Page 56 of The Laws of Nature (Heirs of the Empire #3)

HAROK

A shaking voice says, “Irgorye?”

For a moment, Harok feels like he is climbing from that pit below Susal-ur-Bellan all over again.

But that voice calls to him. Cuts through everything else. Suskara.

The figure leaning over him is a blurred shape, before Suskara’s face swims into a recognisable form.

Everything hurts. His mother’s magic is as cruel and unpredictable as the forest that fuels it. He feels like it takes a great force of his will to reach out and stroke the side of Suskara’s face, “Kushir,” he says. Then in Artemian, “My sweet, beautiful, kushir.” He takes a breath.

“My Irgorye,” Suskara says back. “Your mother was here.”

Harok feels a strange sensation roll through him. He knows it instantly. There is only one reason his mother would come here, to his bedchamber to speak with his kushir.

Harok can feel the demon, roaring for control like a wild, rough sea inside him. A voice in his head that had grown as loud as a gong.

He does not have long. It is good that Suskara knows. He is ready. He knew Yaelin was waiting for some sign. Some signal that Suskara was bound to the forest strongly enough that he could use its magic. The beasts, the tree and the earth, bound with his fae blood. As Yaelin always said it must be.

Suskara looks at Harok. Harok cannot imagine what Suskara thinks of him now.

His kushir knows what is inside his Irgorye. The type of creature whose bed he has been forced to warm. “Suskara?” Harok says. “You know the truth. You fear me?”

But one of the things about Suskara that had surprised Harok from the start had been his fearlessness. Harok is well used to being feared. He is a man who is part demon. A man who cannot be killed. A strong Irgo.

With that demon powering him he had taken control of the Solwen in a bloody coup that had horrified many.

He had slain Irgo Vahul and executed the Blood Priests.

He had condemned any who still worshipped Diazuul to death.

He is soaked in the blood he has spilt. Spilt fighting.

Spilt in a long and exhausting battle to try to stop Diazuul growing stronger.

To stop men from worshipping Diazuul as the demon screamed inside him, contained only by the mark his mother carved onto his chest.

And Harok’s own will.

But the power in that mark faded. And Harok’s strength to fight what he is becoming has grown weaker and weaker.

He feels grotesquely weak sometimes, despite what those around him see.

But now his own Suskara knows all. Knows his secrets and all he is.

The demon and the man. Sometimes he wonders if there is truly a difference.

Or if the man is any better than the demon he hides inside him.

The only thing that had ever calmed that demon had been when he had lain with Suskara.

Suskara made him feel like that demon was sleeping.

The first night the feel of being without that demon raging inside him shocked him so much he could barely stand it when he woke the following morning.

All he could think about was that he had found this sweet peace with the man who had to kill him.

“She told you the truth?” Harok says, “My mother? She told you why she had me bring you here?”

Suskara nods. In his careful Ambolk, he says, “She told me when you attacked Diazuul, you killed the demon’s body but you could not destroy its essence.

It is trapped inside you. Eating at you.

Killing you. You are part monster. Cursed.

Why didn’t you tell me before?” Suskara says.

“After you rescued me? When we grew close? Why didn’t you tell me what was happening to you?

How could you let me love you when you knew I would have to do this? ”

Harok says, “I never wanted it to be this way. There was a time when I thought it would be easier to lie with you but treat you harshly, so you would hate me. Then it would be easier for you. When you discovered what I would have you do, you would relish it.”

Suskara looks solemn. His face is hard. “And you thought that would be better? You thought I would ever delight in killing you out of anger and vengeance?” He pauses, through tight teeth, he says, “You thought I would act like you?”

Harok nods slowly. “Before I knew you, yes I did. I thought that would be how any man would act in your situation. I had never known a man like you. ”

Suskara shakes his head. His sadness is painful to see. “How did you live with a demon inside you? How could you bear it for so long?”

“I had no choice, Suskara. I had to live with what I had done. When I went into that pit I truly believed I could kill that creature. I wanted to with all my heart. But I wanted it because Diazuul had made it so. He had manipulated many generations of Solwen to get to a point where an Irgo would descend into the pit to try and kill him. I truly thought I would be able to do it. But I slayed only his body.”

