Prince of Endless Tides (Darkmourn Universe Book 4) by Ben Alderson

Author:Ben Alderson [Alderson, Ben]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2024-01-26T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Twenty-Eight - Killian

My body was a well, my words the stale water which had been left to fester in the deepest pits. And Ernest, one little human man, was the bucket reaching deep down and emptying me of my truth. The story I shared with him was something I had lived with every hour, every day, every gods-forsaken year, and yet it felt different. Because, for once, it was as though I could allow myself to be brave in the face of my mother’s betrayal.

Ernest’s ocean eyes widened a fraction. The bed creaked as he lifted himself up onto his haunches and peered down at me, mouth agape. His fingers had just dropped from my throat, but his touch lingered even after he removed them.

‘She killed you? She killed her own son?’

I took a deep breath in, feeling both my hearts beat in tandem. One from my short time as a mortal, the other gifted to me when Karakos had betrayed Gorgana, keeping me from the Goddess of Death’s grasp only to use me as his puppet.

‘Before the congregation of acolytes, my mother took me to the cliff’s edge, held me over the abyss, and drew her blade across my throat,’ I said, watching emotions race across Ernest’s face. ‘The woman who brought me into the world deemed herself worthy to take me out of it.’

My skin rippled everywhere his eyes roamed. I delighted in the way my nerves lit up where he looked, and I wished for Ernest to never take his eyes off me.

‘But how… I mean… you are… you’re alive, are you not?’

I smiled at him, because I was learning that watching the silver-tongued prince fumble over his words was one of life’s surprising pleasures. ‘Although my life was taken as a means of appeasing Karakos, the ocean god was’t satisfied by the death of an innocent. But do you know the deity who thrives on such a thing?’

‘Gorgana,’ Ernest whispered, his stare distant for a moment. ‘Death herself.’

‘A god’s power lays within belief. Karakos, for example, surrounds this world. There is more ocean than land and sky. All it takes is for a mortal to gaze out of a window and see the expanse of blue to think of the god who rules it. That’s why Karakos is the most powerful of the gods after Nyssa’s banishment, and why he rid the world of her. He was jealous of her power.’

I was practically watching the cogs turn in Ernest’s mind. ‘And The Great Betrayal removed Nyssa from her throne, offering Karakos the chance to take up the mantle.’

‘You’ve listened in your history lessons.’ I smiled, but it was forced. ‘After The Great Betrayal, it was Karakos who took the mantle of God of the Gods. But Gorgana is the same in her thirst for power. Death delights in the brutal, premature murders of innocent lives. Back when I was a child, some may have even argued that the goddess held as much power as Karakos… enough for each to rival the other.

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