of rule these former oligarchs had instilled was somehow worse than Lucius’s. I hoped whatever I saw in the Akashic would finally clear up this muddled witch history.
“See? How little you really know about all of this. Ask anyone here in this castle and they will tell you about the cruelty of the older generation, with their backward and human-like moral panics and general unpleasantness. They would have destroyed the realm if I hadn’t bravely stepped in and risked my life for the greater good. The high, unknown heavens chosemeto rule—bestowing me with the greatest power the world has ever seen.”
His impassioned monologue fizzled out, and a strange expression flickered over his features as if he was realizing something important for the first time. I could’ve sworn he glanced at my lips, and his breathing steadied as his sickening energy stilled, like the hissing steam of a fire extinguished by water.
I straightened. “What if you, too, are on a path to destroy the realm?” I asked, keeping my voice calm but direct. “The magick you used to raise that witch from the dead ripped a hole in the astrals and unleashed those wolf creatures and—”
Lucius slammed his other hand against the wall, now casing me in completely. I jumped at the sudden noise, carefully raising my power in case I needed to defend myself. He took a deep breath and closed his eyes, his chiseled features contracting and then loosening once more as he let out the cool breath against my skin. When his eyes reopened, he was stoic.
“I know what I’m doing, unlikeyou,” he said. “Stranger things have been happening in this realm since the dawn of time. Regardless, it’s none of your concern, and I don’t want to hear another word about it from you or the decrepit old mystic.”
Amos. Of course, he knew about what was happening to the realm. I vowed to go see him as soon as Lucius was done with me for the day.
“There, now don’t you feel better getting all of that off your chest?” he asked, remaining so close I could see white specs in his ice blue irises.
I could barely contain my scoff. “I feel fantastic,my King.”
He pushed back off the wall, breaking our heated, close-contact stare. “That’s what I like to hear,” he said, choosing to ignore my sarcasm like he ignored the rest of what I had to say. “I’m sorry I had to burst your adorable martyr-savior complex bubble, but to make it up to you, I’d like to send you off to Clarice to pick up the dresses I had designed for you.”
I fought hard to squash down the thought that this was yet another similarity between Daelon and Lucius, who apparently both wanted to dictate my wardrobe. “You’re placating me with pretty dresses?” I raised my brows, and he just laughed.
“Oh what, are youjust not like those other girls?” he mocked.
I pursed my lips. Actually, I absolutely could’ve been placated by pretty dresses. Just not fromhimand not to make up for genocide and slavery.
He stepped toward me again, and I resisted the urge to swat his hand away as he lifted it to grasp my chin. “If you’re going to be my Queen, which, trust me—by the time I’m done with you, you’ll be begging to be—then I’d like you to dress the part. We can’t have another heretic space dress fiasco on our hands, can we?”
