The Eternity Key (39 page)

Rowan and I are allowed to walk on our own accord into the throne room, our hands still bound against our chests, and flanked by guards with electrified swords at our sides. The guard must have sent a runner ahead, because when we enter the room, the Court of Heirs looks as though they have been awaiting our arrival. Lex sits in my father’s ebony throne, with the majority of the Court seated at his sides. I note that Lord Killian and Master Crue are not with him. Other Underlords crowd the room, as if spectators to a battle of gladiators.

My father sits, bound to a chair, in front of the Court. His crown, made of golden cypress leaves, has been laid out upon the altar, and his black robes and golden breastplate have been stripped away. He looks like nothing more than any other Underlord—except for the way he sits: his head held high, as if he were not a prisoner. As if he cannot be fazed.

But I know that he can. I’d seen his desperation when I refused to give Daphne to him. My throbbing arm is the only thing distracting me from screaming to the Court that he is merely acting.

Lex stands when we near the middle of the room. “The day of the equinox has arrived, Ren. Your sons have returned, as you
predicted. However, I see they are empty-handed, as
we
predicted. Their failure is your failure.”

One of our guards approaches Lex. “My lord, I have news,” he says, giving him a slight bow. Lex nods for him to come forward. “Lord Rowan claims that the girl is coming. That she’s on her way now.”

“She’s bringing the Key with her,” Rowan says calmly but assertively. He’d spent the better part of our journey through the palace grounds making this same assertion to the guards, almost as if he were boasting.

A murmur ripples through the Court as the Heirs confer with each other. Lord Devlin leans forward and whispers something to Lex.

“The Court has grown tired of your family’s false promises,” Lex says, addressing us. The girl should have been ours seventeen years ago. I’m afraid we have grown tired of granting allowances—”

“She will be here before the equinox is over,” Rowan says. “In fact, I don’t think it will even take her that long. If these harpy-mouthed guards had merely waited at the gate as I instructed them, they could have intercepted her before now. So if it’s anyone’s failure that she isn’t here yet, it’s your own personal guards’.”

“Lies,” Lex says. “As if we are to believe that the girl could make it here on her own.”

“She isn’t just any girl,” I say, my voice filled with so much anger that it doesn’t sound like my own anymore. I realized too late that I have addressed him in English out of new-found habit instead of our archaic language, but I don’t care enough to adjust that now. “She’s more powerful than you could imagine—”

“Silence,” Lex demands, switching to English as if I had issued him a challenge. He’s doing his best impression of my father, but
he shows his frustration too easily compared to Ren, who still sits regally in his captive chair, unmoving. “Your father has already been told his sentence for his ineptitude—banishment—but we’ve all had something extra-special in mind for you, Haden.
Death
.”

With that, I am seized by four of Lex’s loyal guards and thrust down upon the altar. I almost laugh at finding myself in the same position I was in before I left the Underrealm, my head once again on the chopping block.

I should be afraid for my own life, but the agonizing pain in my blackening arm makes me think that death might be a welcome change.

Lex steps down from the throne. “I’ve been waiting for this moment for six months,” he says, drawing his sword. “If your father were a true leader, he would have done this the first time: not made a mockery of our traditions by allowing you to continue on your so-called quest. As if
you
could have brought the Cypher to us.”

Lex raises his sword. I glare up at him, daring him to do it. A loud shout sounding from somewhere in the antechamber beyond the throne room distracts him. It sounds like a quick skirmish. Lex lowers his sword slightly as the chamber doors burst open. I hear their footsteps before I see them, but then Garrick comes running into the throne room, holding Daphne by the hand.

“Haden!” she says when she sees me. “We’re here.”

“I can see that,” I say. My head is still pressed against the altar.

A distant voice in my mind says with relief,
she came
. But I can’t grasp on to it. The relief is replaced by anger that comes on so quick, I cannot think of why I would have been relieved to see her. I traded everything I ever wanted to keep her from this place, and now she comes waltzing in here of her own accord?

Why?

My furious thoughts are punctuated by the fiery pain that burns its way through my veins.

“What is the meaning of this?” Lex asks. “Who let this Boon in here?”

“I am the Cypher,” Daphne says.

Another ripple of exclamations makes its way through the Court. Their excitement disgusts me almost as much as her ready admission. Daphne will have to fend for herself for her own stupidity.

“I’ve come because of Haden, which means he’s fulfilled his quest. You have no grounds for punishment.”

Two of the guards loosen their grip on me, and I am allowed to lift my head up from the altar, but I remain kneeling in front of it.

Ren stares at Lex, a satisfied smile sliding across his face. It is rare for my father to show such emotion. “Which means your grounds for this coup are unfounded. My bargain with the Court has been fulfilled,” Ren says.

“You’ve already been deposed,” Lex says. “The Court has given you a vote of no confidence, which means the title falls to me, as I am the next in line as Prime Heir. The crown is mine.”

Lex reaches for the crown that sits on the altar in front of me, but then his hand stops. He strains, reaching for it, but he can’t grasp it.

As if it were
impossible
for him to seize the crown.

Ren laughs. It’s a horrible sound. “You forget about the oath I made,” he says. “Before Haden left on his quest, I made an unbreakable oath that whoever brought the Cypher to me would become my Prime Heir.”

I’d been too disoriented at the time to hear the oath that my
father made when he dipped his dagger in the water from the River Styx at the Choosing Ceremony, but he’d told me about it later when he’d given me the chance to make my own oath to bring Daphne to him. He had said the word
whoever
.

I’d refused him then … for reasons I can’t quite fathom at the moment. Had I fullfilled his oath without meaning to?

“You’ve lost your position, Lex,” Ren says with a snear.

