Chapter 199: You Will Always Be My Father
>>Ariston
The drizzle came down soft and slow, almost too gentle for the ruin around us.
The battlefield was a grave, burnt stone, shattered walls, black ichor soaking into the mud.
And in the middle of it all, Rael lay before me.
His black blood leaked into the ground in slow rivulets, the wound I’d given him tearing open with every breath he took. My sword was still poised over his chest, the tip trembling, not from weakness, but from my hesitation.
I could end him here.
I should.
But my hand refused to move.
He noticed. His lips curled into that faint, knowing smirk. "What’s wrong?" he asked, his voice hoarse but steady. "Thought you’d be glad to be rid of me."
"I..." My throat locked. The rain slid down my cheeks, cooling the heat in my skin. "...I don’t know."
"You don’t know?" He laughed, it was quiet and broken. "You’ve beaten me, Ariston. There’s no fight left in me. But you’re still standing there like a coward who can’t finish the job."
My grip tightened. "Shut up." I glared at him, "You didn’t even fight me with your full power." I knew because he fought like a human. He didn’t use the powers from the black milk at all. He didn’t transform or whips out weird shapes from his body.
He coughed, black flecks staining his lips. "...I’m serious. If you don’t kill me now, I’ll get back up. And if I get back up, I’ll keep serving the Abyss. And if I keep serving the Abyss..." His red eyes locked onto mine, the smirk fading. "...I will hurt people. Innocent people. And it won’t even be because I want to, it’ll be because I’m too far gone to stop it."
I didn’t answer. The rain filled the silence, dripping from my sword to his chest.
Rael exhaled sharply, his voice dropping to a tone I rarely heard from him, gentle, almost pleading.
"You know what the Abyss is, Ariston. You’ve seen what it does. It doesn’t just kill you, it rots you from the inside. It strips you until nothing’s left but hunger. Everyone should stay far away from it... and I didn’t. I let it take me."
I clenched my jaw. "...You’re still here. You can still-"
"No." His tone cut through mine like a blade. "I’m not here. Not all the way. Parts of me died a long time ago. What’s left is dangerous." He gave a faint, sad smile. "The only thing you can do for me now is make sure I can’t hurt anyone else."
His words sank deep, coiling in my gut like lead. I hated him for what he’d done. I hated him for what he’d become. But right now... I hated that he was right.
I just didn’t expect him to do this at all.
"You..." I felt terrible, "The letter Draegon received about Aelin’s whereabouts, you sent it, didn’t you?"
"I did," He said, "This has to end sooner than later."
My hand drifted to the hilt of my sword, my thumb brushing over the magic stone embedded in it. It pulsed faintly beneath my touch, warm, alive, ready.
Rael’s gaze flicked down to it, then back to me. "Do it," he murmured. "Burn it out. My core’s right where my heart is. You know how to kill me properly."
I stared at him for a long moment. Then, slowly, I pressed the tip of my blade to his chest, right over his heart.
"Good," he whispered. "You’ll be doing the world a favor."
The stone on my hilt flared to life, glowing with a deep, molten heat. Energy hummed down the blade, filling it with light until the steel was searing. The rain hissed when it touched it.
Rael didn’t flinch. He kept his eyes on me until the last moment, the faintest trace of that crooked smile on his face. "Guess you finally learned how to finish what you start."
The magic surged. My blade pierced his chest, sliding through the skin, the bone, until I felt the faint resistance of the core. I pressed the glowing hilt to it.
The moment the stone touched, the core began to burn. Black smoke hissed out around the wound, curling into the air, the Abyss screaming as it was destroyed. Rael gasped, then exhaled slowly, his body shuddering.
I kept my blade steady until the glow faded and the core was nothing but ash.
Only then did I pull it free.
The heat from the magic stone pulsed down my blade, into his chest, into the core.
I could feel it giving way, like ice cracking beneath a steady flame. The hiss of burning essence filled the air, mingling with the drizzle’s quiet patter. Black smoke curled upward, stinging my nose.
Rael’s breaths were slowing, the fight bleeding out of him along with the black ichor. His gaze, which had been sharp and unwavering even moments ago, softened even more.
And then... he looked at me, really looked.
A faint smile tugged at his lips, so slight it almost didn’t reach his eyes. "You know..." His voice was quiet, ragged. "...I’m glad you finally chose a partner."
The words struck me like a blow I wasn’t ready for. My brow furrowed, my grip faltering just slightly on the hilt. "What...?"
But Rael only kept that small, knowing smile. He didn’t need to explain.
I understood.
Of course he knew
It wasn’t the kind of thing an outsider could see, not the way we could. Not the way someone from the same kind could see.
The surprise in my chest dulled, replaced by a strange calm.
If anyone could tell... it would be him.
Rael’s eyelids drooped, the strength fading from his body. "Don’t... lose them," he murmured, almost too soft to hear.
The last of the smoke slipped into the air, vanishing into the rain.
Rael’s eyes stayed open, but the life was gone from them. All that remained was stillness. His body went slack. His eyes, still open, had lost their sharpness. No more fight. No more hunger. Just... quiet.
I sank to my knees beside him, my sword still in my hand but lowered to the ground. The rain kept falling, washing the black blood into the mud.
For a long time, I didn’t move. I just sat there, my chest heavy, listening to the soft patter of water and the distant roar of battles still raging.
I’d won. But it didn’t feel like a victory.
The drizzle had thickened into heavy rain, the kind that soaks through armor and skin alike until you can’t tell where the water ends and the cold begins.
It drummed against the rooftops, the broken stones, the steel of my sword.
Rael lay still before me, locked in that last faint smile as if he’d left with a secret I’d never be able to pull from him.
The black blood pooled around him, mixing with the rain until it looked almost clean.
I stared at him.
My jaw tightened, but no anger came, only the ache that sat deep in my bones. All of the information that I got dumped with today was hard to digest.
I understood that he left to protect me but he hurt me too much in the process.
Yet still
It meant he cared for me.
I stared at his body and whispered,
" You’ll always be my father."
I sheathed my sword slowly, the sound of metal against scabbard swallowed by the storm.
