The moment Castel's boots hit the palace marble dread speared through his chest. It wasn't suspicion it was a cold, jagged certainty that something was wrong. He didn't waste breath shouting he ran.
His presence rippled down the corridor like a silent earthquake. Servants pressed themselves against the walls to avoid the wake of his fury. Doors rattled on their hinges torches flickered and died as he surged toward Arastella's room. Behind him, the palace fractured into chaos has the outside gates finally snapped from the tension.
Aideon rounded on Cion the moment they were clear of the portal. "Was that your doing, Cion?"
Krince didn't soften his tone either. "Were you trying to ignite another war? We agreed to remove a king not provoke one into a goddamn massacre."
Cion didn't stop walking, his back to them. "I don't answer to you, Krince."
Aideon's hand carved a brutal circle in the air. The wind and atmosphere detonated the elements obeyed him with a violent crack. Cion was lifted clean off the ground and hurled through the air. He struck an the oak tree with a sickening thud. Bark exploded as his back hit the wood, and leaves showered down on him like green rain.
Aideon stalked forward, eyes glowing. "Answer. The question."
Cion wiped a smear of blood from his lip and smiled ugly thing.
Rell stepped between them before the conflict turned permanent. "Enough!" he snapped. "The Lily Forest at midnight. Somewhere where no one can hear the screams. Don't ruin this, we all have families."
The council dispersed, leaving Cion in the dirt. He looked down at his own shadow, his breathing ragged. "You and I are one," he whispered.
The darkness responded. His body dissolved not fading, but liquefying into a pool of shadow and dark matter. He flattened against the ground, a predatory stain slipping through the cracks of the city, gliding toward his estate unseen. Untouchable.
He reformed in his own doorway, gasping as the shadows peeled back into place. "Of one we are no longer," he muttered, his voice shaking.
He didn't pause. He climbed the stairs and burst into Kiono's room.
Kiono was pulling on a clean shirt, his movements controlled and quiet. "Castel called for me," Kiono said without turning around. "The Queen collapsed."
Cion's eyes burned with a paranoid fire. "Who is she, Kiono? The maid slut you've been fucking?"
Half a heartbeat. That was all the reaction Kiono gave him. "I don't know what you're talking about."
Cion looked at his son the boy who should have been his perfect soldier. "I see you had your ass handed to you by that King. It's about time you learned your place, don't you think?"
Kiono's jaw tightened. He finally looked at his injured father, his gaze devoid of any filial warmth. "We did a lot more than just 'fucking,' Father."
Cion struck him.
The slap cracked through the room like a gunshot. Kiono's head turned with the force of it, then stilled. He didn't flinch. He didn't glare. He simply smiled a slow, cold, and terrifying expression before turning to walk past him.
Cion spun around. "You will stand and talk to me!"
Kiono stopped at the top of the stairs and turned his head. "You disgust me. It's a flat, simple truth."
Cion's face twisted into a mask of rage. "How dare you speak to me that way."
"How would you prefer I speak? With the lies you've taught me?"
"Who is she?" Cion demanded.
"None of your concern."
Cion lunged, grabbing Kiono's shoulder. He raised his hand to strike again but stopped mid-air. There was no flash of light, no storm, no grand spectacle. Cion's arm simply refused to move. The air felt heavy. Subtly wrong. His elbow trembled and his fingers twitched uselessly, frozen in time.
Kiono's eyes didn't glow like Castel's. They focused. That was worse.
"That," Kiono said quietly, "was mercy."
He released the hold. Cion slammed backward against the stairs, gasping for air. Shadows bled across the walls in a fury, dark matter coiling around the ceiling like smoke with teeth.
"This is the last time I ask," Cion hissed, clutching his deadened arm. "Who is she?"
"She was the only person who looked at me and didn't see you," Kiono replied. His voice was hollow. "I actually thought she would be my wife."
Cion blinked. "W-wife?" He let out a sharp, unstable laugh.
"You poison everything you touch," Kiono continued, stepping down toward him. "And I carry that poison because I share your blood. But I won't let you touch her."
Cion sneered, regaining a sliver of his arrogance. "If Castel finds out about you and that little servant—"
"Say it again." Kiono stepped into his father's space. The shadows in the room recoiled instinctively. "Say it again, and I will cave your face in."
Cion faltered, seeing a darkness in his son that surpassed his own.
"You're such a hypocrite," Kiono spat, his lip curling in disdain. "You have some nerve acting like a moral judge when you're fucking Iona. She's the same age as your own daughters, Father."
Cion went pale, his breath catching. "I don't know what you're—"
"I saw you. Before the festival. In the alley." Kiono's voice was hauntingly calm. "And the rumors about her and her cousin? Funny how my own father was the one who spread them to cover his own tracks."
Cion staggered back into a chair, his strength failing him. "You must not tell your mother... of all people..."
"She already knows," Kiono said, looking at him with pity. "Mother chose blindness long ago just to keep this family from rotting in public."
Cion's breathing grew uneven, his eyes darting around the room.
"That maid you speak of? I love her," Kiono said. The word hit harder than any physical threat.
"Love?" Cion whispered, as if the concept was foreign.
Kiono moved toward the door, done with the conversation. "You don't get to question me anymore."
"Answer me! Who is she!"
Kiono paused at the doorway, a final glance over his shoulder. "You should rest, Father. Try not to fall apart before the war starts."
He left, the door clicking shut behind him. Cion folded forward in the chair, the shadows trembling around him. His plans were unraveling, his control was slipping, and for the first time in his life, the future was shifting into a shape he couldn't recognize.