Page 147 of Decimation

Lazarus studies me for a long moment, his colours shifting and swirling. Then he nods, understanding dawning in his eyes. He lowers the blade and steps back, taking my hand, raising it to his lips. He kisses my blood-soaked knuckles, growling against my skin.

“Whatever my queen desires, she can have.”

And as those words echo out, I see her sneer falter, and for the first time, there is fear in her eyes. Real fear. The kind that twists your insides and makes you wish for death.

The room falls silent, the air thick with the scent of blood and vengeance. Astrid’s chains rattle as she struggles, but there’s no escape. Not from this. Not from me.

This is justice. This is vengeance. And fuck me does it feel good to be the blade delivering it.

She’s starting to believe me. She is starting to truly trust me. I can see it in her eyes, I can see it in the way she smiles at me, the way she moves, the way she’s started to truly let her guard down when we are alone.

Tonight she will realise all her fears, all those voices still whispering in her head to be cautious, to be wary, are for nothing.

The great hall is drowning in candlelight. I watch it flicker across the table, across the polished ebony surface that stretches the length of the room like a dark river. Across the gold-rimmed plates and the crystal decanters filled with wine so dark it looks like blood, across the faces of the men who have gathered here at my command. Chapter Lords from every corner of earth. Guardians whose bloodlines stretch back to before the Founders themselves. Men who have kneeled before my father, Grandfather, and now kneel before me.

My throne sits elevated at the head of the table, carved from the same obsidian that lines the walls of this chamber. Ancient stone. Stone that has witnessed countless ceremonies, countless oaths, countless deaths. Tonight, it will witness something new.

I run my thumb along the armrest and feel the smoothness of it, the coldness. Everything in this room is cold, save for the woman seated to my right.

Leandra.

She is dressed in turquoise tonight, silk that pools around her, making her dark skin glow, with a neckline that plunges low enough to remind every man in this room that she is untouchable. Mine. Her hair has been re-styled to a weave that falls in waves past her shoulders, and her now blue eyes scan the hall with the careful attention of someone who has learned long ago that predators wear smiles.

I watch her more than I watch any of them.

I cannot help it.

Even now, after everything, the sight of her does something to my chest that I have no name for. Something between rapture and rage. Something that makes me want to tear the room apart and rebuild it in her image.

She is healing. I see it in the way she holds her shoulders now, straight and proud, no longer the hunched creature I first found cowering in the shadow. The scars on her body have faded to silver lines, though she still touches them sometimes when she thinks I am not looking. I always am.

But there are other wounds, deeper ones. Wounds I have not yet had the chance to close but I will, in time.

A servant steps forward, and I lift my hand. The room falls silent immediately, the conversations dying, the rustling of robes and the clinking of glasses all ceasing as if a blade has cut through them. I rise slowly, letting them wait, letting them feel the weight of my presence. My brother was impulsive. He demanded attention with noise and spectacle. I have learned that silence commands far more effectively.

“Brothers.”

My voice carries across the hall, low and steady. I have practiced this. Every word, every pause, every inflection. There is no room for improvisation tonight.

“We are gathered here for a feast. A celebration. But before we eat, before we drink, there is a ritual we must observe.”

From behind my throne, Ezra steps forward. He moves carefully, his face a perfect stillness, masking whatever nervousness I know he feels as he performs this ritual.

His dark hair is neatly combed, his small shoulders squared, his chin lifted with a dignity that makes my chest ache. He wears the ceremonial robes of an heir, black silk embroidered with gold thread, the sigil of the Brethren stitched right over his heart.

Beside him, waiting are dozens of servants carrying velvet-lined trays, and upon them sits rows of chalices. Human skulls, each one polished to a gleaming white. The tops have been removed and gold cups have been placed inside to form drinking vessels.

Ezra stops before me and bows his head. I take the first chalice, a skull that is polished, bejewelled, unlike the others. My father’s skull, boiled, cleaned, and prepared for this moment here. When I die, once my body is consumed by my son, my skull will have the same ending. It will be kept safe until Ezra has an heir, and this ritual will be repeated again.

I lift it high, letting the candlelight catch the precious stones, letting them all see my father’s remains.

“We honour the dead who made us what we are,” I say. “We drink from the vessels that once held their souls, and in doing so, we remind ourselves that we are temporary. That power is borrowed. That even the greatest among us will one day be nothing more than bone.”

I lower the chalice and gesture to Ezra. He moves down the table, offering a skull to each man in turn. Some take theirs with reverence, running their fingers over the bones. Others hesitate, their faces betraying a flicker of discomfort before they remember who they are meant to be. Chapter Lords do not flinch. Guardians do not show weakness. They take their skulls and they wait.

Leandra is the last to receive one.

Ezra pauses before her, and I see the way his eyes flick her way, not with judgment but with something close to sympathy. He knows what this skull means, he knows what I am about to ask of her.