Page 12 of A Spell of Bones and Madness (Nostos #2)

Chapter Eight

Kohl

S moke snaked through the air, and with each inhale and exhale it got thicker, shutting out the thrumming noise in Kohl’s head—the same noise that had buzzed from that compass device as they journeyed to Skiatha.

It was constant now, sometimes a damning voice, other times, it was just a piercing hum, deep pitched and all consuming.

With each passing day, the headaches had worsened, becoming even more unbearable.

Bright light from the sun, even that of a fire, caused stars to cloud his vision.

Nausea settled constantly in his stomach, never eased by food or drink.

The only thing that gave him some reprieve was olerae.

A drug he once shamed his father for, was now his only way to keep hold on reality.

But what was reality anymore? A world where Katrin was not with him?

One where he ruled an isle that was supposed to be theirs?

Where Khalid reigned while the Alentian crown sat upon Kohl’s head?

His father knew where Katrin was, he had to.

Khalid always knew. Apparently, even the whereabouts of ships that went missing without anyone there to take record of how.

Earlier in the day, a guard had delivered a missive that The Typhon was attacked before reaching Lesathos.

There was only one ship that stood a chance against the mighty craftsmanship of Harrenfort and that was The Nostos .

Were they there now? Imbibing in their victory?

If his father would just let him go after her—would tell him where they sailed for—he could help.

Perhaps the hunt for his Aikaterine would ease the ever-present pain that pounded in his head.

Kohl chucked the glass he was drinking from across the room, the crystal shattering against the wall, amber liquid dripping down onto the floor.

Another thing he had dealt with the past few days—an unnerving rage he could not control.

His father had driven him to his last bit of patience.

“Where is my wife?” Kohl’s voice rattled from his throat.

Khalid sat at the table, picking a piece of meat out of his tooth with his lengthy pinky nail. “It appears she has run off again. Left quite a mess in her wake too. Can't you see, my boy? Their kind will always choose each other first.”

“Run off? Maybe she would not have run off if your men had not tried to kill her and her sister. She would have stayed by my side if she thought she wasn’t being brought out for slaughter, paraded about our wedding like a prized possession of yours rather than my consort.

” Veins of black began to thread through his eyes, and the humming in Kohl’s mind got lounder.

Khalid sipped from his cup, a trickle of blood red wine dribbling down his beard.

“My men would not have harmed Katrin if she had chosen to stay. Ember—well she had to be dealt with. I couldn’t have that girl running around as Prytan of the Spartanis any longer.

It was a disgrace to the isles and the warriors who came before her.

A girl leading the strongest army in the isles—the continents would have looked down on us as if we were children. ”

Kohl’s father hated to see women, especially ones he deemed so young and vapid, with such a title. But murder? Ember had never done anything to warrant that.

You tried to kill me .

The words shot through his mind, intertwining with the low hum. He had not tried to kill her at the Acknowledgement. He tried to save her from that fate with the blow to the head. He was better than his father. Wasn’t he?

Laughter filled the room. Dark unsettling laughter. “Are you trying to convince yourself you wouldn’t have done the same?” Khalid stared at his son, his upper lip twitching in a grin.

“Shut up, you spiteful man!” Kohl’s fingers went to his temples.

The pain was too much, even with the black smokey drug encasing his mind.

He had to shut it off. He couldn’t think straight anymore.

Again reality was slipping, his memories blurring.

Had it been jealousy and power that caused him to lift his sword and strike down the girl?

Kohl’s hand began to burn, and he could have sworn the intertwined snakes on his palm glowed blood red.

Standing up, his father walked around the table to where Kohl had sunk into a chair, putting his hand on the table to lean in toward his son.

Endless ebony irises shot daggers into Kohl’s soul.

This close, he could see small red veins spidering out from the blackness.

“Don’t you ever speak to me like that again. Remember your place, boy.”

Breaking his father’s gaze, Kohl sank even further into the chair.

“I am sorry, Father. I just—what is happening to me?” Kohl’s fingers threaded through his disheveled brown hair.

The pain was uncontrollable now. Venom began to creep up his veins, circling his arms like the snakes burned into his palm.

“That is power, Kohl—unbridled power. Stronger than even the wretched Grechi, if you learn how to wield it.” The sorcerers of Votios.

He had read about them, but they were supposed to be wiped out after the war.

Yet there it was. Magic seeped into his veins, begging to be unleashed on the world. Begging to destroy.

Khalid pulled a small golden knife, clutching Kohl’s unbranded hand, slicing into his flesh.

Blood lifted up out of Kohl’s palm, circling the knife as it began to glow with a bright golden hue.

The black in his veins started to recede down his arms, until the blood from his palms turned that obsidian color.

Then the humming stopped. His mind went blank.

No thrumming, no voices, nothing. Kohl looked down at his palm and his flesh had stitched itself back together, no trace of the black or the crimson liquid to be found.

“You need to let it out. The noise will consume you. His voice will consume you, if you do not sacrifice some of the power.” Khalid handed over the thin gold knife, nodding as Kohl tucked it into a sheath on his vest.

“His voice?” Kohl croaked.

“Hades, of course. The only true god,” his father replied .

The only true god. An Olympi. The mark on his palm, the magic in his veins, the isle he now controlled.

It was all tied together. Hades. God of the Underworld.

Aidoneus’s counterpart in the era before the Peloponnian War.

How long had his father been a servant of this being?

How long had Khalid been plotting all this?

“Is this why you sent me here? Why you sent me to rescue Katrin years ago?” Kohl’s brows furrowed as he took in the glint in his father’s eyes.

