Lord of the Night

Chapter 25: Snapping

Based on Isalio's confidence in her and the family dynamics I had observed, the Duchess would not report what she heard back to her sister. Still, she clearly didn't trust Isalio to tell her the full truth on his own.

I decided to answer with a bit of honesty: the worst thing he had done. "He murdered my family."

To my surprise, anger flashed across her eyes. "That fucking...he must be even further gone than I realized. I can't believe he murdered his captive's family and now has the audacity to act worried about your well-being."

Her tone implied that Isalio had perhaps taken some sadistic pleasure in murdering my family after shackling me back at the base. It scared me that the Duchess thought Isalio capable of this—and it scared me more that I disagreed. I still hated him, but I believed him when he told me he didn't enjoy watching me suffer.

"This didn't happen when he attacked the base," I said. "It happened fourteen years ago, when the Demons overthrew Guardian rule. My mother and brother were fighting back."

She took a longer pull from the zaikut bottle and then expelled a breath through her nose. "Did you see it happen? Are you sure it was him?"

My mind slipped back to that night—the screams, the First Guardian toy covered in blood, the luminescent amber eyes on an emotionless face. Others had called him High Prince, hadn't they? I tried to bring the monster's face into focus, but the details were blurred and embellished by time. Still, I was sure of one thing—the monster who killed my family had not been a child. If he had told me the truth at the base, Isalio was my age.

"How old was Isalio when he summoned the Morgabeast?" I asked.

"Seventeen."

I expelled a breath through my nose. He was only five years older than me, but that was old enough. Through the eyes of a twelve-year-old, he had been fully grown.

She studied my face with soft curiosity. "That's not the answer you were hoping for."

A laugh pushed into my throat, but I swallowed it down with a swig of zaikut, afraid it might transform into a sob halfway through. She was right—some part of me had hoped to be wrong about Isalio killing my family. Maybe it was only to ease the guilt of having trusted him, or maybe it was my own inability to reconcile the monster from my nightmares with the Demon who refused to harm me even after I punched him.

After a few gulps from her bottle, she said, "What happened at the base? Why didn't you hurt him?"

The zaikut warmed my gut, easing free words I could barely admit to myself. "I thought he was someone else. I...I liked him."

She frowned. "Well, maybe he was someone else with you. He certainly seems different around you—more like he used to be before he Snapped."

"Snapped?"

"That's what we call the moment when Demons first develop their powers."

Now that was something I definitely wanted to know more about. "So Demons are not born with powers."

"Sweet dominion, no! Can you imagine a baby shooting lightning? The Queen and King Snapped much younger than most, and they were seven and nine."

"And what causes this 'Snapping?'" I asked.

"Intense emotion, usually. I still remember when the Queen Snapped...a human nursemaid made the mistake of punishing her by spanking. Even at seven, the Queen could not tolerate that humiliation. One slap in, all six nursemaids in the room were incinerated, and the Sidabeast showed up to play in the ashes."

My stomach turned. I swallowed more zaikut, and she followed suit. "Are beasts always summoned at the time of Snapping?"

"Those of us who have beasts summoned them when we Snapped, yes."