“And then what happened? After you slayed that body, you knew Diazuul was inside you. What did you do?”

“The first few moons of it, I barely remember. The demon was raging inside me, trying to take control. I was nothing but raw anger and fear. My mother and the Verilissia were the only ones to realise I was not myself. They used magic to overpower me in this bed chamber. They chained me to this bed. For some time, my mother ruled in my stead, declaring that I had been fatefully wounded when I slayed Diazuul. All the Blood Priests that survived what I did when I emerged from the pit were imprisoned. There were rumours that I had gone mad and my mother was hiding it. Many fled Urynwud in horror. The first Exceli rebellions happened during those moons, but they were small things. My mother had command of many warriors. She kept Urynwud safe from them and from me. And over those moons the Verilissia scourged me and chanted over me, until my mother found a way to help me stay in control. She carved the sigil onto my breast. It contains the deep magic of the forest. I was able to control the demon inside me. For a time.”

Harok shakes his heavy head against the pillows.

“For several years, I ruled as Irgo and I was mostly in control of the demon. I was occasionally taken by rages, but they only served to make the Solwen see me as a great and strong ruler. In battle I could take wounds that would have killed other men. I grew to understand Diazuul was keeping me alive. That his power meant I could not be killed. He could not be killed. I was the Unkillable Irgo because of him. Because he was waiting for me to grow tired and weaken. I realised my fate was to become that demon. That one day Diazuul would take control of me. That was when my mother told me her new plan. You.”

“Me.” says Suskara. Not a question. A solemn, strange acceptance. He knows what he needs to do. What he was brought here to do.

Harok reaches out and touches his sweet face. His kushir. “You, my love.”

Suskara shakes his head. “I will not. I cannot do it. Not to you.”

Harok lifts a thick arm and strokes Suskara’s cheek, “If you do not do it, Kushir, you condemn me to a far worse fate.”

Suskara shakes his head. He seems to break then. Not more anger, but something else. There are tears in his eyes. His brave, beautiful Suskara.

“That is why you took me as kushir?” Suskara says in a small, broken voice. “For that. So I would do that. Not because you ever really wanted me?”

Harok frowns, “Suskara, what do you mean?”

“You did not desire me,” Suskara says sadly. “You just wanted me for my fae blood. Because your mother told you I could wield this stupid sword and slay the demon you were becoming. Not for me. Only for that.”

Harok frowns. He looks into Suskara’s grey eyes. “Not desire you?” he says. “You think I took you to my bed only because I needed you to kill me, not because of desire? ”

Suskara nods. “It’s true, isn’t it? You had to bed me for the magic to work. Yaelin told me so.” Suskara sniffs. “I thought I was being made to lie with you, but it was you that was being made to lie with me.”

“No, Suskara, no,” Harok says. He thinks of all his kushir has told him of his life, rejected and abandoned by all who he thought cared for him.

And still, he gave Harok his heart. Truly, he is the most fearless of men.

It’s true that Harok had little choice about taking Suskara to his bed, and even if he had felt no desire for Suskara at all, he would have bedded him.

It is the cruellest trick of the Triple God that his salvation had been sent to him in the form of this beast tamer.

A man he found so easy to desire. “Do you think I would have taken you the way I did tonight if I felt no desire? This whole day with you. I knew I did not have long. I wanted this one last time. One last perfect day and night with you.”

He cannot let Suskara think, even for a moment, that he did not want him.

Suskara looks at Harok. There are tears in his eyes. He shakes his head, but he says, “I am more to you than the man you brought here so he would kill you in your bed?”

“So much more, Suskara,” Harok says with his heart like iron in his chest. “I did not realise how lonely I had been before I met you.

My heart was so heavy and sore. I didn't even know. And having you in my bed was so sweet. You are balm. It is true that there is a demon in me that must be slain. But there is a man in me too. And the man in me loves you, Suskara,” Harok says.

Suskara leans down and kisses Harok. “I love you too,” he whispers and it feels like cold sweet water after a long summer drought.

“Suskara, you know what you must do now.”