Page 16 of The Dark Rising
Especially after she mentioned that she was too young to have caused the curse. Those last words to me still haunt me. Taunt me with memories of everything I have done since we collided, and everything that I didn’t do.
I need to find her, I need to get answers.
I growl in frustration, causing my brothers to look at me questionably, which I ignore as we open the castle door and step inside. We head straight to Charles’s office, having been summoned by him earlier in the day.
Opening the door without knocking, Charles’s head turns away from the large window he’s standing in front of. His face breaks out into a scowl as he looks over us. My men stay outside as I close the door.
Covered in blood and rogures’s flesh, I take a seat in front of his desk, not giving a shit about dirtying it up. Charles’s lips curl he himself takes a seat.
“Have the rogures been dealt with?” he asks, his dark eyes looking me over.
“I wouldn’t be here if they hadn’t been,” I reply, eyeing him where he sits.
He nods. “Any sign of Lasandrhea?”
“Nothing.”
“She needs to be found, she’s a danger to my people and she can cure us of this dreadful curse,” he snarls. “She needs to pay for her crimes.”
“She’s disappeared. I have no idea where she could be, no one has seen anyone matching her description.” He knows this, I give him the same answer every time he summons me.
“The people are unhappy. We let a woman, awoman,“ he spits like he tasted something rotten, and I’m the one to scowl now. “Who was sentenced with treason and is the cause of the rogures to escape us.”
“Any idea how they got a port stone?” I ask, flicking dried blood from my leather pants.
“None,” he growls, slamming his hand down on the desk. “I have personally investigated the guards and anyone who entered her and her pack’s cells. None have come forward with any information, nor has anyone admitted to supplying them with a port stone. After many interrogations, they are still all claiming they don’t know anything.”
“We will keep searching Vrohkaria, she can’t stay hidden forever.” Especially not from me, I know her scent. I just need to be close enough. A twinge goes through my back as I adjust in the seat.
“She was hidden away for years inside The Deadlands. Unfortunately, she is good at staying hidden,” Charles growls, anger flashing in his eyes. “She is needed, the people are rebelling even more so after this farce. I have lost many alliances over her disappearance, and the people are losing their faith in me, rapidly. Rebels are gathering to take me out of power and are constantly at the gates making demands for new authority, or begging for supplies that we are running out of.”
He’s acting like he doesn’t have a basement full of stock. I know how much food and materials are stored beneath this castle. He takes crops as tax from each territory, more than necessary, hording them below like a fucking dragon. I didn’t care either way, but that was when the people weren’t suffering and now they are, they have been for years. He has no reason to keep them locked up for himself.
He’s still droning on as I come out of my thoughts. “And then Higher Aiden is missing, he hasn’t been seen for weeks now.” I raise an eyebrow at that. “I also need to invoke stricter laws to get the people under control, show them that even in panic they cannot act so uncivilized when we have more important things to take care of. I’ll be making an announcement that taxes will be increased tomorrow.”
He has to be joking. People are starving as it is because of the fear of coming across any rogures while they hunt or even gather wood.
“Getting rid of the rogures is more important than politics.” I couldn’t give a shit about his alliances with other packs or rebels. Feeding people who need it, however, is a different matter. I need to talk to my men when we get home. “And raising taxes will do you no good.”
“Stay out of Highers business, Darius, unless you have decided to become one.” I grind my back teeth. Charles looks at me, his dark eyes boring into mine as he scoffs. “Have you thought more about you being an Heir of Cazier?”
“Why would I think any more about being an Heir to the mad wolf? It changes nothing.”
It changes everything.
“You are more powerful now,” he grits out, and I can tell this bothers him.
True, but I always was. We both just didn’t know it until now.
“Did you know I was an Heir?” I’ve wondered, but this has been the only time I’ve managed to get him alone to talk with him properly for longer than a few moments. After Rhea and her pack members escaped, I gave orders to my Elites and we searched for her immediately. Charles’s outrage damn-near took the hall down when she escaped, when it was revealed I was an Heir. Apart form now, he’s only barked out orders to me to find the traitor of Vrohkaria, while he does fuck knows what with his time. I’ve been busy searching for Rhea and taking down rogures ever since.
“I did not know, and your father never mentioned it to me. I would be lying if I said I wasn’t disappointed that he never told me. You were surprised when your Heir markings appeared, I suspect you didn’t know either?” I stay silent. “How did you forget you were an Heir? Did you know the bitch was one too?”
I hold back a growl. “I did not know she was an Heir, and Father brought me here and took me into an office further down the hall with Aldus in there. I was sixteen.” That was the day I shadowed my own mind with my power.
He tilts his head in thought. “Hmm, sixteen?”
“Yes, Aldus and Father were talking, but I can’t remember what they were talking about. Next thing I know, I remember nothing.”
