Heir of Obsidian (A Throne of Glass Fanfic)

13 - Darkness Claim Me

Hey guys sorry we are a little late uploading, unfortunately it's exam season :(

It had been over a week since Lars had first met the demon or the King or Orcus or whatever he was, and he was still just as confused as to what he was doing, why he was here and where they even were. And gods damn was he getting tired of being confused. He'd spent the last week pretending he couldn't summon the mists of darkness, the King becoming progressively more despondent every time he failed, that by the end when he actually had tried, nothing had happened. Almost as if magic had gotten fed up with him, too. He didn't blame it. He had a growing annoyance for himself too.

"Get up, boy."

He started from his spot on the rough ground, the late afternoon sun that barely managed to pierce through the foliage warming his skin ever so slightly. He exhaled heavily through his nose. He hadn't seen a single human being in at least a month. He'd been hoping they would pass a town for at least a week now, but the King seemed intent on keeping them away, following some invisible path that Lars could not detect. Or was not advanced enough to know. The King glared at him blankly.

"You're wasting my time."

Lars had the intelligence to smother his eye roll but couldn't keep the bite from his words, "You know I have been trying the same thing for over a week. Has it even crossed your brilliant mind that it might not be the student who's the problem?"

Lars waited for a reaction on the King's face, but there was nothing but slight cold distaste. "You cannot expect results if you do not try. Perhaps I should give you some space. Some alone time to clear your head. Re-center your priorities." The King picked a frozen bloom from one of the icy bushes tangling the corners of the clearing and threw it at Lars feet. "Since you seem to be going nowhere with darkness, wither this and I'll return," the King's lips pulled up in a sharp smile, "but with your current attitude I hope you enjoy long nights alone in the dark woods."

Before Lars could even open his mouth to retort, to say anything, the King was gone. Melting into the forest around him. He punched the ground with a fist, bones smarting as ice crunched. He yelled a curse into the trees where the King had disappeared. But his anger was only to hide the sinking feeling in his stomach.

No.

Orcus couldn't leave him in the forest. Alone. He would come back. He had too. Right. The King would return if he did the magic. If he killed the bloom. He looked at the flower on the sludge laden ground with increased intensity and reached down to pick it up. Cold leeched into the tips of his fingers as he grasped it's stem and lifted it too his face. It was beautiful, despite the slumber winter had laid upon it. A muted red centre that bled smoothly into the luminescent blue of its petals, a vibrancy he would have to drain, drop by drop, until none of that life remained.

He hated that thought, to snuff out something so beautiful. They had Meridian flowers in Banjali, where his family lived his whole life, small and ruffled like little pale blue waves crested with sea foam. They had covered the trees leading to the shore forming a path like a carpet of brine and when the winter came they fell like gulls diving to the sky, shriveled and grey like the winds. It was like that, he told himself, just like the changing of seasons.

He gripped the flower tighter. His skin prickled as a shadow passed over his head and the forest rustled around him, the frosted leaves whispering past one another. But he forced himself to close his eyes and focus. Focus on the icy winds that rushed to Banjali from the South-East, the bleakness they brought, fire-light soft in windows but trees bare and sea raging in the night. Magic flowed from his hands and the air filled with the smell of salty water and its darkening depths, he cracked an eye and almost cried. Instead he loosed a yell in angered frustration. No no no! While the flower in his hand remained in perfect condition, tendrils of darkness now curled around the clearing, rising and falling like wind. The magic mocked him. His magic, Orcus has insisted and he laughed a little, at the presumed ownership so wrongly placed in his hands.