Chapter 77: Sons to waste

Chapter 77: Sons to waste
The wind was biting and cold, but it did nothing to cool the suffocating heat of his regret.

Ikarion walked through the silent camp, his heavy boots kicking up dust in the dark. The blinding, volatile fury that had propelled him out of the cabin had evaporated the moment the heavy wooden door clicked shut behind him, leaving only the cold, bitter ash of what he had just done.

He had seen the exact moment his wife’s heart broke. He had looked at the soft, beautiful valley girl who had just surrendered herself to him completely, and he had used the sharpest weapon he possessed to tear her apart.

He hadn't done it out of malice. He had done it because she had asked about the child. She had brushed her delicate fingers against a locked door in his mind that concealed a horror so absolute it threatened to unmake him. To keep her out, he had struck her down.

Unable to bear the silence of the camp or the phantom sound of Misarya’s weeping, Ikarion retreated to the only place that matched the burning ruin inside his chest.

The heat of the red cavern wrapped around him like a heavy blanket.

Ikarion walked deep into the subterranean dark until he reached the massive, coiled form of his bonded beast. Askarya was sleeping, her chest rising and falling with a slow, rattling breath. The glow of her black scales cast a deep, blood-red light across the jagged stone walls.

Ikarion sank to the ground, resting his back against the warm rock, and stared blankly into the smoldering embers of the dragon’s fire pit.

The red light danced and flickered. He closed his eyes, leaning his head back against the stone, trying to empty his mind. But the King's control was slipping, dragged backward through the years by the echo of his past.

The cavern walls faded. The scent of sulfur was replaced by the smell of sweet myrrh and desert rain.

Five years ago…

The air inside the woven tent was thick with the heat of two bodies and the golden glow of a small hearth fire.

Ikkar, the Riven-blood bastard of Ivrak-Lir. He carried the dark hair of his father and the lowborn blood of a forgotten mother. He had no claim to the crown, no lands to his name, but he was a respected prince of the sword who had carved his worth into the plains with sheer, undeniable brutality.

And as he knelt on the fur rug, pulling off his blood-stained leather gauntlets after a brutal eastern incursion, he was entirely, fiercely happy.

"You return to me whole," a sweet, melodic voice murmured from the shadows.

Anetha emerged into the firelight. She was devastatingly beautiful, her skin kissed by the sun, her dark eyes shining with a warm, intoxicating light. She wore nothing but the flickering shadows, completely comfortable and radiant in her bare skin.

She didn't care that he was Riven-blood. She didn't care that they weren't officially husband and wife. She loved him with a fierce, consuming passion that made the rest of the world feel like dust beneath his boots.

Ikkar smiled, the hard lines of the battlefield melting from his face. He reached into his leather pouch and pulled out a heavy, intricately wrought gold necklace he had taken from a fallen merchant lord.

"I brought you something from the eastern roads," Ikkar said softly.

Anetha gasped, a sound of pure, unadulterated delight. She stepped forward, allowing him to drape the cold, heavy metal around her neck. She touched the gold, her eyes fluttering shut before she looked back at him with absolute adoration.

She moved into his arms, wrapping her bare limbs around him, holding him tight against her body like a sweet, sun-warmed serpent. Ikkar buried his face in her neck, breathing in the scent of myrrh. They moved to the furs, their bodies tangling together. He loved her deeply, yielding to her softness in the dark in a way he never yielded on the battlefield.

Afterward, they lay together in the warmth. Ikkar traced the line of her spine, completely surrendered to her touch.

Anetha rested her chin on his bare chest, her fingers idly tracing the heavy scars on his stomach. Her dark eyes reflected the dancing flames of the hearth.

"I heard your father plans on sending your brothers to the Mountains of Tzal," Anetha murmured, her voice a soothing balm against his skin. “He wants to establish an Askari settlement there.”

Ikkar frowned slightly, the mention of the Alirak breaking the intimate spell. "I know. It is suicide. Tzal is uninhabitable. The dragons will simply turn them all into food and ash."

Anetha shifted closer, her breath warm against his collarbone. "I heard he had a dream... That one of his sons would tame and mount a dragon."

Ikkar looked down at her, his brow furrowing. "Where did you hear that?"

Anetha smiled, a slow, sweet curve of her lips that perfectly masked the sharp, calculating gleam in her dark eyes. “One of his wives told me.”

She was spinning webs within his father's household, gathering secrets she had no business knowing. Ikkar always disapproved of that behavior. "Will you go to Tzal with your brothers?"

Ikkar let out a harsh, skeptical laugh. "I am not joining my father's suicide mission. He can send his legitimate sons to burn if he wishes."

Anetha shifted, her bare leg sliding over his, her soft skin incredibly warm. "But what if it is you, my love? The one to tame the dragon?"

Ikkar shook his head, staring up at the roof of the tent. "No one is going to tame a dragon, Anetha. My father is a delusional idiot with too many sons to waste."

Anetha smiled, her dark eyes glittering in the firelight. She rubbed her soft, naked body against him, sliding upward until her face was hovering inches above his.

"Well… Anyway," she purrs, resting her hand flat against her lower belly. "Soon enough, I’ll be giving you a bunch of sons to waste as well."

Ikkar’s breath caught. The intoxicating promise, the heat of her skin, and the overwhelming love he felt for her instantly erased everything else from his mind. He grabbed her hips, pulling her flush against him, and kissed her with bruising, passionate desperation, losing himself entirely to her touch as they moved together on the furs once more.



The memory violently snapped.

The sweet scent of myrrh turned to the sickening stench of burning flesh. The golden firelight turned to the roaring, agonizing black inferno of the Tzal mountains, where he had been left to die. The sweet whispers of his lover twisted into the screams of betrayal.

Ikarion gasped, his eyes snapping open.

He was back in the red cavern. The heat was suffocating. He gripped the jagged stone floor beneath him, his chest heaving as he forced the memories back into the dark vault of his mind, locking the iron door shut.

Ikarion pushed himself up from the cavern floor, his massive frame casting a shadow across the dragon's lair. He looked at Askarya, the great, dying beast that had given him the power to conquer the world and exact his revenge.

He had burned his past in the sacred fire of this dragon's breath. He had forged a new truth from the ashes.

Ivrak-lir’s Riven-blood son was dead. The sweet, loving serpent who had held him in the dark had been nothing but a beautiful, lethal illusion. Ikkar had died screaming in the ashes of his lover’s betrayal.

Now, there was only Ikarion-Lir, the Great Alirak of Askaris. The Dragon King.