Chapter 93

**Torin POV**

I switch off my comm piece.
Upon closer examination, I see the burnt half of his face—as if he wasn’t intimidating enough before. A blur of movement—a gut-wrenching blow that sends me fumbling back. And the iPad shatters on the ground. It’s like his form absorbs the shadows, sheathing every nuanced motion. I whip out the gun and before I can even have a lock on target; he kicks it out of my hand with a momentum that spins him around—the gun clatters afar—he sends a back kick with the other leg to disorient me. My back slams against the rock wall and I duck where his fist smashes the groove where my head was, spotting his pocket clips with untouched hand-length daggers.
Unbeknownst to the uppercut that knocks my back tooth loose, a spittle of blood flecking his forehead. A bone-cracking blow sends me sprawling on the floor. And before my jaw can even register the hit. He’s on me, unleashing a head-splitting barrage of devastating punches, and I let out a maniacal laugh and it only enrages him. Out of nowhere, I catch his wrist unexpectedly—I wrench him closer and I launch myself at him, wrapping my legs around him like a cyclone with maneuvering force to flip him over so he lands on the ground with a hard thud. I release quickly to recede into a neutral corner, clambering up to dip low in a ready crouched position.
“You’re not going to kill me.” My head slants cockily. “You can’t.”
With a feral sound, rising like a raring wolf, he propels himself at me. I narrowly avoid a collision only for him to seize the hair on the back of my head to smash my face into the rock wall—the brain-jarring impact slams into me, sending sparks flying in my vision. He keeps my front pinned to the wall with his unbreakable grip on my hair, like he’s about to fuck me.
“You can’t kill me,” I utter strenuously, the side of my face pressed against the rock surface. “You can’t kill me for doing exactly what you would have.”
He exerts thoughtless pressure, his grip tautening. “I would have never betrayed you.”
I cackle at that, the astringent taste of blood pooling in my mouth.
“Only difference between you and I is that you would have done it a lot faster.”
He rips me away only to ram my back against the wall so he can look into my eyes, vacuumed into the void of his vacant vessels. If eyes are the thresholds to the soul; I want him to see the truth in what’s left in both of ours.
“You were the one that taught me that empires aren’t built—they're taken. That’s how Daku grew his own dynasty and how you expanded your own dominion. You can’t fault me for doing the same.”
He flashes forward, jabbing his forearm right under my throat, forcing me to incline my chin.
“Even at the expense of me?”
“It was all because of you,” I decree, unrequited and unbridled. “My own potential, stunted by the shadow you cast. My legacy is eclipsed by the enormity that is Orian Moon—I sought a way out and into the sun. I didn’t think that I would get burnt this badly. Despite my ambitions, despite what I deserve. Believe it or not, I never meant to transgress your trust. Things were set in motion and I breached a boundary of no return. You think I wanted this? I wanted to be at your side as an equal, never at your back as your inferior.”
He huffs dangerously, breath blasting from his nostrils. A bestial sound.
“You were never inferior.”
“Not to you perhaps, but to the world, I am.” I hold his gaze like holding my palm over an open flame and embracing the fire. “Oniisan, you took me in like a brother and cared for me as a father. You think I like seeing us at odds? You think this doesn’t hurt me, as I know it hurts you. I honestly can’t believe it.”
“What?” he asks carefully.
With my hand on his clip pocket, I say, “That you actually fell for that.”
I steal it out before I plunge the dagger into his gut and his breathing hitches. He tries to grab me, but I yank it out, only to stab him two more times with rapid penetration. The last strike I embed the blade until the hilt and he frees a sharing grasp, breathing raggedly. With him bent over, I lower my head to align my mouth with his ear as I watch a rivulet of red pelt the ground in a satisfying stream. I curl my arm around so my hand can cradle the nape of his neck, allowing his forehead to rest on my shoulder.
“You’re probably wondering when,” I whisper back. “When was the year, the day, the moment where the seeds of betrayal were sown? Why and when did I begin to loathe you? What made me stop loving you?” I plant a lingering kiss on his temple. With my lips still brushing his skin, I say, “I never did. I just needed to make you believe that I had. All these years you believed you were ten moves ahead of everyone whilst I was light years ahead of you.”
My head erects at the distant clamor echoing off the walls.
I dart back abruptly and he crashes to his knees, fallen before my feet and I savor and relish in the grand moment of having the all-powerful Orian bent before me.
“T–turn away from me now,” he seethes painfully. Every syllable is a foreshadowing of the inevitability of the end, a chilling promise that all things must eventually succumb to the great silence that he believes awaits me. “Next t–time we meet. It won’t be against your brother, your enemy, but the imminence that is me. You’re nothing more than a fleeting footprint in my path—a step I used to rise higher. Without me, you’re just the dust beneath my feet—without purpose, without meaning.”
I lower myself mockingly, to place my hands on my knees to stare him directly into his eyes.
“You were first, but in the end, it will be my name that will be remembered. The name that your Sakura has been screaming all night long.”
A roar of rage diminishes to a howl of pain as he decides against any further movement.
Finally, I turn my back on him. I resume my way to the sea gate, running through the maze-like passages, and eventually I switch my comms back on to be welcomed back to more problems. I didn’t think it could get worse than Orian, but I was wrong. I don’t just have teams inside the palace grounds, but also just beyond the sea gate on speed boats to secure our exfil—which is somehow compromised.
“What the fuck do you mean?” I bark back.
“Unknown hostiles.”