Page 13 of A Spell of Bones and Madness (Nostos #2)

Chapter Nine

Kohl

S hadows taunted Kohl inside his room, a fire in the hearth the only source of light he could handle at late.

Most of the day he spent in his bedchambers, swirling the glass of amber liquid and smoking the drug he had become reliant on to curb his headaches.

At this point, Kohl could not tell if the liquor was helping or if it was contributing to that pounding in his head.

Several times a day, he would think of his runaway bride, or the bane of his existence who lay in the dungeons below, and his blood would boil.

Veins blackening, head filled with the voice of the Olympi who started this all.

Hades wanted him. Wanted his blood to be paid.

Wanted that little sacrifice of power. So he would take out that golden knife and embrace the sweet relief he felt as he sliced into the flesh of his palm.

There had to be more to it. Why his father and King Edmund wanted the Olympi to rise once again.

More than the promise of freedom, or the promise of power.

It was a fine line they were all walking.

Replacing one set of gods with another. Yes, the Grechi were powerful, but they were not masters of men, they did not interfere in the lives of mortals on this earth.

From what Kohl had read about the Olympi, they often took out their battles on the people, not other gods.

They were murderous and savage. Hades most of all.

His father still had not told him why he hated the Grechi so much—why he had this vendetta against not only Nikolaos, but Kora and Aidon as well.

Kohl did not know Aidon very well—no one really knew the King of the Underworld—but Kora, she had been like a mother.

More of a mother than Zahra ever was at least. She took him into her home and treated him with grace and respect.

And how did Kohl repay that kindness? With betrayal.

A kingdom stolen by the man who was supposed to protect her daughter.

But Katrin had betrayed him first. Betrayed his very soul.

Even after the gods take us. A lie. It was always a lie.

No—when he found her once more he would explain.

Katrin was a reasonable woman. She had married him.

The only reason she had run was because he was not there to stop her, to tell her she wouldn’t be harmed.

If the guard had not whispered to him that the Prince of the Lost Isles had been found sneaking into the castle, Kohl would have been there to protect her.

Instead, his time was spent seeing the man he despised so much.

The only semblance of justice was that Ander was locked away where he could not harm anyone else again.

Venturing to the dungeons was his first mistake. Kohl would not make a second.

Dawn would be approaching soon, which meant one thing nowadays.

It would be time to torture Ander once again.

A routine Edmund and Kohl’s father would not break.

Kohl had not gotten used to it. He hated the prince with every fiber of his being, but seeing him sprawled like that on the stone, being prodded with flaming metal and carved apart like a boar was more than Kohl could manage.

And what they were doing to him outside of the physical torture, Kohl would not wish on anyone.

There had been times he wanted to stop them, to help the prince, even after everything.

Then he would remember that Ander’s hands had been on Katrin, that he was the reason she hated Kohl so much, and he’d decide to sit idly by once more.

A dark hand grasped around the glass he held, ripping it free.

“I told you the liquor would help curb your tendencies, not that you should sit and wallow in it day after day.” His father’s sharp voice rang in Kohl’s ear and he placed the crystal glass down on the small table next to his chair.

When had his father slipped into the room?

“Well then, you should have been more specific,” Kohl slurred in response.

“Your son is in quite the mood today, Khalid.” King Edmund slithered into the room, seating himself on the chaise across from Kohl. He folded his hands in his lap and leaned forward, staring straight into Kohl’s soul. Great. He had to deal with both of them early in the day.

“I need to ask you a few questions about your wife,” Edmund said, letting his tongue graze over his teeth .

This was why Kohl had been drinking. To ease Katrin’s betrayal.

To convince himself that some part of him didn’t still love her.

Or convince himself that she had been taken against her free will—that she may have been angry with him, but that she would trust him once more.

It was hard to picture her truly hating him.

Everything about their interactions before seemed to say she did love him—once at least. The twinkle in her eye as they raced through the mountains, her witty banter, and calming touch.

He reached for the glass his father had taken away and was met by a swatting hand and an angry stare.

“I am a king in my own right, Father. If I wish to finish my drink, I may.” This earned a snarl from Khalid, the slight lift showing off the same shaven teeth Kohl now bore, but his father did not stop him again.

King Edmund cleared his throat. “Did Katrin ever speak to you of an artifact her father was protecting? It could vary in size, just something meaningful he would have kept close by, protected.”

Mind spinning from a mix of his headaches, Kohl thought of the few times he had seen Aidon, what he had been wearing, who he had been with.

It was such a curious question. The Grechi were much like the men and women of court.

They often wore fine jewelry, carried favorite weapons—it would be like Edmund asking Kohl if he was ever seen with the bronze scythe he preferred in battle.

“It was rare that I actually encountered Aidon. There was only the once since Katrin was taken the first time and it was brief. He spent merely a week in the castle and most of that time was locked in his study or with the queen,” Kohl replied .

Edmund stroked his fingers over his chin, lips curled in between his teeth. “I need you to think harder, Kohl. It is imperative that we find this artifact.”

Racking his brain, Kohl thought about any similarity he noticed when he saw Katrin’s father. Then it hit him. “Like a helmet? He wore this strange gold helmet instead of the crown of the consort. It had blue flames painted on either side where it dipped down around his jaw line.”

