“No one has shown so much care for Nazarean before. The way you treat him, and the way he reacts to you, it makes it hard for me to believe you’re even remotely evil.”
He turns his face from Nazarean to me, his eyes flashing red from under his hood. A sense of danger creeps up my spine.
“Don’t fool yourself, white mage. I’m still the man who built an army of Undead and allied himself with the darkest creatures to take over the world.”
I swallow back what I wanted to say next, and turn my attention to the bagels. I blow to cool them, and I eat two of them so fast I barely breathe between bites. I can feel Xerxes’ eyes on me, but I ignore the blood burning in my cheeks. I’m done worrying about how he sees me. It doesn’t even matter, or it shouldn’t. Just because he treats my familiar nicely, it doesn’t mean he’s a good guy, how could I be so stupid as to think otherwise?
He’s a villain, he’s always been one, and always will be. And yet...
“You know, Xerxes, I’ve seen many things in my life,” I say, licking the cream cheese from my fingers. It’s just so damned good and, like I said, I decided to stop caring what he thinks. “I’m young, but through my work I’ve met more people than many others do in a lifetime. I’ve met heroes like Lysander, I’ve met vigilantes, and I’ve met rascals. But do you know what I’ve never encountered?”
He just stares at me from under the hood, only this time I ignore the chill. I even act against it, and lean in over the table.
“I’ve never met a villain that was evil just for the sake of it. They all had some explanation, and they all felt they were in the right. There was reason and logic behind their actions.”
“So what’s your question,” he says when I stop talking, my eyes roaming all over his face looking for the answer. In all the years I’ve been doing energy work, I’ve learned how to read faces.
“Why do you want to take over all the realms?”
“Maybe I don’t have a reason. It’s just who I am.”
“Bullshit. Everybody has a reason. It’s how people work.”
“Do I look like people to you?” He activates the fire inside, and his eyes light up again, his veins glowing through his skin. It’s intimidating, but no one who handles Nazarean with so much care would be able to hurt me now, so I hold my ground.
“When you first met Lysander for a negotiation,” I begin, “you did it because you wanted control over the Sea Court through Arielle. You came looking for me because you wanted your power back. We got that tome from the Grand Mage because it will lead us to the Firestone. You had reasons for every one of your actions. Now you expect me to believe you want control over all the worlds just because?”
“I’m the King of the Fire Realm. The only thing I crave is power, it’s who I am, and it’s what drives me. It’s my because.”
“Why do you crave power? What’s it gonna do for you when you have it?”
His features harden. “Is this an interrogation?”
“If I’m going to help you with this, I want to know who you are. I want to understand your motives, so I have a chance to live with myself when you achieve your goals. Because I have no doubt you will achieve them. We’ll find the Firestone, restore your core, and you’ll become the most powerful man in all the realms. What then?”
He holds my gaze, but he doesn’t answer. I press.
“Just imagine it. You’re up there, at the top of the world. What will you do with all that power? Or is there anything you’ll want then, what more will you reach for?”
When he speaks, his voice is all I need to know I’m right. There’s a strong, serious reason behind everything he does, and what he became, even if he won’t reveal it.
“Come on,” he says. “I got us a room. Nazarean needs proper care.”
As we head up the stairs I think of the two versions of Xerxes. The version of him that now carries Nazarean, my familiar purring at his chest and accepting him like he has the purest soul in the universe. And the version that performed the scene with the Grand Mage. A gut-wrenching scene, even though it didn’t involve physical cruelty. When I think that it was the ‘mild’ version of what Xerxes usually does, my skin crawls. What would a violent scene look like, performed by the King of Flames?
He unlocks the door to a room at the end of the corridor. It’s a heavy wooden door that smells old, and that reveals a room with an authentic medieval feel. Many places in Flipside Edinburgh look gothic and straight out of the Middle Ages, but this room, having hosted countless supernaturals in the many centuries that it’s been standing, is imbued with so much energy the air is stuffy.
Xerxes crouches by the fireplace, laying a hand on the logs. Fire sparks to life, casting its warm light on his face as he pushes the hood off his head. He pulls the cape off and lays it on the floor by the fire, laying Nazarean down with all the care one would use to lay down a baby.
I approach slowly, and kneel down beside my familiar. I close my eyes and place my hands over him, feeling his energy.
“Oh,” I sigh as my eyes roll behind my eyelids, feeling Nazarean’s energy. “It wasn’t you, it was the air fae,” I whisper. “When he pointed the blade at us, he used it to draw life energy. Nazarean jumped to protect me, and the magic hit him instead of me.”
Tears trickle from under my closed eyelids. Guilt is choking me. But as my skin lights up, drawing energy from the fire to channel into Nazarean, something hard and warm strokes my cheek, right where my eyelashes touch my skin. I open my eyes to Xerxes’ face.
“Keep looking at me,” he says softly. “Draw power from me. I’m a creature of the underworld, like Nazarean. My energy will save his life.”
“What are you talking about? Nazarean isn’t from the underworld.”
“Listen. The fire energy you’re using, it will help him. But if you really want to make your familiar the strongest being he can be, the best version of himself, you have to draw power from a creature of darkness or fire.” He takes a deep breath, rising on his knees and leaning over Nazarean to me. I should lean away form him, especially because I still stink of sewer, but I can’t bring myself to.
“Nazarean is a spirit from Tartarus, sent by your father Hades to watch over you.”
“What? No, he is—he came to me in the woods when I was ten, he’s a forest spirit, a spirit of the elements.”
“I don’t have time to explain now, but I need you to trust me on this. Us creatures of the dark sense each other. It’s why he accepted me from the start—that, and because I never intended to hurt you. I needed you alive and safe more than anybody else, at least ever since I found you in Edinburgh.”
Ever since he found me.
“And before?”
“Listen.” He takes my hands, and his energy courses through me, shaking the flesh on my bones.
“What in the high realms—”
“I need you to channel my energy to Nazarean, Cerys. Please, trust me. Just do it.”
I take a deep breath, close my eyes, and do it. In the end, this is the King of Fire, one of the oldest and mightiest supernaturals that ever existed, he must know what he’s talking about. And indeed, I can sense Nazarean regaining his vigor in a matter of seconds. Within minutes he’s up on his paws, stretching his body and his tail in the air.