A Storm of Flames and Deceit

44. Firestorm

Nephele

Do I feel a bit bad about overriding Eris and playing marauder? Of course, I fucking do. But I don't think I could live with those deaths on my hands. Like it or not, we need Darian. We need to find out what he knows.

I know it's a trap. Even as I materialize into whatever dark abyss my father summoned me into, I know it's a trap. It may be a trap, but I know my father isn't bluffing about what Darian knows.

But he underestimates me. I've grown a lot since the last time I faced him. I know his tricks, and I know my strengths. I've harnessed myself, and I have backup, even if Eris probably wants to kill me right about now.

I emerge beneath a dark and stormy sky, a massive field of lavender around me. I'm surrounded by massive stone carvings on all sides, looming their tight shadows over me. I know better. I know they work for my father's command, even though they seem so sedentary as I stare at them now.

And as I look up at my father where he stands across the field, silver as a shoot of lightning, pale and stern, I see a whisper of red hair disappear. Not my Eris, but his brother.

"The magic applies very precisely, this way- I'm afraid," he laughs quietly to himself. Only a dozen yards from me. "As soon as your end of the bargain is fulfilled, I'm obligated to hold my end up. No time to even take a fucking breath."

"Your insanity must be so suffocating, Father," I laugh, my fingers twitching with electricity. "Forgive me if I don't feel sorry for you."

"Frankly, I'd feel offended if you pitied me," he replies neutrally. "I'm a fucking King, Nephele."

"I don't see a crown," I reply, a smooth grin. "I don't see any adoring subjects." Last I checked, the isle was in anarchy.

His eye twitches, and in that breeze of motion, I see the fraction of a flicker in his gaze. I side step my mother just in time as she raises the needle to my throat, slipping from behind the shadow of rock.

I knock her to the ground with her own momentum, pressing my slipper into her face. "You always kissed his heel, Mother," I reply, shoving my foot firmer against her jaw. "I wonder if you would do the same for me once I killed him."

"I'm a creature of honor," Mother says, almost emotionlessly. It's hard to believe that I could be bred of such people who didn't feel anything more than greed and ambition. "I don't feel regret for honoring my contract in marriage to your father, my obligation as his wife."

"Certainly no regret for ignoring your obligation as my mother," I roll my eyes, my fingers charging. "I only contemplate sparing your life because you simply aren't worth the trouble. You aren't the queen on this chess board. You aren't even a Knight. You are a blatant and willing pawn, nothing more."

"You only contemplate sparing her life because you are weak," Father cuts in. I could strike him with my lightning now, but it'd be fruitless. His lightning is the same as mine. He'd see it coming. He'd dodge it, and throw the same strike back at me. He'd meet the charge.

Mother, however, I could kill. "It's times like this that I wish you were capable of love, Father," I admit. "What I would give to hold her for ransom, just to make you sweat."

The sky brews with both of our rage. He wouldn't care in the slightest if I reduced her to ash, but he hates that he didn't stick me with any fae bane. He hates that I'm just as powerful as him, if not more.

"Love makes you weak," he answers blandly. "That's why it was so easy to get you here. You love those people you rule over. Those people you've never met. You're weak in the face of letting them suffer, even if it means you must sacrifice yourself."