The king of the prosperous kingdom of Cassia paced the wide, marble hallways of his castle. He was growing restless as the days rushed past, even though he was surrounded by his own loyal guards. There were reports of oncoming assassins coming to kill him. His own son was a disgraced literal son of a bitch, and the stress of keeping his familial secrets was getting to him. That one drunken night with the goddess of the moon…

He shook the thought off. His wife, the queen, didn’t even know that the crown prince wasn’t her own son. No, the mages had wiped her mind clean of that experience. She’d thought she’d birthed the boy herself, but to be fair, the queen wasn’t the brightest pixie in the forest. The boy himself was unaware, but that wasn’t his fault. Or maybe it was, the king wasn’t sure. Nobody knew but the king himself and the mages who wiped everyone’s mind of the incident, and he trusted both.

He watched as the soldiers passed him, guns and swords gleaming in the iridescent moonlight. The damn moon. If gods could die, the moon goddess would have been dead and gone seventeen years ago when she had dropped his disappointment of a son at the grand door of the kingdom’s castle. He would have set himself out to find her and blow her brains out with his most prized rifle and then let his guard dogs have the body of that stupid, beautiful woman. Wipe her off of the face of Vitanshi so that no one would ever know his son was a demigod. A child of the moon.

He looked out the window, up at the starry sky. There would be no killing the gods, as far as he knew. The legends say they only reveal themselves in times of peace, and this was not one of them.

Assassins were being sent to kill him right now, his ex had no right to be in his mind. Alas, on this full moon there was no avoiding the thoughts. Not to mention the fact that his wife, the queen, was on vacation in the sunny continent of Napyaak, far away from the incoming bringers of death.

A soldier walked up to him, his helmet lopsided. “Sir,” he saluted, “they’re on their way.”

The king sighed. “If this is the night I die, you must deliver a letter to my beloved.”

The soldier nodded obediently. The king handed him a letter embroidered with the symbol of the kingdom, a crowned skull. He was just the ripe old age of forty two, but frankly, in a kingdom so frequently called the Kingdom of Death, he shouldn’t have lived past his twenties.

The soldier—gods, he should have made more of an effort to memorize these guards' names, they all looked so alike—grasped the letter. “This is my first day on the job,” he explained. “I’m sorry this had to happen.”

The king shook his head. “It’s due time, considering the things I’ve done in my complicated reign. Just deliver this to the queen.”

The soldier obliged, exiting the room. The king turned to the other guards, his head low. “I’d like some time alone. Don’t let anyone in or out of the castle, please.”

The soldiers saluted and swiftly exited the room, closing the door behind him.

The king slumped down against the wall. He adjusted the crown on his head, an elegant gold decorated with various prized jewels, and sighed. He was ready to go. He had said his goodbyes to everyone he loved, left one last announcement for the kingdom, he was ready to pass his throne on. But not to the crown prince. His eldest son was a nasty, nasty boy, his bloodline far too messy. What if the kingdom found out that he was a demigod? That he was not truly a viable heir to the throne?

He had made his decision. His dying wish would be that the throne would go to his eldest daughter instead, no one will ever have to know.

A low rumble shook the castle. The king fell to the ground, hitting his head on the elegantly tiled floor. He cursed as he felt blood trickle down his forehead. They were here.

The king got to his feet, he wasn’t going down without a fight.

And then, just as he was about to bring out his dagger, a door opened from behind him. He didn’t want to look behind him. Were the assassins in the castle already? They couldn’t possibly be—

“Father, I am here to say my apologies,” his son announced from behind him.

The king let out a sigh of relief, and then wore a face of confusion. He looked behind him, at the crown prince. He was standing in his elegant robes, his tawny skin glowing in the torchlight, his face stony and stoic. He usually didn’t dare voluntarily speak to the king, staying locked up in his room or far away on the other side of the castle. In fact, the king hadn’t seen him in a month, the queen was usually around to take care of him. “Apologize for what, exactly?”

“I’m sorry that I have to watch you die,” the prince said, his voice strangely calm.

“Well, no one is making you watch,” the king growled. The boy was scrawny, his unnaturally white hair—courtesy of his true mother’s shameful genes—was extremely disheveled. What a scoundrel.

“I am making myself.”

“And why is that?” The king leaned back, watching as the prince brought something out of his pocket.

“Because these assassins, these known killers, they are not the ones killing you tonight,” the prince smiled, a knife emerging out of the pockets of his robes.

The king took a step back, unsheathing his own sword. “What the hell do you think you’re doing, boy?”

“Say my fucking name,” the prince demanded in a snarl. “It’s always ‘boy,’ or ‘young man,’ or ‘son,’ but why don’t you say my name? Why are you so ashamed of me?”

The king gulped. It was his last day alive anyway. Should he own up to his mistake? That he had cheated on his wife, slept with the goddess of the moon, and produced an abhorrent demigod son? That the only reason he had kept his crown prince alive was because if the goddess of the moon found out her son was dead she would wreak havoc on his prized kingdom?

“My son, I—”

“And you still refuse to say my name. Then it truly is time for you to die.” His white hair glittered like a diamond in the dancing light of the sconces. “Accept your fate and I will give you a peaceful death.”

The king searched through his panicked brain, trying to find an answer. He was going to die anyway, but dying by the hands of his own son didn’t sound too appealing. “I don’t think you’ll really kill me,” he laughed, nervous.

“You doubt my courage, father?” his son hummed, admiring his knife in the light.

“I don’t understand, why kill your own father?” the king asked, his voice strained and desperate. He could call the guards in, tell them to lock the boy up in the dungeon as he should have done years ago, but part of him pitied the boy. He didn’t know where he came from. He didn’t know how disgusting his origins were.

The prince growled. “You’ve treated me like scum ever since I was born, I want to know what made you think I was so unworthy of your love. And I’m sure whatever it is, I’ll want to kill you. I already do. I’ve wanted to kill you ever since I stopped vying for your love.”

The king closed his eyes. “It’s not your fault.”

He paused, his son’s eyes roaming his figure as if trying to figure out which place would hurt most when he stabbed him. “You, my son,” the prince snarled at the lack of a name, “are a child of the moon. A filthy demigod. No one will want you, no one will love you. You are worthless. Your sister will become queen in your place, there’s no need to fret about that. You can live your life out in a village far, far away from here.”

He spat on the ground in front of the prince. He turned his back. “You may kill me, now that you know the truth.”

He gazed out the window to his kingdom, his plentiful kingdom. One that he would never see again.

“Tell. Me. My. Name,” the prince growled.

“That’s simple,” the king murmured, toying with the strings on the end of his robe’s sleeves. “Your name is Corbin Regellus, the disgusting prince of Cassia. You will likely die when they throw you out into the streets. You may kill me.”

Corbin, the prince gazed at him, perplexed. “You give up your life like that? Coward.”

The king scoffed. “I’m dying anyway, aren’t I? Get it over with.”

Corbin lunged at his father, his knife glinting in the dull light of the moon. The king didn’t so much as flinch as he was knocked to the ground. He didn’t scream, didn’t say a word, when Corbin stabbed him viciously in the back of his neck, cackling in victory.

The king went almost immediately limp, lifeless, and Corbin stood back up and dusted his hands off.

He grabbed his knife and left the castle. “Farewell, my dearest father.”

His father’s death wasn’t enough to satisfy the dark beast of vindictiveness in his heart. It was time to get his revenge.