Prologue
After years of constant battle, the last war seemed too easy.
Otaso stalked through the charred halls, crumbled bits of stone clattering across the ruined floors as he went in search of his ultimate prey. The bloody waves of his robes fluttered behind him, snapping in an unseen wind as he gathered his power to him.
One last foe remained.
He would destroy the would-be king of the realm this day.
The cavernous room he arrived at showed a roiling oily black sky etched in bloody lightning through the gaping maw that opened up the great domed ceiling. Thunder cracked and rumbled to shake loose more debris from splintering cracks reaching into the rest of the dome. There Otaso found dozens of his warriors, well-armed and with the protection spells glowing with the eerie light of his magic where they etched the heavy armor. It had taken months to find the right combination of symbols, and the amount of power needed. Time well spent, if the numbers of black suited men ranging around the castle now to clean up whatever souls remained were anything to go by.
Otaso’s target lay in a broken huddle at the foot of his throne, the cerulean robes stained rust and vermillion where they splayed across the dais. The imposter’s woman sprawled behind him, rivulets of wine dark life pulsing between slick fingers as she clutched at the wound that would end her.
Standing over the other male, sneering at the waxy paleness of his golden skin, Otaso felt a surge of disgust. It had been easy, this victory. Years of battling with this now weak adversary, to win because he was drunk on his new woman and the offspring she had given felt hollow. Empty.
The once worthy opponent shielded a female that even now slipped into the Abyss. Not that Otaso wanted her. No, there was a prize far greater than some bitch.
“Where is it,” Otaso asked, voice a grinding rumble that echoed after the roar of more thunder.
“Vrazys take your soul.”
“Now, now, Kistsam. We both know your goddesses have abandoned you here. Tell me where it is, and I’ll make your end swift.”
“Do what you want to me,” Kistsam said, blood spattering over his lips and chin. The fine white rays of crystalline eyes brightened as they met Otaso’s gaze head on. “I will never tell you.”
“My warriors are searching even now.” Otaso lowered into a crouch, drawing the blade from its leather sheath to let it soak in the crimson lightning arcing through the midnight sky against its sinuous edge. “We will find it, and its end will come.”
“Your search will be in vain.” Another choking cough sent a wash of blood to stain Kistsam’s throat, trickling down to the red ruin of his chest.
“I bet you think yourself so clever,” Otaso said through a crashing landslide of mirth, twirling the blade to catch the glint of fear buried in the roiling fury of Kistsam’s eyes. “Let me guess. Servants swore an oath to see it gone from here before I even took the walls. A trusted maid to raise it as her own in the wilds of the countryside. Ah, you people are far too predictable.”
Confusion flickered through Kistsam’s eyes, amber brows coming together before pain twisted his features. Teeth bared, he managed to growl, “You will never—”
The squalling of a furious infant cut Kistsam’s vow short. By the widening of Kistsam’s eyes, Otaso knew. His smile was brimming with feral delight, the flash of crimson fire behind the midnight shot darkness of his eyes a glimpse of the horrors to come.
“Did you not know my men breached your walls long before I knocked upon your gate? She must have been something otherworldly,” Otaso said, blackened gaze sliding to the female behind Kistsam as the light flared and died behind pale eyes. “To make a man who kept me at bay for so long forget that he can trust no one. Least of all the stable boy with the lame leg willing to do much for a bit of coin and sport.”
A swift roll of his wrist brought the dagger down in a vicious arc to split the would-be ruler open, spilling blood and dark, wet gore over once regal robes. Gathering Kistsam’s entrails in his hands, Otaso pulled them up to his face. Let the full strength of his power show in his eyes as the other male looked on in horror.
Tipping his clenched fists, Otaso took in Kistsam’s blood. Power straight from the source seared along his veins, crackling and flaring across the back of his eyes as he swallowed again and again. It slithered along his spine, tangling in the vertebrae in charged pulses. Crimson, black, the pure blue of a summer sky as the fallen king’s power battled to be free. Freedom it would never find as Otaso swallowed it down into the endless abyss of his soul, burying it in the wildness of his dark energy.
Kistsam was the only Alpha within range who might have defeated him, and now his magic belonged to Otaso.
Releasing the slick clumps of flesh from his fists, Otaso roared to the sky and the Abyss beyond. Lightning sizzled through the air, the boom of thunder rattling the castle down to the foundations as that bloody fire pierced through the too thick air to grab hold of Otaso. Winding around his fists, entangling his limbs, it slashed through his heart with an ear shattering shriek.
Night gripped him, the shadows swallowing him until even the thought of light vanished. All that remained were the screams and cries of the fallen, all of them flowing through the brimming darkness into him. Shredding away that much more of his soul, the very things that made him human.
Otaso gloried in it, basking in the bloody haze as he relived every death. Taking power from their violent ends, soaking in their fear and anger as luscious ambrosia. Their wails building to a deafening crescendo that threatened to force Otaso into the blackness as he channeled it all into his reserves. Alarm flaring and dying as he allowed some of it to spill, scattered into the darkness as an offering to the Abyss when he could not contain it all.
Sensations overwhelming him, snippets of memories not his own swarmed through his mind. Battering his senses as it inundated him with information reaching back years. The newest and freshest burning bright enough to sear the backs of his eyes, blinding him for a span of moments that felt as long as eons. Then night swallowed all those vivid colors, darkening them to dusky hues before they became lost in the shadowy power crackling through his veins.
Panting, Otaso came back to the here and now. Knee to the ground, he braced with both hands to remain upright as the last of the power trickled through him before settling into an uneasy murmur that would take weeks if not months to calm.
Surprise registered somewhere in the eerie shadows that trailed through his mind. He had not expected the lofty morals Kistsam proclaimed to allow for a blood oath from his people. They were all of them bound to the dead ruler, and so now belonged to Otaso.
That was the least of the shocking details revealed to him as the corpse’s thoughts unraveled within him.
“Bring her here,” Otaso rasped, letting his other knee drop with the heavy clamor of gleaming black armor to sit on his heels. Ignoring the narrowed gazes of his general and vizier, he pulled the still screaming child into his hands. Cradling the loose neck and rounded bottom, Otaso peered into the red-rimmed eyes that would never change from their starlit blackness.
He could feel it coursing through her, tangled in every beat of her raging heart. Even in the slippery tears that soaked through his shirt cuff as the infant made known her indignation. It tingled against his skin and crackled along his senses. Power unlike anything he ever dreamed.