Chapter 82: Papa

The coils around Dorian burst apart.

Corvin’s great black body was flung backward into the wall with a crack that shook dust from the ceiling, and Dorian rose out of the wreckage with his teeth bared and his naked chest streaked in blood. His bones were still cracking back into place. He was already shifting again.

"Corvin!" Aldric shouted.

The snake twisted mid-air, hit the floor, and lashed forward again, but Dorian was fast. A black paw caught a guard across the chest and sent him flying. Another guard went down screaming. Spears clattered. Torches guttered.

Leonidas forced himself upright, one hand pressed to his side, and did not waste breath on a warning. He had sent Rafael running after the Empress moments ago, and it had been the right decision. It had also left three of them to face a monster.

"Left!" he barked. "Aldric, LEFT!"

Aldric ducked. Claws raked the air where his head had been, and the wall behind him shredded like wet paper. He rolled, came up with his sword already swinging, and the blade bit into Dorian’s flank. The panther howled but did not stop.

They were losing ground.

Leonidas could see it. Every strike cost Dorian, but it cost them more, and the corridor was slick with blood, human and beast alike. A young guard scrambled backward on his elbows, his spear snapped in half, his face filled with terror. Dorian’s jaws opened over him, dripping.

Corvin’s tail slammed into the beast’s ribs at the last possible second.

The guard scrambled away sobbing. Leonidas pushed himself forward, ignoring the fire in his chest, and drove his shoulder into Dorian’s side. They tumbled. Claws found his arm and dug deep. He roared through the pain.

Somewhere far away, in the back of his mind, a strange thing happened.

Dorian stiffened.

It was only for a heartbeat. His head jerked toward the far end of the palace. Something crossed his face that was not pain, and it was not fear. It was a cold, sour disgust.

Useless, he hissed.

The word slid through the mind-link as thin as a blade.

What? Leonidas gasped, wrestling for his throat.

My shadow. Dorian’s eyes slid back to him, and there was such contempt in them that Leonidas felt it like a slap. It hesitates. Can you believe it? It had no trouble slitting that mistress’s throat. It followed every order. And now, standing in front of your precious Empress, it cannot do the one simple thing I ask.

Leonidas’s blood went cold. "Karina," he breathed.

Tsk. Dorian shook him off with a heave of his shoulders. Well. No point in dragging this out, is there?

He shifted.

A naked, blood-slicked man crouched on the floor before them, panting, chest heaving, his navy eyes filled with peace.

"Enough," Dorian said. His voice was hoarse. "We have danced long enough."

"Surrender then," Aldric snarled, blade leveled at his throat.

Dorian laughed.

Then he raised his right hand, curled his fingers into claws, and plunged them into his own chest.

"WAIT!"

Leonidas’s shout cracked. He lunged, but his legs would not carry him fast enough. Dorian’s hand sank in to the wrist. Blood gushed over his ribs, over his stomach, over the marble. His whole body shuddered. His teeth bared in a gruesome smile, and he began to pull, tearing at something deep inside him with a wet sound that made even Aldric turn pale.

He was trying to rip out his own heart.

"What are you doing?!" Leonidas shouted.

Dorian said nothing. His fingers clenched tighter. Blood bubbled at his lips.

The shadow. The piece of him. ℴ

Leonidas understood, in a single icy flash. If Dorian’s heart died, so did the shadow. And Dorian was going to kill them both out of pure spite.

He snatched a fallen guard’s sword from the floor, and he ran.

Three strides. Four. His side screamed, his vision swam, and he threw himself forward with a roar and drove the blade straight through Dorian’s chest.

It went in to the hilt.

Dorian jerked. The hand in his chest slipped free, dripping. His eyes widened, just slightly, and then focused on Leonidas’s face inches from his own.

"I’m the one who’s going to kill you," Leonidas whispered, shaking. "You bastard. Coming for my family like the stupid coward you are. Now you’re going to die by my hands."

To Leonidas’s surprise, Dorian just chuckled. It came out as bloody bubbles frothing between his teeth. The sword still stood in his chest, and he clung to Leonidas’s shoulder with a hand that was suddenly, horribly strong.

"Good," he choked out. "Good boy."

"Let go of me."

"Let’s die together, little king."

Claws sank into Leonidas’s chest.

Pain immediately exploded through him. Dorian’s fingers punched through skin and muscle and dug between his ribs, and they squeezed. Leonidas heard himself scream. His knees buckled. The world tipped sideways, flashing black and red.

"LEONIDAS!" Aldric roared.

Dorian’s fingers closed around something, and began to pull it out.

Not like this, Leonidas thought, dazed. Not now. Karina—Valen—

Steel flashed.

Aldric’s sword came down in a single clean stroke, and Dorian’s arm parted from his wrist. The hand fell away, twitching, still clenched, and the claws slid out of Leonidas’s chest with a sickening sound.

Dorian screamed. It was an animalistic shriek, and it went on and on, tearing off the walls, until it broke into a rasp. He staggered back, clutching the bleeding stump. The sword in his chest wobbled with every breath. Corvin, now fully human, dragged himself upright and drove a dagger into the man’s side, and Aldric struck again, and again.

Dorian sank to his knees.

Blood ran out of his mouth. His navy eyes rolled toward Leonidas, and for the briefest moment they looked almost like the eyes of the man who had once let a small boy ride on his shoulders through the garden.

"Little... king," he whispered.

Then the light in them went out, and he fell forward onto the marble.

The corridor was silent.

Nobody breathed. Torches crackled. The last echo of the scream faded down the long stone halls, and dust drifted through the smoke.

"We..." Aldric’s voice came out cracked. He lowered his sword slowly, staring at the body. "We did it."

"He’s dead," Corvin said. He was bent double, hands on his knees, his black hair plastered to his face. "He’s... he’s really dead."

Aldric spun around. "Leonidas!"

Leonidas was on his knees, one hand clamped over the hole in his chest, blood streaming through his fingers. He swayed, and Aldric caught his shoulder before he could fall.

"Are you alright?" Aldric demanded. "Speak to me!"

"Yes. Yes, General." Leonidas’s voice was a thread. He swallowed, tried again. "I am fine. It is nothing."

"It is not nothing, you fool, you are—"

"The Empress."

Leonidas’s head snapped up. His purple eyes were unfocused, and burning with a terror that had nothing to do with his wound. He gripped Aldric’s arm hard enough to bruise.

"The Empress," he said hoarsely. "The shadow. My link with Rafael is weak at the moment, so I can’t communicate with him. We need to find her, ensure she is safe. I—"

"Papa!"

Three heads yanked in the direction the sound came from.