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CHAPTER 34

Cassial was right, I had no choice but to comply.

He provided me with options of how this was going to end, each one leading to ruin. But if I didn’t do as he asked, the fey army would come and trample the innocent humans within hours. His Fallen wouldn’t stop them. We would become the demons he wished us to be.

If I accepted his offer, he’d use me as a puppet to destroy hundreds of lives.

With nothing but the wave of his gnarled fingers, Cassial had strung me up in the tent, arms and legs separated by chains, my back supported by a wooden beam. I fixed my stare on him, drinking in the not-so-subtle changes to his body. It was impossible not to see it now. How Duwar corrupted his body from the inside out, poisoning his already ruined soul.

Twin horns protruded from his skull. Where his skin had cracked in places, as though he was made from clay, he became the same monster I’d seen in Aldrick’s mirrors.

It was no wonder Cassial had worn Duncan’s skin as a glamour.

Perhaps those visions of Duwar I’d first seen in Aldrick’s mirrors had always been prophetic. Duwar was showing the world the possibility of what the power could become, if used again. Cassial, the demon-god. That was who stood before me now.

Perspective, I reminded myself. However, I felt as though the reflections I had seen had always been showing the future… one I could not stop.

Duwar was destroying Cassial’s body, as I had known it would. Except the truth was not as I had always believed. Cassial had been clever in his plans. He’d played the game of gods and shifted the board so he always would win. I thought he was a step ahead of us, but the truth was he simply adapted to the changing tide quicker than we could.

“All this for some land?” I asked, straining against my bindings. My words fumbled over my split lip, the frayed skin catching on my teeth. He likely put the slight lisp down to my split lip, and not the vial of poison still wedged between my back teeth. “Seems a little desperate, don’t you think? You could have just tried asking nicely.”

My sarcasm didn’t faze Cassial, he was far too gone in the belief that he had won to care.

“No, this has nothing to do with land,” Cassial said, standing far too still. “I am finishing the task the Creator set out to accomplish. As his Saviour, it is my duty to fix this world. To right the imbalance of power that was put into the hands of the fey. I do this to finally give that power to where it rightfully belonged. Long have the humans been lesser than your kind, small beings constantly at threat that the fey would one day decide to turn their sights on them and rule. And before you tell me I am wrong, even you know what Doran Oakstorm had planned. He wished to unleash a winter unlike any other across the world, devouring Durmain long enough for the fey to sweep in afterwards and lay claim. Power corrupts, it eats away at us, some slower than others. Even now, as Duwar floods my body, I sense this. I have come to ensure that this imbalance ends today. Humans have lived in fear that you would conquer–”

“Is that the power lying to you,” I hissed. “Or your own deranged sense of grandeur?”

“We both know the answer to that.” Cassial tilted his head, the cracks in his flesh stretching. “If you had not accepted your lineage, the human realm would have belonged to the fey seasons ago. Even you have seen the fey army that marches here and thought of the very same the first time you witnessed their might.”

In the dark of my mind I recognised Cassial’s accusation was right, but I wouldn’t dare admit it aloud. “I stopped it once, and I will stop it again.”

“Yes, you will. If you accept my offer.” Cassial smiled, rot spilling out between decaying teeth. “Robin, you never put a stop to a war, it was simply postponed. But I am finally giving you the power that could stop it, for good. You accept and we right this imbalance, or you refuse, and we sit back and watch the army attack.”

“They attack because ofyou,” I said, blood leaking over split lips. “It has nothing to do with the need to rule or want for control. It’s to stop the maniac behind it. Even the Nephilim are against you.”

“Not all of them.”

Cassial paced before me, fingers catching over his chin. Every slight movement – every step, and the feathers continued to fall from his wings. The skeletal frame of bone could be seen in places. No doubt, in time, as Duwar corrupted him more, he would truly look no different to the vision of Duwar I’d first seen.

“Do you think it wise to continue this disagreement, Robin Icethorn? Every second spared is another that your army draws closer. I have given you the chance to save the humans, yet you still hesitate. Why?”

I had too many reasons to begin to fully explain. “You ask me to choose which side of myself you wish me to save. Human or fey.”

“Then you know we have come to a crossroads. You can see what Duwar is doing to me. I had plans, grand ideas of how this power could be used to get what I want–”

“A world without the fey.”

“Ah,” Cassial smiled, revealing the harsh points of monstrous teeth. “So, you do listen. Yes. A world without the fey. Do you know, when the Creator gave Altar life, it was out the kindness of his heart? Then Altar – selfish and proud – was not satisfised with his creation. So, he searched for it in the heart of the world, took the chaos and harnessed it. Made the realm’s first monsters, parading them as great protectors. When the Creator longed for that power to give to his creations just to ensure they could protect themselves, Altar decided that he was the one in control. He locked Duwar away, keeping it from the Creator’s grasp, and in doing so corrupted it. The humans were left powerless to defend themselves, whilst the fey bided their time to claim what was not theirs.”

“Or maybe Altar knew what the Creator would do with access to power.” I looked the Nephilim up and down. “Look in one of your mirrors, Cassial. You are the very thing Altar wished to prevent.”

“Hearsay and speculation,” Cassial snapped, his sickly grin unwavering. “All we know is Altar’s treatment of Duwar spoiled the power. Ruined it. He broke Duwar apart and left it to deteriorate in the dark for far too long.”

“Which is why you need me.”

In a blink, Cassial was inches before me. He was so fast, the feathers that were ripped from his wings hadn’t rested on the ground before his hands were wrapped around my throat. “I need you. Only a fey from Altar’s direct lineage can handle such power. Your bodies were built in the very image of Duwar. You can withstand it. I know you can, because Duwar taunts me. Either you accept it, or I will give this offer to Erix Oakstorm. And we both know, if your life is on the line, he will accept without this pathetic hesitation you show me.”

“He would never,” I said.