Page 21 of Lord of Ruin (The Age of Blood #2)
Chapter Thirteen
Shan
T he Eternal King came to her, finding Shan in her office once more, the bustling sounds of the Academy coming to life around them. Their meetings had become more regular over the past week, no longer related to short sessions among their other duties or poring over journals in the dead of night.
No, now the King joined her first thing in the morning, sitting across from her in the small space set aside for meetings—two plush armchairs of deep green velvet, separated only by a small table wrought of iron, the image of vines and roses spiraling down the legs.
Her secretary arrived in perfect silence, delivering them a plate full of pastries and a steaming pot of coffee.
With all the late nights she had been running, tea wasn’t doing it anymore—and from the way the King eagerly poured his own cup, it seemed that he was working long hours as well.
Sometimes it startled her, these little reminders that despite the fact that he was Eternal, there was some humanity left to him after all.
“Excellent work with your proposal, Shan. The Guard is working day and night to set up their Blood Factories, and it won’t be long until we start to see dividends,” the King said, leaning back in his seat.
He managed to make the simple armchair look like a throne, dressed in his exquisite finery and looking every bit the regal ruler, and Shan felt that old familiar tickle of fear rise in the back of her throat.
The knowledge that, no matter how kindly he appeared in any given moment, he was still a predator, and there was little she could do to stand against him.
“I’ve been thinking,” she said, carefully, always so careful.
The questions that swirled in her mind, now that Isaac was free, now that she had a chance to help him.
If he would let her. “About what happened with Samuel and de la Cruz. Of course, we have lost our test subject, but academically speaking…”
The words tasted like ash on her tongue, the way she had to speak of him, of them both—like they weren’t even people but subjects to be studied.
But such was the way of the Eternal King, always moving people like pieces on a chessboard, and even now, he inclined his head towards her, encouraging her to go on.
“We know what he did with Dunn,” she pressed on, “and that it had side effects that we don’t fully understand. But what he did to Samuel was something different, and I want to know why.”
“Knowledge like that is dangerous,” the King murmured idly. Not a threat, but a warning.
But Shan had never responded well to such tactics. She pulled her lips back into a smirk. “It is, but you chose me for this role for a reason, did you not? Let me help you, your Majesty.”
The King hesitated, a deliberate inhale of breath, before he let out a soft sigh. “Perhaps you are right, Shan. I have held myself apart for so long that I’ve almost forgotten what it is like to have an ally. A partner. Being Eternal… it changes you, after a while.”
His voice was so quiet, threaded through with a slight tremble, and even though Shan knew better, she could still feel herself being pulled into his web, his strings settling around her, ready to be pulled.
She would let herself be led, for a bit. Long enough for him to let his guard down. With one so practiced at manipulation as the Eternal King was, all she could do was wait and hope.
“Perhaps that was my problem with de la Cruz,” he continued, glancing to the side—almost shy, almost mournful. “I was so lost in my own world that I missed his treachery completely. Perhaps I could have stopped him, if only I had been paying more attention.”
Shan ducked her head, already calculating the next five steps out.
Normally, the King responded well to her being bold, but even he would not tolerate her agreeing that he had been wrong.
Blame was a delicate business, quick to shift, and fragile as a house of cards.
One wrong move, one misplaced word, and the entire castle would come crumbling down.
“You are not the only one who missed the signs,” Shan said, “but his mistakes are his own. We cannot accept responsibility for what he became.”
It was the best kind of lie—the kind that was mostly true. Mistakes had been made, signs had been missed, but they weren’t the ones the King thought they were.
Huffing a small laugh, the King settled back in his chair, looking more relaxed. His hands hung off the edge of the armrest, spread open in a very what-can-you-do manner. “Such wisdom from one so young. Truly, I pulled from the LeClaire line too soon.”
Now was the time to be brash. She tilted her chin up, did not bank the fire in her eyes.
