Chapter 38. A Practiced Perfect Smile
Blood fell from the sky, painting everything red.
Disfigured corpses surrounded him. Eyes hollowed, fingers cut into minuscule fragments, organs flayed out. Their numbers seemed infinite, piling to the height of a mountain that stretched to the end of his vision.
A scarlet red river of warm blood flowed from its top, gushing and oozing towards him.
"Liam."
His mother’s voice called him from behind, using a name she shouldn’t have known.
Liam jerked around to see her—Kiera von Everhart—holding a dagger aimed at his heart.
"Mother..." Aiden barely managed to speak. His enunciation was hardly coherent.
"I am not your Mother. I am Aiden’s mother. You—"
"You are not him."
Aiden’s breath hitched in his throat. He tried to reason, to beg, but words never came out. He wrapped his hands around his neck in panic, pleading for his vocal cords to utter a word.
"My people and I... We all died for a fake. A mask of a prince who fooled and betrayed everyone."
Another voice fell into his ears; his neck snapped towards it.