“To whom? To Haden the nursling?” Lex rages. His sword is still drawn, and that distant voice inside my head tries to tell me that I should fear his wrath or that I should at least want to find a way to seize his weapon from him and run him through, but as pain pulses through my body, I find that I cannot even hold on to hate and anger at the moment. I simply do not care what he chooses to do with me. Only that he would make his decision faster.

“No,” Rowan says. “I’m the one who got her to come. I should be the new Heir.” The guards do not stop him as he walks toward the altar. Someone has loosed his bands, and he breaks them away, freeing his hands. “I am king now.”

And I realize that is what he’d wanted all along. The reason he dragged me here and tricked Daphne into coming—he knew that he would become Prime Heir if he succeeded.

My apathy from only a second ago is replaced by burning hate once again at the idea that Rowan is going to win.

Daphne makes some sort of protest against Rowan’s claim, but I don’t care what she has to say. She let him trick her. This is all her fault.

That small, distant voice tries to whisper that I am wrong, that I
should
care. That Daphne’s protection should still be my greatest desire, but she had already fulfilled her role in all of this, so what more use was she?

No
, the voice whispers, but I don’t know why I should care. The searing pain has spread to my chest now, with black, crawling tendrils spreading through my veins toward my heart. Perhaps it is some kind of poison. One that has left me with nothing but pain, anger, hate, and apathy to fill my cold shell.

The thought strikes me that when the black, inky poison spreads through all of my veins that there will be nothing left of me but the shell itself.

That nothingness feels as welcome as death.

Rowan smirks at me as he comes to stand by the altar. “I told you I would be the one who wins,
little brother
.” He stretches his hand toward the crown, but then snatches his hand back as if it’s been burned. He tries to reach for it a second time but fails again.

“It seems it doesn’t want to belong to you, either,” I say.

“That’s because it’s mine,” a voice says from the back of the chamber. Every head in the room snaps in the direction of the voice. Including mine.

Garrick steps from beside Daphne.

“What?” she asks, as confused as everyone else.

Apathy grips me once more, and I can’t even muster the desire to be surprised.

Ren’s eyes narrow into snakelike slits as he measures his Lesser son.

“What do you mean, runt?” Rowan barks at him.

“I’m the one who brought Daphne through the gate,” Garrick says, walking toward the altar. “She said she wanted to go with me into the Underrealm of her own free will. I’m the one who delivered her here. Not Haden. Not Rowan. It was me.” Garrick reaches for the crown. Nothing stops him, and he wraps his fingers around the wreath of golden cypress leaves and then lifts it
from the altar. He holds it aloft for a moment, while everyone in the room watches him in awe.

“No!” Rowan shouts and tries to make a grab for the crown, but he’s stopped as if by an invisible hand before he can touch it. One of the guards seizes his outstretched arm.

Garrick smiles at Rowan, his nostrils flared, and places the crown upon his own head.

The guards at my sides fall to one knee, and many in the Court do the same, acknowledging their new king.

chapter sixty-one

When Garrick got the drop on one of the guards in the chamber outside the throne room and then freed me from my captor with a blast of lightning, I had expected him to try to make a run for it, but, instead, he’d grabbed me by the hand and burst through the throne room doors, in essence, delivering me to the Court.

I wonder now as he stands in front of the altar, the crowd bowing to him, if he knew that this is what would happen. Or if he’d only figured it out when Lex and Rowan were unable to claim the crown.

“This doesn’t change anything,” Lex says, addressing the Court. “Are you really going to claim this Lesser as your new king?”

Another regal-looking lord emerges from somewhere in the crowd of people—other Underlords, I presume—who fill the room. “The oath must be respected. It’s been sealed and cannot be torn from the tapestry of the Fates. He is our king now, like it or not.”

“Then kill the boy,” Lex says.

“I’ll do it for you, gladly,” Rowan says. Two guards have him now but he speaks as if they’d happily give him a sword in order to kill Garrick.

“Do you not remember when that same suggestion against Haden at the Choosing Ceremony almost brought the wrath of the Oracle upon you?” the lord asks Lex. “Perhaps this is punishment for your insolence. I suggest others in the Court do not continue to press this matter, less they risk offending the Fates as well.”

Another lord steps forward from the court of men who surround Lex behind the altar. “Ren’s banishment still stands. We will accept the boy, but as far as Haden and Rowan are concerned, we were promised the Key. Where is it?”

All eyes from the Court fall on me, but I am empty-handed. “I don’t have it.”

Rowan points at me. “She was supposed to bring it here. That was the arrangement I made. I did my part. It should be here—”

“Banish Rowan with Ren,” Lex says, like he can’t stand listening to his excuses for another minute.

Rowan attempts to make a break for it but is soon subdued into a black sleep by one of the guards.

“And Haden?” the man from the Court asks once the hubbub is over.

“Haden’s execution order still stands,” Lex says, gesturing to the guards.

“What?” I shriek as the guards seize Haden once again. And he lets them. I expect him to struggle. I expect him to try to fight, but he just lets them place his head on the altar.
Like he doesn’t care
. His face resembles that expressionless mask he used to employ so often when we first met. The one he used to pretend he
was beyond feeling emotion. Only now I can’t see the light behind his eyes. This time, he isn’t
pretending
. …

What the hell is his problem? But then I see it. The thing I’d feared. His left arm under his bindings is streaked with black veins. They creep over his shoulder as if spreading toward his heart like spindly, poisonous vines.

He’s been struck by the black arrow. And it’s already affecting him.

Lex raises his electrified sword over Haden’s neck, and a gleam of joy dances through his eyes. He revels in the moment. If he can’t be king, he’ll play executioner.