“It was not my original intention,” Khalid sat down next to Kohl, clutching both his son’s hands between his own, “but it has proved to be quite useful in our pursuit of freedom.”

“Freedom?” Tremors raced their way up Kohl’s arms and down his back, his breath catching. They were already free. Free from the grasps of the Olympi. It is what his people fought for—the men and women of all of Odessia had fought for—a century ago.

“Free to wield our power as intended. Free to live as we wish. Free from the gods who think they own us.”

It didn’t make sense, the Grechi were mere figureheads in the isles since the war.

They led certain kingdoms, but not all. For the most part, they did not use their power in aid or destruction of mortals, at least nothing like the Olympi used to.

At most, they survived to keep the seasons changing, the elements thrumming, the world spinning.

It was their binding law—as was written in the treaty a century before.

A fire lit deep in Khalid’s eyes, smoldering red. “Free to raise the rightful heir to Odessia. Hades will return, and when he does he will thank us for our undying loyalty to the cause.”

An unnerving chill swept through the room, despite the fire in the corner, despite the heat that radiated from both men’s bodies.

Kohl’s deep skin paled as he spoke, “And how does one raise an Olympi?” A rapping came at the door.

One of Khalid’s guards stepped through, head to toe in the black leathers of Morentius, the orange viper stitched on his chest.

“Excuse me for interrupting, Your Highness, but we have been unable to find your daughter as requested. We found this shoved in her desk drawer. It does not appear she intended us to find it.” Khalid held out his hand while the guard dropped a crumpled piece of parchment into his grasp.

Farah’s delicate script was scrawled across in deep red ink. No not ink—blood.

I hope you rot in the dungeons of Aidesian, and I am the one to put you there.

I will never forgive you for what you have done.

“Get out!” Khalid seethed, and the guard slithered back out of the room.

“What is it, Father?” Kohl tried to look over at what was written on the parchment.

“It appears your sister has left Alentus.”

“Farah has gone home?”

“No—not home.” Khalid stormed off into the hall before Kohl could ask why. Farah and his father had always had a tense relationship, but she would never defy him, neither of them would. What had his father done to make her run?

“Watch where you are going!” Kohl yelled as he stumbled around the corner into someone.

His temper was still heightened from speaking with his father, and now Farah going missing only added to that.

He peered down and was met by two sets of wide emerald eyes.

A pair of boys no older than five stood peering up at him.

Cursing himself for raising his tone at two innocent children, Kohl lit a smile across his face in apology.

The children had long, silvery blonde hair, but deep umber skin.

Those eyes though, they looked oddly familiar to him.

“Carlyle! Corliss! What did I tell you about running through the halls?” a woman's voice rang out from down the hall near the courtyard.

“Don’t worry, I won’t tell her I saw you both running,” Kohl whispered to the two boys who nodded at him, fidgeting with their fingers as they peered back down the hall.

The woman whipped equally as fast around the corner, and halted short in front of Kohl.

“Boys! This is not our home, and I expect you to behave your—oh!” She blushed, noticing who stood before her.

“Your Highness, I apologize for the yelling, and the unruly twins. They really are difficult to manage. I hope they are not disturbing your home too much.”

The woman was no servant or lady’s maid. Ileana. Edmund’s wife and a queen in her own right .

“My home…yes…” It didn’t feel like his home.

Only a month before he would have said it was.

That these walls had seemed more a home to him than where he grew up, that he was grateful to leave that place for such a warm and inviting place.

But then the attack changed it all. “You do not need to apologize, Ileana, you and Edmund are guests here, as are your two children.”

“Thank you, I promise I will keep these two under control as much as I can.” The boys squirmed, attempting to release themselves from their mother’s grip, no doubt to continue pounding through the halls, but she held firm.

Kohl chuckled. “I was a boy once, I understand what it’s like to be in a place this extravagant and not know what to do. If you would ever like me to go with them on one of their, dare I call them exploring adventures, I would be honored. When we met, I did not realize you and Edmund had children.”

“Yes, just the two. Carlyle and Corliss. They are just turning five and are absolute terrors.” She gave them both a squeeze as she knelt down to match their height.

“Carlyle and Corliss…” They didn’t sound like anything from the isles, nor from the coast of Voreia where Harrenfort stood. “What interesting names.”

Ileana’s face went blank and she clutched her hands together, rubbing palm over palm. “Yes. They were my brothers’ names.”

Family names. Now that was something Kohl could relate to—the honor and dignity that came with such a tradition. “I bet they are very humbled by the choice.”

“They would be, if their souls had not since passed over into Aidesian.” She gripped each of the boys’ shoulders and her eyes turned glassy.

Kohl wondered if they looked like her brothers.

If each time she peered into their eyes she was reminded of them.

To lose one sibling seemed unbearable, but to lose two—Kohl could not imagine.

Though, from what his father had said, it may seem he would lose his sister, at least in name.

“Do you still have other family, your parents perhaps?” Ileana stiffened at his question. Why was he asking such uncomfortable questions? This poor woman looked stressed enough.

“Only my youngest brother,” she replied, both voice and hands shaky. Her eyes darted past Kohl, avoiding looking at him directly.

“Do you see him often?” Kohl hoped so, though she had family in Edmund and the boys, the bond one had with a sibling after losing another—it must have been a saving grace knowing one brother still stood.

“I’m sorry, Your Highness, I really must be getting the boys to their father.”

Kohl bit down on his lip. He should not have pried for information she so clearly did not want to give. It was Ileana’s place to talk about her own family, not Kohl’s, but she took off with the two boys faster than Kohl could say he was the one who was truly sorry.