The Blood of Darkness

Chapter 42

The Dark King

"Kill them," she—the voice—hissed in my ear, her vowels the sound of war—metal clashing and screams of fervid rage.

I stood over my sleeping parents, only a young boy of eighteen years. I held no sword, no blade. No weapon. But my eyes gleamed silver, voices at my ear, the feminine one rising above them all. "They must die so you can rise. Prove yourself, Manar Lux. Reject it. You never wanted it anyway, for you are destined for more."

I wanted the power. Oh, I wanted it. I wanted to reject my magic. I wanted to watch my too-soft, too-weak parents die. I wanted to show them that Rurik deserved more than what they gave it.

But I didn't want to be controlled.

So, in my mind, I called out for help, to the Goddess I knew would answer. The Goddess who founded Rurik, who gifted us with a meager metal, Lychnus, rather than the power, the magic, we deserved. The Goddess who spoke in my younger cousin's mind, making her look at me with resentment rather than adoration.

It hurt sometimes, remembering who I was in the moments, even days, when I was myself. When I could run in the meadows and laugh with my cousins and not be burdened by thoughts of war and wrath and power. But the time had never been enough.

The Goddess of the Earth, Terra, answered me. She and the others knew what was happening to me. They knew, and they tried to stop it, but they were too afraid. They said that there was another who could finish things, one with more power than them. Truthfully, they just wanted me dead.

When I called out for Terra, I let her into my mind: the one place I had never let the Gods go. I was scared that they would kill me for my thoughts, and I didn't want to feel more claws in my mind. I wanted to be mine, and mine only.

But then, at that moment, I wanted more. I wanted them to be mine too. Eventually. The voice had told me what I could possess, and I wanted it all, only without her control.

Entering my mind, Terra heard the foreign thoughts about rejecting my magic, and knew that she had to help me. Or at least try to. If she didn't, she would suffer for it, as I am one of descendants, and therefore a member of the Royal Family of the kingdom the Goddess founded.

So she called the other Gods, and they came as well. I could feel their powerful presences, see the slight ripples in the air, hear how the world sung to them.

Together, the four mighty Gods entered my mind and freed me from the voices' grip. My consciousness quickly ebbed, and I felt as if an essential part of me had been ripped away. Instead of being filled with love and compassion and humanity, the place became a festering wound, for I had never known the things that it should have filled with enough.

"Thank you," I had whispered to the Gods when I awakened, slumped on the floor, still feet away from my sleeping, oblivious parents. They didn't understand that it had been too late to save me, that I had already come too close to such power to back down. The feminine voice that sounded of war had already counseled me, already told me what I had to do.

So I did it. I stared at my sleeping parents, my mind filled only with thoughts of hate. Slowly, so carefully, as not to wake them, I took each of their hands in my own and closed my eyes, searching for something, anything. Quickly, I dealt with everything that came my way, until there was nothing left.

But I didn't stop, letting every negative emotion overpower me, every piece of hate and anger and resentment and envy.

Then I squeezed my eyes shut tighter, and proceeded to reject my magic and turn it into something new. Something deadly. My parents died at my fingertips that very second. It was too easy, really.