Page 27 of Eternal Ruin

They had both failed in their mission that night. The puddles had reddened with their blood, and they had ruined the castle of the late empress—Susenyos’s mother. Delivering blows louder than cracking thunder. Yet they had not killed one another. It was almost shameful—their fight.

Susenyos’s blood-licked silver would always miss a vital artery, and his claws would sink into every inch of flesh except near Samson’s heart. His opponent failed similarly. From the way Samson’s jaw hardened now, he too was remembering the mud-soaked grass and their panting breaths.

“If things have changed,” Susenyos said slowly, “why not aim for my heart right now? Or are you incapable of killing me?”

Susenyos extended his claws, ready. The bait wouldn’t work, but he wished it would. If Samson came for his heart, Susenyos would find it in himself to finally destroy his childhood friend.

When Kidan had pointed that gun at his heart, Susenyos had shifted forward, either to stop her or help her, long before he heard the name Lusidio.

“That night, I realized something,” Samson replied, an odd calm sliding intohis wretched voice. “Your death would give me no joy. It is your suffering I need. That is what you deserve and that is what I will give you.”

A snarl left Susenyos. “Your existence is suffering enough.”

Samson emitted a dark chuckle, a crow’s laugh. “No. Suffering is losing the people that know you most in this world. It is being labeled a coward by your own court. A selfish, spoiledprince.”

“Emperor,” Susenyos growled.

“You stopped being their emperor the day you left them to Lusidio. But I led them out of that hell. I guided them back to the light.”

Anger tightened his veins. Samson was a mirror of his worst memories, and he would always haunt him, always revert him to his weakness if he didn’t kill him right now.

When Susenyos received a hint about a group of Uxlay researchers who were close to discovering the second artifact—a mask—he’d chosen to flee the tortures of Lusidio with Iniko and Taj and find the mask himself. It had been selfish, leaving his people behind.

But he had no choice.

The artifact always came first.

At least, he told himself that. Slowly, a year melted to another, then another, and he remained, playing the role of a citizen at a university. Searching the Last Sage’s settlement in Axum with Yodit Adane, the previous dean of Uxlay.

It’d been… peaceful. Then shameful.

That was before he heard about the Great San Er Fire and the sun fell from the sky.

“Twenty years ago.” Susenyos spoke slowly, feeling his ribs knit and heal. “I heard you all died in the Great San Er Fire. I came looking for you all.”

Susenyos had experienced all kinds of pain during his long life, but none equaled the grief that had set upon him, unending and miserable, on that day. He remembered where he was when he heard the news—readingEbid Fikerin Hanna’s Garden, and there’d been a bee resting on a rare black rose. Iniko stiff-backed, face wrought with anger and sorrow as she told him. A horrible war had broken out between the Lusidios and the Nefrasi, and the Nefrasi were defeated.

Burned in holy fire.

Taj and Iniko went with him in search of their old Nefrasi court, but therehad been no trace. Not one survivor. Although Susenyos suspected some had to have survived. Iniko had taken five years of silence for their fallen people. Taj had drowned himself in copious amounts of blood and weed. And Susenyos… Susenyos had locked himself in the artifact room of Adane House, polishing each and every one of his people’s belongings. Keeping them close like a ghost librarian.

Last semester, after Titus Levigne had mentioned the word “Nefrasi,” a dangerous hope had struck him.

A hope that he could finally fix his mistakes.

“You used the fire to fake your deaths and escape Lusidio,” Susenyos continued, unable to keep the impressed tone out of his voice. “You did well.”

“I don’t need your approval,” Samson spat. “Do you think we should reward you for coming to examine our charred bones? What about the forty years before that? When we were skinned and defanged and tortured? What did you do, wendem?” He stretched out his arms, pointing to the carpeted walls. “You languished in a hidden paradise as all spoiled princes do.”

Susenyos knew better than to show his irritation at being called a spoiled prince. Yet the snarl and intention behind it—emphasizing the word like a punishment as his father did, boiled his blood.

Fuck Uxlay’s laws. He was about to murder Samson here.

It was Taj who rescued Susenyos from the carnage he was about to unleash. His friend knocked on the open door, tipping his head in. “Sorry to interrupt, but the Sicions are coming this way. Maybe table your lovely reunion for another time?”

Samson marched toward Taj, bowing his head to snarl, “You’re the scum of the earth, you know that?”

Taj cracked a smile. “Your words cut me deep, but I sort of like it?”