Chapter 45: Chapter 45

AVERY

The first thing I did after all the screaming had stopped was go to my father’s room. While we were tending to the injured, there was no time to think—no time to realize any of it.

~The King is dead~... echoed in my head. My hands were still sticky with blood... the blood of the wounded we’d helped.

But when it was all over, when the last bandages had been wrapped and the last wounds dressed, the truth came over me like an icy tide. I still hadn’t realized it. Not really.

Not until I was standing outside his door. Not until I entered the room, which still smelled like him.

The smell hit me like a blow... ~His~ smell. The old wood of his books, the faint scent of flowers and lavender he always carried.

And suddenly I was six years old again... small, fragile, with tears that wouldn’t stop. He never said much. Nor did he need to.

His mere presence was enough. Father would wrap his arms around me like a second skin when he held me—so tightly, as if he could simply press all my broken pieces together until they became whole again.

The room still smelled exactly the same. But where his heartbeat could once have been felt under my cheek, only silence remained.

For a brief, stupefying moment, I thought he was about to turn the corner. That he’d ask with that quiet smile, “Avery, what’s wrong?”

But then I saw the empty chair. The made-up bed.

The specks of dust dancing in the sunlight as if nothing had happened. And then I knew... He wasn’t coming back.

Father... Suddenly, he was everywhere.

In every shadow, in the silence, which was now so much louder than his voice had ever been. He was gone.

And he wouldn’t come back. My knees went weak.

I dropped to the floor, fingers buried in the carpet, as if I could turn back time if I gripped hard enough. But there was nothing there.

Only this silence. Just the memory.

“Why did you leave me before I could make you proud?” I screamed.

Iris rushed to my side. I could feel her grief, read her thoughts; she was as broken as I was.

But I pushed her away from me... Not with my hands. Not with words.

But with this freezing silence that grew between us like a wall of glass—sheer and invincible. I lost more that day than I realized.

Since then, I had been searching for him in the sky. In the clouds.

In the stars. To guide me... To help me.

I begged him to hear me. To give me a sign.

Just once more to hear his voice. Yet it remained silent.

Sometimes, when the sun broke through the curtains, I thought I could feel his hand on my shoulder. All I had left was the desperate hope that he could feel how his absence had torn the sky from my world.

That he felt how much I wanted to listen to his voice once again. To hear, “It’s going to be okay, Avery,” one more time, in that calm, sure tone that made me forget all the calamity in the world.

But now there was nothing left of him. They say the dead live on in the little things.

In a laughter that suddenly sounds like his. In an embrace that offers the same warmth as his.

But none of that is comfort. It’s just a knife that twists a little deeper each time I realize... I’ll never see him again.

Memories assaulted me like thieves in the night. His smile when he showed me the sword for the first time.

The way he took Ava in his arms when she was little and scared of thunderstorms. The last hug that I gave him.

If I had known that it would be the last one... I would never have torn myself away. I would have screamed, cried, begged him not to leave.

But I let him go... And now he was dead. I could have saved him.

I would have given my life for him. But I was too slow.

I was too weak. Useless.

Grief is said to become lighter with time. That the wound scars, the pain fades.

I was foolish enough to believe it. I honestly thought I would get better with time.

But even Iris seemed to be weighed down by my feelings of guilt. My thoughts revolved around my father’s murderer... Abaddon and his brothers.

And his friend Silak, who had betrayed him. The names were like poison on my tongue.

They took him away from me. And... I was powerless.

I could have saved him. It grew dark inside me... revenge and anger seemed to trump everything else.

My mind was a battlefield where I tore them apart again and again. With every fiber of my destructive hatred, I pictured myself breaking them bone by bone—not quickly, not mercifully, but with a brutal slowness that turned every scream into a symphony of agony.

I wanted to taste their fear, to grind their tears between my fingers until nothing remained but the echo of their desperate moans. They were no longer thoughts; they were visions that haunted me like fever dreams.

I saw their twitching limbs, heard the cracking of their joints, felt the warm blood running over my hands. And the worst part?

A part of me was enjoying it. Part of me didn’t just want to imagine this revenge; I wanted to drag it into reality—no matter what it took.

Iris shouldn’t see that part of me. She shouldn’t have to struggle with the burden I carried inside.

It was getting worse by the hour... harder by the day for me to control those feelings. Therefore, I decided it was better to keep her away from all these dark thoughts, and so I locked our mate’s connection and cut her out of my thoughts.

The guilt was eating me up from the inside. Every day. Every hour. Every fucking moment.

I could see Father in front of me—the look he gave me the last time I saw him. Was it disappointment? Was it forgiveness? Or did he already know that he would never come back?

I’d never know. And the hatred... the anger was the worst thing.

It burned in my veins, poisoning my every thought. He had been betrayed... murdered.

How was I ever supposed to trust anyone? How could the people of Antaris trust me with their lives?

Father tried to protect us all; everything he ever did was for the good of Antaris. I could not disgrace him now.

I wouldn’t allow everything he spent years building to be destroyed. Antaris would be safe... I promise you, Father.

I would not allow such a betrayal to happen ever again. I would make you proud, keep you in honor.

You never should have left without me. That’s what was destroying me. Blame. The rage. The images that wouldn’t disappear.

I hated them. I hated these demons. I hated myself.

And Iris could see it. She saw how I was losing myself. How I tried to get tough because I knew I’d break otherwise.

She had been trying to talk to me. For weeks.

I could see it in her eyes, in the way her hands hesitated before they dropped again. She wanted to reach me—but what was I supposed to tell her?

That every step she took toward me would only bring her closer to the abyss? I couldn’t let her. Not the way I let my father down.

So I fled into the mountains of scrolls, into the endless duties that had been imposed on me. The crown was heavy, but it was nothing compared to the weight of his absence.

Every command I gave, every magistrate I received, was another moment in which I didn’t have to think of him. In which I didn’t have to think about her.

And yet… I felt her. Always. Her sadness was like a shadow that followed me.

She didn’t understand why I was keeping her away. Why I didn’t mention her by my side, why I kept quiet about the title that was hers.

She thought it was indifference. But it was the opposite. When I touched her, I reminded myself how fragile happiness was.

When I looked at her, I saw everything that I could lose. And yet… I didn’t want her to burn, just because I had become too cold.

So I let her suffer. Because I couldn’t do otherwise. And the disappointment in her eyes? It was my deserved throne.

But to hide a gentle soul was like a wound that never healed. Darkness spread through my chest, eaten away by grief.

So I clenched my teeth. So I chose to lie. And avoid her.

I whispered to myself every morning, “You have to be strong… For her… and for Ava. For him.”

I would be a good king. My people would be safe and protected.

No demon would ever dare attack us. No traitor would ever harm anyone.

I knew what I needed to do. I would be strong like you, Father.

But sometimes, when no one was looking… I cried myself to sleep—like a child who missed his father. A child who had now lost both of his parents.

Like a son who had realized too late what loss really meant.