The two older kings looked at each other, Edmund’s brows narrowing, pondering the likelihood that the helmet was what he was thinking of.

“It could be. Although, I would have thought it to be a weapon not an accessory. All the Olympi had an artifact that was entrusted to the Grechi when their powers transferred over. Poseidon's trident, Zeus’s bolt, Artemis’s golden bow.

All weapons of choice, recorded in Harrenfort’s records.

The trident is no doubt in Nikolaos’s possession—I would have thought Hades’ object would be with his counterpart as well. ”

Trident? Bolt? Bow? They had to be senile. Any one of the soldiers in Alentus could possess one of those, let alone the rest of Odessia’s armies. If they thought the relic was some weapon as common as these, they would spend years searching.

“There must be something else.” Kohl’s father tapped his fingers together. “Are you sure there wasn’t a sword or ax or something else Aidon carried with him outside Aidesian?”

“Not that I can remember. But who is to say the helmet wasn’t a weapon in its own right?” A wicked grin crossed Kohl’s lips.

King Edmund cocked his head to the side. “What do you mean, boy? ”

He loved when he knew more than his father.

All his time spent in the restricted section of the Morentian Library, where only the royal family could venture, had paid off.

Records of the Olympi and their history were kept hidden from everyone but the Athanas line.

As a child, Kohl was thrilled by their lore, how different it was from the Grechi that lived among them.

“Hades’ helmet could grant its wearer invisibility, maybe Aidon’s does the same,” Kohl said so matter-of-factly.

“Possibly.” King Edmund looked curious, but his father seemed unconvinced. Khalid only retreated further into the shadows, muttering to himself.

“Why do you need to know? Why is this artifact so important?” Kohl asked.

Khalid shifted uncomfortably near the raging fire, cracking his knuckles. “I guess it is time we told you, my boy.”

Finally, after months of being in the dark when it came to his father’s plans, Khalid was letting him in. Kohl would take any scrap of information he dared share, because maybe it would help him prove his worth—show his father there was a reason to be proud of at least one of his children.

“It takes two things to raise an Olympi from their tomb. The first is the artifact. It links the gods, symbolizes the transfer of power.”

“And the second?” Kohl asked, settling his mind despite the blur from the alcohol. He slid to the edge of his seat, nearly falling over from the spins that seemed to take root in his head.

“Blood, of course. A sacrifice of two people who are Fated. That is another thing we have to figure out—which gods that are Fated would willingly give their blood to raise another. ”

“Why can’t we use my blood and Katrin’s? We are Fated just the same.” Kohl’s knuckles turned white as he gripped the edge of the worn wooden table. Blackness began to snake its way up his fingers. His blood boiled beneath his skin.

“Being bound by the will of the Fates and being Fated are two very different things.” His father paused for a moment, staring deep into the crackling embers of the hearth.

“I too was bound by the Fates once, before your mother. A woman I loved very much. But that was a different time, one filled with promise for the isles. I was young and naive, as were you for thinking that girl would care more for you than herself—than her kind.”

It was impossible to imagine his father being in love. Duty and the idea of heirs had always been the reason Khalid married Zahra, nothing more. Even more impossible was that his father referred to himself as naive. Who was this woman from his past?

“You’re wrong, Father. Her prophecy, it told us what would happen. It tethered me to her. Our stories are not the same.” They weren’t. They couldn’t be.

“Perhaps they are not. That is something I cannot tell you. That is something you will need to figure out yourself, Kohl.” Yet another thing Khalid would keep from him. It was infuriating.

Kohl repeated the words to himself once more. They weren’t, they weren’t, they weren’t .

The new king trudged over dirty clothes strewn about his bedchambers.

He was too on edge to clean, too embarrassed to ask for a servant to do it for him.

His father’s riddles were driving Kohl to the edge of ruin, enough to make his hands violently shake when he would lift the crystal glass of amber liquor to his lips.

He needed rest, to sleep without the voices that so frequently invaded his thoughts, the dreams that seemed so real he could not tell when he was awake or asleep.

If he just closed his eyes and hummed maybe it would all stop.

If he thought back to the days he used to journey through ancient mountain caves and swim in the caverns of the gods with Katrin.

If he could just have some quiet, maybe he could make a decision on what he should do, who he should believe.

Leaning back in his bed, Kohl’s eyelids fluttered close. Sleep…just sleep.

Leaves crunched under his boots as Kohl ran through the forest. Trees had weathered to their fall hue, blurs of amber and topaz blurring as he sprinted faster and faster after her.

Braids swooshed across Katrin’s back, one on each side like she had styled her hair when they were children, though her hair seemed darker now, almost black.

Warm laughter floated in the air toward his ears, circling around him, warming every piece of his heart.

He was only steps from her and Kohl pushed harder, digging into the dirt below.

Katrin approached the clearing ahead, where the castle would come into view.

She reached toward the ground, lifting a long black weapon from the brush below her.

Aiming toward the sky, a bright light flared around it.

Something stung his nose, ashy and pungent.

His eyes began to burn as he moved swiftly toward her.

The air thickened and darkened around Kohl, and when he neared the clearing, all he could see was flame. The castle was crumbling.

“Katrin!” he yelled, and she turned, but the woman in front of him was not Katrin at all.