Chapter 31 Chapter 31
KILLIAN
I was going to kill someone.
Anger thrummed through my veins as I turned the harrowe over in my hand. The dagger had been lying where I’d left it after pulling it out of me less than an hour ago, but apart from it, there was nothing else in the vault. Nothing.
…Well, nothing wasn’t exactly correct. The robbers did leave the shelves, the light bulbs, and the harrowe so the vault wouldn’t be totally empty. I had to take that into consideration.
“What is…” came my father’s voice from behind as he walked into the vault, and I slowly got to my feet. “Killian…”
“Get me the men that were supposed to guard the vault,” I muttered to Fabien who was standing next to me, and he nodded. As he turned to leave, I grabbed his arm. “Scratch that. Round up every fucking person in this palace.”
There was no way everything in here would have been moved out without someone seeing something. I mean, the vault had to have been emptied by dozens of people because only a couple of people couldn’t have done it in the timeframe it took.
“Killian!” my father bellowed. He was standing right behind me now, and for a moment, I remembered how that tone used to make me want to curl into myself when I was younger. I turned to face him, and he gestured around wildly, a vein in his forehead throbbing. “What is this?!”
“An empty vault. What does it look like?” I bit out. In hindsight, that wasn’t the best thing to say with him so close to me, but this situation was so beyond infuriating that I couldn’t fault him for what he did next.
He slammed his forehead into my face, and white hot pain burst through it, clouding my thoughts for a moment. Blood began to pour from my nose as I staggered back before he followed with a vicious kick to my sternum that sent me crashing into one of the empty shelves. I went down with it.
Crap. A dense agony radiated from the center of my chest, making every breath I took feel like a heavy weight. Oh, I think he broke something.
Fabien rushed to my side as a groan escaped me, wanting to help me up, but I held up a hand to stop him. The last time he’d rushed to my aid after my father attacked me, he’d incurred his wrath, and I’d rather stab myself with the harrowe—willingly this time—than to have my father set his sights on him again.
Muscling through the pain, I pushed myself to my feet, ignoring the “Are you okay?” from Fabien as my father’s hot stare threatened to set me ablaze.
“What? You think I did this too?”
“Where are the men that should be guarding this vault? Where are the men that should be guarding this room?!”
Everyone that had been in the Agellius’ Hall when Fabien came to tell us the vault had been robbed had followed him here—except my stepmother; she wasn’t allowed in my mother’s palace—and some of them shared uncomfortable looks at his outburst.
Breathing had become a bit easier now as my body was mending itself. “Didn’t you dismiss them?”
“How did they get into the vault?” he countered, and I set my mouth in a hard line. I hadn’t closed the door after leaving.
Gods. My father and I were the only ones with keys to the vault, and the guards at its door were always the ones who closed after we left it. But the guards hadn’t been here when I left, and though I noticed, I didn’t close it because I didn’t think someone was going to pull a fucking heist.
“…I didn’t close it.”
My father darted forward. I wasn’t interested in whatever hit he was about to land, so when he swung his fist, it sailed through air where my throat had been a moment before as I’d dashed over to the left end of the room
“Maybe—Just maybe if I hadn’t had my essence drained by an harrowe which left room for nothing else in my mind, I’d have remembered to close the fucking vault!” I added, and a muscle in his jaw twitched.
“...You’re saying this is my fault?!”
“Why did you dismiss the guards?!”
This was mostly my fault, but I wasn’t about to let him place all the blame on my shoulders in front of the Agellius. They already weren’t my biggest fans, and giving them something else to use against me didn’t matter at this point, but I didn’t want to. Also, quite the amount of what had been stolen were nasty weapons, and I didn’t want to be held responsible for them being used liberally by the robbers.
They could be using them right now. Fucking hell. I needed to find them.
My father sucked in a breath, closing his eyes, and I wondered if he was going to attack me again. He didn’t.
“Cederic,” he called right after opening his eyes once more, and the summoner made his way through the members of the Agellius blocking the door.
He bowed. “Yes, Your Majesty.”
“I want an inventory of everything that has been taken. And notify Valentine of what has happened—” Xenos Valentine was the Head of Security—”I want everything back in this vault before next Friday.”
“As you wish, Your Majesty.”
As Cederic bowed and began to make his way out of the fault, my father glared at me again, then spat, “Incompetent bastard.”
With that he walked out of the room and everyone who had followed him here filed out after him. When it was finally just me and Fabien in the vault, I heaved a sigh.