The battle raged on. Bodies dropped left and right. The Zornionians were putting up a valiant effort in the heart of the battle, though they were heavily outnumbered.

  As the corpses piled, La Mort and the general’s eyes never lost track of each other. The general’s swordsmanship was immaculate, slicing down any soldier that dared to try their luck. On the other side of the battlefield, La Mort mirrored him, cutting down any Zornionian who dared to step to him.

  “La Mort!” General Kantaos screamed through the heart of the battle, a scream that belonged only to his welcoming ears. “Stop this senseless violence! Is this truly worth the lives of your men and mine?” he shouted, still carving his way through La Mort’s soldiers with deadly precision.

  La Mort went to speak but was cut off before the words could ever leave his tongue. A Zornionian man leapt through the air, his makeshift spear locked onto La Mort, his heart set on ending the war.

  As he got within range, La Mort’s arm shot out, catching the Zornionian mid-flight and breaking his spear with the other hand. La Mort leaned in, his mouth in line with the man’s ear.

  “Valiant effort. You can leave this world knowing you died with honour. You made your ancestors proud,” he said, sending an immediate shiver down the Zornionian’s spine, draining all colour from his face. The man turned, but before he could react, La Mort did what he does best.

  He squeezed down on the soldier’s throat, snapping it before releasing his fingers from around his neck, casting him amongst the fallen corpses that lay scattered across the battlefield as if he were nothing, before slowly turning his attention back to the general.

  His head tilted, then the sniggers followed.

  “In the courtroom of the body,” he said, “the heart often silences the head—a flawed logic I once succumbed to.”

  He took a step forward, his voice shrouded in nothing but darkness. “But when I broke those chains, the ones that held me loyal to my heart, I freed myself from the weaknesses that once plagued my body. I silenced the part of me that gave mercy. I buried my red heart and replaced it with a black one. With it, I buried remorse and any hope for redemption.”

  He closed his eyes momentarily, sniggering at the general’s feeble attempt for compassion.

  “So if you think your speech about my men will move me, drag me back to the light, or breed remorse for them, let me be the bearer of bad news. Every soldier is expendable, General. They understand the price one must pay in war, and they are willing to pay it a hundred times over as they wage war in my name. Because when they leave this plane, they know their lives served the greater purpose.

  “I am not my father, or his father before him. I am the monster they whisper about. And if you're searching for that weak little boy, you're chasing a ghost I murdered long ago. And in doing so, I became what this galaxy fears most—a ruler whose mind can’t be bent, can’t be bought. A king with unchecked power and no conscience left to hold it back.

  “So if a few hundred of my men must die to rid this world of yours, that is a price I will pay a hundred times over, General.”

  As he turned, his eyes fell upon his son.

  “Cane, come forth. It is your time now. Show me you are kin to this galaxy’s most feared. Bring them to their knees, boy,” said La Mort.

  “I will not disappoint you, Father. I will prove to you why it is me who deserves to sit on the throne,” Cane said, and with those words, he left—his fate intertwined with the brutal march of war.

  You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

  Before Cane stepped into the fray, he watched as bodies dropped from both sides, the ground soaked with blood as rain poured down violently. It was perfect for him. His eyes closed, head tilting back as he drew in a deep, steadying breath.

  “Argh,” he exhaled softly—a fleeting moment of calm before the storm.

  In the blink of an eye, his gaze snapped open, revealing brightly lit green eyes and the symbol on his arm glowing. Everything seemed to move in slow motion. Thunder ripped across the sky as Cane hurled himself into the heart of battle. His magic-siphoned blades became an extension of his will, a dance of death as they severed heads from bodies in a flash.

  As he stood there, blood over his armour, he stood proud. A few moments passed, then one by one, in perfect sync, the Zornionian soldiers’ heads slid off their necks and thudded to the ground, a symphony of violence that left not only dead bodies in its wake but shattered wills.

  La Mort stood tall amid the carnage, pride radiating from him as a smile carved onto his face, spreading from corner to corner. Then, with a slow turn of his heel, he faced Ezra.

  “Join your brother,” La Mort said as he stood proudly, but as Ezra’s head dropped, he knew disappointment was on the horizon.

  “I told you, Father, and I will not waver on my word. I will not take innocent lives to appease your bloodlust.”

  La Mort’s face tightened, the proud smile gone. “You still defy me, boy? In the heat of battle, you would stand by and watch them slaughter our men—all in the name of some moral compass that only works in your world?”

  La Mort began to laugh. “You only delay the inevitable, boy. Our men have already slipped through the heart of the battle and are on their way to slaughter his wife and whoever else stands with her.”

  “You monster!” Ezra bellowed. “Yet you portray Mother as the monster. Clearly, Father, the mirror has eluded you for far too long.”

  His words only enraged La Mort. He clenched both fists, his mouth twitching with fury. Ezra turned his back and began to walk away.

  “Don’t you dare walk away from me, boy!” he screamed. But his words fell upon ears that would not heed them; instead, Ezra continued to walk, acting as though he couldn’t hear a single word that left his father’s lips.

  “Now they will pay the price for your actions. Their pain is on you, boy.”

  Ezra came to a sudden halt and turned slightly toward his father, but it was too late.

  La Mort entered the battlefield like a demon in the night, bending, shifting, reappearing. He ripped out hearts and left men to drop slowly beside their fading hearts. Others he would grab, and with his ice-beam eyes, freeze their heads before slamming his fist into them, shattering them into a thousand pieces as he stood laughing over their fallen bodies. But he wasn't done yet. He flew right into the belly of the beast, the heart of the battlefield, grabbing two Zornionian soldiers by the neck as he soared through the sky, snapping their necks mid-flight and dropping them before their own men.

  The Zornionians froze, their hearts pounding against their ribs, which would prove to be a fatal hesitation. Out of the corner of his eye, La Mort caught a glimpse of the two men frozen in fear and doubled back, landing behind them. With one swift motion, his hand slammed into the first Zoronian’s neck, crushing bone and severing the spine, then turning to the other Zoronian man, holding the top of his head tightly with one hand, his other curled into a fist and struck the back of the man’s head, sending his skull through the front of his face. The Zornionians screamed at what they witnessed, a scream so loud it tore through the battlefield like a bell, momentarily silencing the chaos.

  Ezra stood frozen, a silent witness to the massacres. The screams hit him like a wave, searing into his mind like chains he could never break. The wicked smell of blood latched onto his lungs, flowing like a river with no end in sight. Each body that fell shattered another piece of his window until there was nothing left, carving a permanent place in his mind. And with that came a burden he could not bear, but had no choice but to carry.

  And in that moment, he knew the line between monster and man had truly been blurred, and the boy the people once spoke about was forever lost to the darkness.

  "I'm not done yet," La Mort screamed, snapping Ezra out of his trance as he rose into the sky. With the battle well and truly over and victory in his sights, any other ruler would have called for surrender, or let their men finish the job. But not La Mort. His eyes widened, and beams of ice exploded from them, flooding the battlefield, freezing not only the Zornionian men but his own soldiers in the process.

  Ezra watched on, knowing he couldn't do a thing. But one thing he could do was buy Keyalah and her people some time. So he slipped out unnoticed and headed north.