Fourth Arc (Thorns of The Black Throne) - 475. End The Threat
His throat tightened.
Another line.
"A part of me feels like I was merciful when I did."
His brow furrowed.
Then came the words he almost didn't want to write.
"And another part of me…"
The quill hovered.
"…another part of me feels like I wanted her dead."
He froze.
The words sat on the page like a wound.
He stared at them, pulse thudding in his ears.
That thought had haunted him for years. It came unbidden. Unwanted. Like a voice that didn't belong to him whispering inside his skull.
Kill her. Remove the problem. End the threat.
Every time it surfaced, it disgusted him. Terrified him. Made him feel like he was rotting from the inside.
He pressed his fingers against the page.
Why?
Why would any part of him want that?
He continued writing, faster now, like if he stopped the thoughts would scatter again.
"I don't understand it. When she left, I told myself it was necessary. That it was mercy. That I was protecting her. That Pontus would destroy her if she stayed near me."
The pen scratched harder.
"But when she was gone… I felt hollow. Like something essential had been cut out and left to bleed."
He swallowed.
"And yet every time I thought of bringing her back, fear rose in me. Fear that she would suffer. Fear that I would hurt her. Fear that I already had."
He squeezed his eyes shut briefly.
Then opened them again.
The clarity remained.
No fog. No blur. Just raw thought.
He wrote.
"There is a voice in me that screams when I see her."
He paused.
He corrected it.
"Not screams at her. Screams for her."
He exhaled shakily.
"It says run, Jane. Run far away. Leave Pontus. Leave us. Don't come back."
He stared at the ink bleeding slightly into the parchment.
"That voice doesn't sound like hatred. It sounds like terror."
He leaned back in the chair, fingers still gripping the quill.
Then there was the other voice.
The darker one.
The one that whispered.
End this. End her. End the complication.
He wrote slowly.
"And there is another part of me that feels wrong. Twisted. It wishes her gone completely. Not exiled. Not distant. Gone."
He let the pen drop onto the desk.
Silence filled the room.
The kind that wasn't empty, but heavy with truth.
He looked down at his hands.
They were steady.
He looked at his reflection in the small mirror near the desk.
His eyes looked clearer. More like they had when he was younger. Before everything went wrong. Before the headaches. Before the tonics. Before the strange slow decay of his thoughts.
Tonics.
He straightened.
The tonic.
He stood abruptly, chair scraping softly against stone.
He turned to the cabinet near the wall where small bottles had been kept before. Most of them were gone. He had stopped storing them here after Seraphine began sending them directly through servants.
He opened the cabinet anyway.
Empty.
But the memory lingered.
Sweet scent. Slight bitterness. Warm going down. Followed by the fog.
He looked back at the journal.
He flipped through previous pages.
There.
His own handwriting.
"Took the tonic again. Fog returned within an hour."
"Tonic changed scent today. Sweeter. Queen says herb variation."
"Tonic given after I questioned court decisions."
His jaw tightened.
He flipped more pages.
"I feel slower."
"I forgot the conversation I had with Jane this morning."
"I feel like I am losing something."
He closed the journal slowly.
A realization formed, slow and sickening.
The tonic was not medicine.
It was control. It was clear now.
He stood there for a long moment, the morning light now fully illuminating the room. It felt like standing in the aftermath of a storm, debris scattered everywhere, finally seeing the damage clearly.
If the tonic dulled his mind…
If the fog shaped his thoughts…
If the confusion was engineered…
Then the parts of him that felt wrong…
The hatred that didn't feel like his own…
The violent urges that made no sense…
Were they even his?
He sat back down slowly.
Picked up the quill again.
Wrote one more line.
"If I am not fully myself… then my feelings for Jane might be the only honest thing left."
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