Everything she had, she had in spite of her father, fighting tooth and claw for a place in this society that did not want her twice over.
Once, for her foreign blood, twice for the shame that Lord Antonin LeClaire the First had brought to their name.
And still, despite all of that, here she was, sitting before the King as almost an equal. “You did.”
A hint of a smile in the twitch of his lips, but he inclined his head to her all the same. “All right, Shan, if that is how you want to play this, then who am I to deny you.” Standing, he held out his hand. “Come with me.”
Shan took it, letting him pull her to her feet.
The force was a little more than she expected, and she stumbled forward, landing flush against his chest as he wrapped his arm around her, steadying her with a hand at the small of her back.
He was so warm, so shockingly human, that her voice caught in her throat as he stared down at her.
As he looked at her with something unfathomable in those ancient eyes.
So similar to Samuel, and yet so different. A mirror of the man she loved, but with a darker edge than Samuel would ever hone. A man more appropriate for a villain such as her, whose darkness could match her own.
She pulled back quickly, as if burned, and the Eternal King just let her go. As if nothing untoward had happened at all.
“Please, follow me,” he said, with a slight bow, and her heart lodged in her throat, she followed him out of her office, and eventually, the Academy itself.
The King brought her back to the palace, leading her not to his office, where they had met so many times, passing all of the formal meeting rooms and offices and parlors.
He took her deeper than Shan had ever gone, through winding hallways of marble and wide, open windows that overlooked the wide expanse of the ocean below, and it was only when they were nearly at their destination that she finally realized where he was taking her.
As they passed through the grand doors that opened under the steady hand of two Guards, as the King pressed his bleeding hand against the ward to split it in two, allowing her entrance to a grand suite, larger than an entire floor of her townhouse.
This was where the Eternal King lived—his private chambers opened to her, and Shan had the plummeting fear that she had gotten in too deep.
They walked into a cavernous sitting room, a marble fireplace stretching all the way to the high ceilings above them, a brilliant fire roaring merrily in it.
A grand chandelier hung from the ceiling over the heart of the room, a shining collection of crystals that Shan desperately wanted to see at night, resplendent with witch light.
Below that was a series of couches, rich velvet the color of blood over dark wood, with low tables scattered around them.
A thick rug underlay it all, a woven masterpiece of colors, so lush that Shan wanted to slip off her shoes and sink her toes into it.
The grand windows continued along the far wall, an almost sheer sheet of glass surrounding the archway of doors to the balcony.
Shan could almost imagine how it would be in summer, thrown open to the salt air fresh off the sea, regretting that she only knew it now, in the depths of winter.
Only for the hungry, greedy part of her soul to remind her that she could continue to have all of this, and more, if she continued to play her cards correctly.
And as the Eternal King turned to her, his mouth pulled into the slightest of smiles, she realized that this was his plan all along.
To tempt her with all that she could be, all that she could have, if she only allowed herself to reach for it.
Taking his hand, she allowed him to pull her past all the finery, down a long hallway lined with vibrant paintings—landscapes of the country he had built, rich expanses of rolling hills and valleys that Shan had never had the chance to visit between the coastlines of Aeravin.
An entire nation painted out before her in what felt like an endless spread, the art finer than any she ever had the opportunity to see, collected from a life that spanned centuries and showed no signs of ending any time soon.
Once, she had promised Samuel that no one should be Eternal, but facing the potential of everything it could be, oh, did she understand why one would want to be.
The King stopped before another grand door, pushing it open and gesturing Shan forward.
His hand slipped from hers as she passed through, emerging into a study and dwarfed even the finest in the Academy.
There was a grand desk and reading nook built into a bay window, but she didn’t focus on that, turning her attention to the grand tomes and stacks of journals filling the bookshelves.
So, this is where it all was—all the gaps in knowledge, all the missing pieces. Everything he hadn’t wanted her, or Isaac, or any of the other Royal Blood Workers who had come before them to know.