❛the ends justify the means.❜
( part two of deadwater kings )
The board is set and Shabina chose her side. The better world she dreamed of is finally within her grasp, but she struggles when the path to victory seems to be paved in blood. The long...
"A monster is not such a terrible thing to be. From the Latin root monstrum, a divine messenger of catastrophe, then adapted by the Old French to mean an animal of myriad origins: centaur, griffin, satyr. To be a monster is to be a hybrid signal, a lighthouse: both shelter and warning at once."
―Ocean Vuong
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Hadrian hauled himself up onto the rocks, water spilling from his clothes in ribbons. The stone cliff face was damp and icy in the night air. Sharp edges dug into his hands. Alone in the dark, staring up at the walled city he used to call home. He climbed slowly, without a sound or wasted breath.
Magic hovered around him. Little tendrils of it swept at his skin and teased goosebumps from him.
Hadrian slipped over the wall and inside the island.
His clothes had dried themselves and laid snug against his skin, turning him into a shadow against the walls. He'd never walked down the streets of King Wilson's stronghold without someone watching him, either a guard or his mother. To be alone, completely alone and unnoticed in the dark made him smile to himself.
The island hadn't changed at all. Still dark and gloomy, ridiculously gothic with its castle-like towers and tall black buildings. Some rain would complete the image, but it didn't rain anymore.
He eased magic away once he sensed he wasn't the only one watching its currents. It twisted in protest but obeyed.
Hadrian sank down to the ground, tucking himself under steel grated stairs.
The streets were so quiet he could hear the slow tap of shoes against stones. They were too light to be human. He held his breath as they approached.
"You see that?" A tall, hunched man with silver lines drawn across his skin shifted his weight while scanning the shadows Hadrian had just left. He didn't look familiar. He looked scraggly and worn. Definitely not one of the hunters that Hadrian had met while undercover in their center of operations. From the way his entire body shook as he reached and hesitated for his weapon, he was new.
Hadrian closed his eyes as the hunter's short, pink-faced companion pulled a lighter out and lit up a torch. The fire's light barely reached his hiding spot. The other man was just a human. Hadrian didn't even need to look at him to know that, feeling it in the way magic flowed right through him like he wasn't even there.
"Just the shadows, man. There's no-one here." The human nudged the hunter. "Thought that fancy ink helped you see better."
"Let's just do our job. I need to get paid," the hunter said. He crossed his arms and kept walking, the jingle of metal on metal ringing from his hip. Keys. Perfect.
Hadrian slid out from under the stairs and crept after the two men.
He'd expected a few stragglers, not a hunter. After he'd killed Wilson, the island's prim occupants scattered to their closest political allies in anticipation of an all-out power struggle. Leaving the prisoners behind, presumably. Hopefully. A significant portion of Hadrian's current strategy relied on assumptions a dumb luck.
