Page 77 of Kept

“Twenty-second,” Laurent murmured on my left. He gestured to my plate. “You’ve barely eaten, princess. Are you feeling all right?”

“Just not that hungry,” I said, smiling. I nodded toward another table. “Igrith seems to be feeling better.” She sat across from Lidia, who had her chin propped on her hand and appeared engrossed as Igrith spoke animatedly, her slender hands flying and her hazel eyes far happier than they’d been when we left the Rift. Laurent had come up with the idea of having Igrith serve as Lidia’s “jailer” while Lidia was in Nor Doru.

I turned to him. “I take back what I said. I thought Lidia would drive Igrith crazy, but now I think you were right to put them together.”

Amusement shimmered in his eyes as he lifted his goblet. “Oh, I still think Lidia will drive her crazy.” He winked at me over the rim.

The knights’ song grew louder, the versus more ribald. The only other person in the Hall was Jordan, who sat alone at a table near the big double doors. The sight of him erased any pleasantness I’d felt watching Igrith and Lidia. He was a stark reminder of the one thing I longed to forget.

Prophecy.

In a strange way, Sithistra’s attack on Lar Katerin and the fight at the Rift had been a reprieve. It felt wrong to view it that way, but now that the South no longer posed a threat, I had no choice but to face the prophecy.

On my right, Varick chuckled at the knights’ song as he continued eating. Laurent sipped wine on my left, his posture easy and relaxed. They were enjoying themselves, and rightly so. The sky above the city was still exposed to the sun, but Lar Katerin was in vampire hands again. Rellan and Elissa were gone. We had eliminated Crasor as a threat and significantly neutered the Brotherhood. Why not take an evening off? Why ruin this brief moment of rest?

The double doors opened, and Midian entered the Hall.

The knights’ singing cut off.

Between one breath and the next, everyone was dead.

My heart pounded, but I didn’t cry. I kept my eyes on the demon king as he strolled past the table of slaughtered knights. Radu sprawled on his back, his throat slit from ear to ear in a gruesome red smile. Drago was slumped over the table, a sword lodged in his back. Goblets were turned over, blood and blood-wine forming rivers that dripped onto the flagstones.

Midian kept coming, his gaze touching on Igrith and Lidia, who lay on the ground, their sightless eyes staring at the ceiling.

“You’re not going to look?” he asked me.

Varick and Laurent. I didn’t need to look. I knew what I would see.

Midian smiled. “Oh, I don’t think so. You don’t seem to know very much, Given.” He waved a dismissive hand in the air as he glided toward me. “You’re such a good girl. So innocent and kind. And quite the seductress. You’ve fixed everything with that magic cunt of yours, haven’t you?” He stopped a few feet from the head table and brushed his hands together. “Problems? Easy. Just fuck them away.”

“What do you want?” I said, letting my exhaustion leak into my voice. Because I was so tired of him. Tired of worrying. Tired of running. Tired of surviving from one day to the next when each day only dumped more misery in my lap.

His eyes turned black, and his voice shook with rage. “I WANT YOU TO LOOK AT THE MESS YOU’VE MADE.” As he finished shouting, Varick groaned next to me.

I shouldn’t have.

I shouldn’t have looked.

But I was as stupid as Midian claimed because I did it anyway. I turned my head and looked at Varick.

He stared back at me, except he didn’t have eyes. They’d been gouged out, nothing but empty sockets in their place. Blood ran down his cheeks. More dripped down his mouth, and I realized his tongue was missing.

“Don’t tell yourself it’s not real,” Midian said in my left ear, and when I jerked my head toward the sound, he was sitting right next to me, one arm slung casually over the chair’s armrest.

“Where’s Laurent?” I demanded.

Midian rolled his eyes. He snapped his fingers, and Laurent took his place. The top of Laurent’s skull was missing, brain and pulp scattered over his shoulders. Chunks of scalp with dark hair attached floated in his goblet.

“Happy?” Midian said, and now he was in front of me again. As I looked past him, I saw Jordan sitting at the table near the doors. He watched Midian, but as he felt my gaze on him, he looked at me. He held my stare for a moment, then returned to watching Midian.

“…you killed your mother,” Midian was saying as I shifted my focus back to him. “One could argue you killed your father. You murdered your brother, and today you slaughtered his people. You bring death wherever you go, Given.” Midian spread his arms. “Don’t you see that now? Until you do the right thing, death will continue to follow you.”

“I control the Making,” I said, gripping the arms of my chair. I poured all the disgust I felt toward him into my voice as I bared my fangs. “Nothing you make is real. You’re pathetic.”

For a moment, he was more terrifying than Doru. Hatred gleamed in his black eyes, the malice so raw and deep it should have killed me. It should have stopped my heart like the bly’ad Laurent used to kill Crasor. For one terrible moment, I stared at Midian and saw my own death.

Then he was inside my head.

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