Iron and Magic (The Iron Covenant #1)(119)

“I did. It’s time to come back,” Roland said. “You’ve been gone for too long.”

“It’s too late for that,” Hugh said.

“Nonsense.” Roland glanced at the chains over his right arm. They fell apart and Hugh hung, suspended by one arm.

The immortal wizard reached out to him. “Take my hand, Hugh. Take my hand and everything will be forgiven. Everything will be as it was.”

The world shrunk to the limits of the room. If only he reached out and took Roland’s hand, all the problems would fall away. The void would vanish, taking away the guilt and the nightmares. Life would be simple again.

“Take my hand,” Roland said again. “You’re my son in everything but blood.”

The word pierced Hugh. He’d waited decades to hear it and here it was, freely given.

Roland had expected him to stay a wreck. As long as he was a drunkard trying to commit a slow suicide, Roland was content to leave him as he was. But once he had pulled himself together, he was useful again. He was a threat.

The realization rocked him. He looked into Roland’s eyes and he saw something else, besides wisdom and approval. It hid in the corners of Roland’s soul, a quiet wariness, watching him.

Roland was afraid of him.

Hugh grinned. “No.”

“Hugh,” Roland said, his voice chiding, catapulting Hugh back to when he was a skinny orphan. “Take my hand. You’ve earned it. It’s your destiny.”

“No.”

Roland stared at him.

“It’s not exactly a surprise,” Hugh said. The words rolled off his tongue, amazingly easy. “You’re a fucking asshole, you know that?”

“I took you off the street. I gave you shelter, education, and power. And this is how you repay me?”

“You forgot the part where you turned me into a happy idiot every time I tried to do something you didn’t like.”

“That’s what raising a child is,” Roland said. “Encouraging some aspects of their personality, suppressing the others.”

Hugh laughed quietly.

“I made you effective. I freed you from complications that were holding you back. Did I ever force you to do anything, Hugh? Or did you jump on every task I gave you?”

“Explain something to me. Why did you exile me? I did everything you asked.”

“I exiled you because you couldn’t see the bigger picture.” A note of irritation rose in Roland’s voice. “I’m beginning to think you still can’t.”

“That explains nothing.”

“Think about it and it will come to you.”

The pain in his ribs was unbearable now. Hugh pushed it aside. “Here is the bigger picture for you: there are two of us, Daniels and me. Neither of us wants anything to do with you. You’re not batting a thousand. You’re o for two. You need one of your children to fight the other, because Daniels kicked your ass once and she will do it again. Think about that.”

“There are three,” Roland said. “Almost three.”

“She hasn’t given birth yet.”

“No, but soon. Soon I will have a grandson.”

“And you can’t wait to get your hands on that child. Finally, a real son, the one with the right blood. Why the hell do you think anything will be different? Even if you get him from the moment he draws his first breath, he’ll still grow up hating you. Yet here you are, so desperate to get your hands on the new toy, that you send your Legion to capture me, teleport here despite the danger, and call me your son. Take a real good look. Look at me hanging here. If I were your son, what sort of father would that make you?”

“So the answer is no?” Roland asked.

“We could stay in here for the next hundred years and it would still be no. You’ll never get your hands on Kate’s kid. I’ll kill you first.”

Roland sighed. “You disappoint me, Hugh.”

“Get used to it.”

Roland stepped closer. Only a foot of space separated them.

“Without me, you’ll die and soon. Is that what you really want?”

“We all have to die eventually.”

“Alone, abandoned, stripped of your powers. This is the future you want?”

“No powers?”

“None of my blood.”

Hugh pulled on the last thread of magic remaining inside him, a tiny sliver that remained despite the power words and all the healing he had done. He drew the fingers of his free hand across his bloody ribs and sank that magic into the crimson liquid. Magic sparked, and the dark blood snapped into a sharp blood-red needle.

“Explain this to me,” Hugh said.

Roland shied back.

The needle crumbled into dust.

Someone screamed outside the building, the shriek cut off in mid-note.

“Last chance, Hugh!” Roland reached out to him. “Take my hand.”

“Fuck off.”

Mist shot through the doorway, glowing with magic, broke, and there it was, pure white and glowing, too monstrous to comprehend, emanating the kind of cold that rode comets and lived between the stars. Roland jerked back, shock on his face. Hugh just stared at it, mute. Every cell in his body was screaming. And then he saw her among the chaos of teeth, mouths, and eyes. She’d come for him.