Askai ran the entire distance back to the dorm, sweat plastering his shirt to his back by the time he reached their floor. He strode down the corridor in long, ground-eating paces, the internal clock screaming that he was running desperately late. They would close the orphanage for visitors soon, and he couldn't bear the thought of missing Kael.
He turned the knob, hoping to find an empty room. He needed to ditch his bag, grab the precious package he had bought for Kael, and be on his way. But these days, things had an unfortunate, brutal tendency to resist going his way.
To his surprise, he found Jordan sitting on his bed, hunched over his phone, engaged in a heated, low-toned conversation. Askai paused in the doorway, catching his breath and trying to remember if they hadn't decided to meet directly at Kael's orphanage.
"What are you doing here?" he asked, the suddenness of his question finally snagging Jordan's attention.
"I'll call you later," Jordan muttered into the phone, his gaze lifting to Askai, a flicker of deep trouble in his eyes. He then gestured for Askai to sit.
"Are you serious? Aren't we running late? They will close the door at six sharp. We need at least an hour with him." Askai said, dropping his bag and frantically beginning to pack a new one with Kael's gifts. He felt the guilt of hardly seeing the boy lately like a stone in his stomach.
"Just sit down, Askai! Trust me, you wanna hear this before you walk out that door." Jordan ordered, his voice tight, his fingers nervously tapping a restless, uneven rhythm on the nightstand.
Askai was about to launch into a furious argument, but the look on Jordan's face stopped him cold. His friend seemed not just troubled, but genuinely scared—a chilling sight on a man who had survived their shared history.
"Fine." He grumbled, dropping onto the stiff desk chair. "What is it?"
"I went to find Coral this morning, remember? Only he wasn't there. Barlow told me he was in the East End, along with Moraine. Normally, that's just a lie to avoid paying my share, but… This was the third time in the fortnight I was given that exact excuse." Jordan paused, rubbing the tense line of his jaw. "At first I thought he was simply avoiding me, which I truly wish was the case, but it turned out to be something else entirely…"
Jordan stared into Askai's eyes, his silence deeply foreboding.
"What?" Askai asked, the sudden cold apprehension making his stomach clench.
"There are words on the street, Askai, that Moraine Valez has succeeded Uncle Tommie."
"No fucking way!"
"He has!" Jordan countered with equal force, conviction grounding his tone.
Askai shot to his feet, the chair behind him clattering violently to the floor. His pulse thundered in his ears, and the room seemed to tilt sickeningly. It felt like someone had yanked the solid floor from beneath him.
"This wasn't supposed to happen. Not now. Not for another ten years at least!" His voice cracked, raw and furious with betrayal. "He was third in the line of succession, for fuck's sake, Jordan. Third! Your source has to be wrong. Spinning shit to just stir up panic. This—this doesn't make any goddamn sense."
Jordan didn't flinch. He didn't try to calm him, either. He just sat there, arms crossed over his chest, that same haunted look settling into the creases around his eyes like the smoke of an irreversible fire.
"I wish they were," he said finally, the words heavy and leaden. "God, I wish they were. But this came straight from the docks. And you know who runs the docks - Valez. No one risks leaking this kind of shit unless it's already set in stone and moving."
Askai's mind raced, desperate to find a flaw in the logic. Moraine in the throne in the West only spelled death for the brothers. Uncle Tommie had been the only one keeping him from going after Jordan but now that he was not there, there was no telling what Moraine would do with them.
Askai could not understand how this could happen. There were supposed to be safeguards of the old regime, protecting them for the coming few years at least. That was the plan. Ten years to forge a new destiny for them. Ten years to stay under the radar. Ten years to achieve their impossible dream of escape.
He knew Moraine Valez's reign was bound to come one day, but not so soon.
He swore again, violently, and dragged a hand through his hair.
"Do you even realize what this means?" he hissed, dropping his voice to a dangerous, low pitch. "If he's already been moved up—if the others are out of the picture—then it means someone pulled the strings from the top. Someone powerful enough to eliminate the first and second heirs without a single whisper in the West End."
Jordan nodded grimly. "And make it look like an accident, too. Quiet, clean, and irreversible. One night and all three of them were declared dead. The work of gods, Askai, not men." He said exasperated.
Askai staggered backward, breath catching painfully. "So it's official, then? He's next in line?"
Jordan hesitated, then delivered the final, crushing blow. "He's not just next. He's already taken the seat. They're calling it an emergency coronation. Quiet. The outer circle hasn't even been informed yet."
Askai felt a chilling recognition creep into his bones. The person they feared—the one who wasn't supposed to rise for years, the man who represented the absolute, uncompromising end of their freedom—wasn't coming.
He had already arrived.
"Sit down, Askai. There is more to come." Jordan said, his tone flat and grim, robbing the words of any mercy.