Chapter 172: The blade and his lord

BRADLEY

I pushed away from the door and drifted toward the west wing, drawn to the stairs spiraling down to the mortuary. The royal mortuary was a realm of perpetual cold, a vault where death lingered, preserved in frost until the rituals of burial could grant it rest.

The attendant on duty was an elderly woman, her gray hair pulled back, her posture bent by years of service. Cataracts clouded her eyes, yet they missed nothing. As I entered, her face transformed, boredom melting into sharp recognition.

"High Beta," she murmured, rising from her chair.

"I want to see the late King’s body," I told her, my voice rougher than I intended.

She nodded, unsurprised. Grief wore many faces, and she had witnessed them all: the desperate urge to face the dead, to search for answers in the hush of lifeless flesh.

She guided me through the heavy doors into the cold chamber, where the air clawed at my lungs and the sharp tang of chemicals burned my nostrils. Drawers lined the walls, their metal faces glinting beneath the unforgiving fluorescent lights. She paused at one near the center, checked its label, and drew it open.

The drawer slid out with a sound like a sigh.

Cornelius lay before me, naked and pale, his skin waxen and unreal beneath the pitiless light. He seemed shrunken, reduced by death in a way that defied memory—a man who once commanded every space now diminished to silence. His hands rested on his chest, his eyes closed, his features softened into something that nearly resembled peace.

Almost.

My gaze fell to his abdomen, to the spot where the bullet had torn through him. The wound was sealed now, stitched closed by meticulous hands, the skin drawn tight and dark around the thread. It reminded me I hadn’t been there to prevent his fall. Now he lay cold and hollow, and the questions he left behind pressed in, unanswered and unanswerable.

"Can he not be clothed?" I asked, my voice cracking slightly.

The attendant shook her head. "To preserve the body effectively until burial, no. The clothing traps moisture. It accelerates decay."

I nodded, accepting the logic even as I loathed it. He deserved better than this—exposed, defenseless, reduced to flesh and bone when he had once been so much more.

I edged closer, my hand trembling above his face, unable to bridge the gap. "I wish I could speak to you now," I breathed, my voice nearly lost in the drone of the refrigeration. "There are so many questions clawing at me. For instance, Johann. Why did you lie? Why tell me he was not yours? Who were you shielding—him, or yourself?"

The dead man did not answer. He lay there, silent and still, his chest unmoving, his heart silent.

"I wish I had a sign," I continued, my hand dropping to my side. "Something. Anything."

Behind me, the attendant shifted her weight, a gentle signal that my time here was ending, that the living must tend to their burdens while the dead remained silent.

I turned to her, my eyes dry and burning. "Can I have his belongings? The things he had on him when he arrived here?"

She nodded, her expression softening slightly. "Of course, High Beta. This way."

She guided me to a small room beside the cold storage, shelves crowded with boxes, each marked by a name and a date. She selected one, set it gently on the table, and unfolded its flaps.

His royal attire was there, folded neatly. His shoes. His rings. The small knife he always carried in his boot. And something else.

I reached into the box, my fingers curling around a black feather. It was long and glossy, impossibly dark, its shaft strangely warm against my skin despite the room’s icy air.

"What is this?" I asked, holding it up to the light.

The attendant frowned, her brow furrowing. "I am not sure," she admitted. "It was on him when he arrived. He was clutching it. His hand was closed so tight around it we had to pry his fingers open."

She paused, her head tilting. "Perhaps it was a charm. Something he held on to during his final moments. For comfort."

I studied the feather, rolling it between my fingers. It belonged to no bird I knew—too large, too dark, too flawless. It seemed to swallow the light, drinking in the fluorescence and offering nothing in return.

"Okay then," I murmured, placing it back in the box, my fingers lingering on its surface.

I gathered the belongings, the box suddenly weighty in my grip, and stepped out of the mortuary. The corridor’s warmth slammed into me after the cold, and only then did I notice my hands trembling.

My phone chimed.

Balancing the box on one arm, I fished my phone from my pocket. A single notification glowed on the screen. It was a voicemail. From Cornelius.

My blood froze.

I hit play, my thumb trembling against the screen, and raised the phone to my ear.

"Hello Bradley," the voice came through, familiar and strange all at once, the recording crackling with distance and death. "How have you been?"

I halted, pressing my back to the wall as my legs threatened to give way beneath me.

"If this mail comes through," Cornelius continued, his voice steady despite the morbid context, "then it means I am dead. This is my dead man’s switch, of sorts."

I pressed the phone tighter to my ear, eyes squeezed shut, chest constricting with every word.

"I fucked up," he admitted, and the words sounded like they cost him something, even in death. "I let my pride get the best of me. And I am certain that I have put Lysander in certain hell right now. I am one selfish motherfucker."

The box slipped from my grasp, crashing to the floor with a hollow thud that echoed through the empty corridor. I could not tear my gaze from the phone, nor my mind from the voice that filled my ear.

"Lysander’s reign is, however, necessary," Cornelius continued. "A way to make up for my mistake while I keep my pride. I apologize for my vagueness. I am sure you are brimming with questions. Questions I still cannot answer. Because I am prideful, and there is a way I still want you and others to remember me."

I slid down the wall, legs folding uselessly, my back scraping against the cold stone as I sank to the floor.

"Please do not tell Lysander what I am about to ask of you," Cornelius whispered, his voice dropping lower, more intimate, more terrible. "It is to protect his interests. And sadly, mine. But I need you to awaken that soulless nature you have when you carry my orders."

I shook my head, mouth open in wordless protest, denials spilling out that he would never hear.

"I have an order for you," he continued, and the words that followed were knives, each one sliding between my ribs with surgical precision. "You need to kill Alpha Sterling Grivas. And my wife, if she is still alive. My son Johann is incompetent and cannot scheme his way up. But Edelina can. And so can Sterling. The thing is, no matter what... my son Johann cannot sit on that throne."

I clamped my free hand over my mouth, trapping the sound that threatened to break free.

"So if it comes to it," Cornelius finished, his voice fading slightly, the recording crackling with static, "you need to maim my son too."

The voicemail ended.

The phone slid from my fingers, clattering across the stone. I sat amid the scattered relics of my dead King, the black feather stark against the tile, and felt the last fragments of certainty dissolve.

Kill Edelina. Kill Sterling. Maim Johann if necessary.

And never tell Lysander why.

I remained in the empty corridor, fluorescent lights buzzing above, and the truth settled in: I had been wrong about Cornelius. We all had.

And I was still his executioner, even now, carrying out his will from beyond the grave.

Because... I intended to follow through.