CHAPTER 156: A PAWN TOO DULL

Nikolai had arrived just in time to see the last of the crowd dispersing, the rain still pounding as though the heavens were mocking him. His boots were heavy with water, and yet the storm inside him was heavier. The coachman had nearly lost control of the horses getting them through the muddy path, but Nikolai hadn’t cared. His mind burned only with the knowledge that everything had gone wrong, again.

Everything! It was on his arrival that he heard of the Contest’s outcome. Nothing he had planned had worked out.

"Where is he? Where is my son?!" Nikolai barked, veins popping out from the corner of his neck.

The servant who had carried Gerald out of the hall earlier pointed at one of the carriages which was set to leave soon.

"But Lord Niko—"

"Move!" Nikolai snapped, his voice like thunder breaking through the rain. The servant startled but obeyed, hurrying toward the carriage to open the door.

Once the door was opened, Nikolai found his excuse of a son wasting comfortably, snoring in his failure.

"This idiot!" He yelled, scanning around for something. When he found a broken bowl that had been filled with rainwater, the man grabbed it, and when he returned, he turned it over Gerald.

A loud yelp that shook the carriage and pierced the servants’ ears filled the place. Some of the servants closed their eyes while others turned away, but none dared to speak.

Nikolai was a storm when angry. No one dared to escape. Not even in their dreams.

"What madness is this?" an angry Gerald asked with a frown, sitting up on the carriage chair. He used the back of his hand to wipe the water before looking around for who to behead. When his eyes met his father, the young man whimpered— mostly from the cold but also because of the hardened glare Nikolai didn’t care to soften.

"Fa— ehm... father." Gerald sat at the edge of the carriage cushion like some lost dog, staring into the distance as though he had been waiting for a master to call him.

The sight of his son sharpened the knife of disappointment lodged in Nikolai’s chest. He had counted on Gerald, poured every hope, every ounce of expectation into him and still the boy had managed to fumble what could have been a decisive night.

"Move this carriage."

The moment the carriage doors closed and began moving, Nikolai’s fury erupted.

"Do you know what you’ve done? Do you even begin to understand what this night was supposed to be?" His hand slammed against the wall of the carriage. Gerald flinched, lowering his head. "Answer me, damn you!"

"I- I tried, Father..." Gerald’s voice cracked. "But the contest... something happened... the alcohol. It’s the alcohol." He shifted blame. The cold had drenched Gerald from head to toe, soaking his hair, his clothes, chilling him in a way no rain outside could. He gasped, shivering instantly.

"It’s the... hah." A hollow laugh filled with hate escaped Nikolai. Gerald wasn’t the one given a spiked drink, but here he was making excuses.

Staring at his son, not with any feeling of pity: "Nothing is what you bring me every single time I place hope in you. Do you think Rhane gave his points to you out of mercy? No! Which was why I made a perfect chance— the perfect chance to crush him, and you let it slip like sand through your hands!"

Gerald’s lips trembled. He pressed his hands against his soaked trousers as if bracing himself. "Father, I—"

"Don’t you dare speak!" Nikolai cut him off. "Every time I hand you a blade, you let it fall before it can strike. Every time I give you a chance to prove yourself, you humiliate me instead. Do you think Rhane is strong because of fate? No! He’s strong because my son is weak. Weak! Pathetic and foolish!"

The coach jolted as the wheels struck a stone. Nikolai leaned closer, his face inches from Gerald’s, his breath hot despite the cold dripping from his son’s hair.

"Why? Why could you not even hold the contest together? Make it continue until the trial of the veil. It was handed to you! And now? Now he walks away untouchable, while I— while I sit here with a son too useless to strike a blow for his own bloodline."

Gerald’s eyes glistened, though whether from the water or from tears he refused to shed, he couldn’t tell which one.

Nikolai leaned back, his chest heaving. "If Rhane wins, it will not be because he outsmarted me. It will be because my own flesh failed me. Remember that, Gerald. Remember it every time you see him walk free with Jenna."

Nikolai turned away, his gaze fixed on the darkness outside. He had played all his hands. There was nothing left. Nothing!

On the other side, Gerald sat stiffly, dripping from the cold water his father had thrown, his teeth clattering despite how desperately he tried to keep them still. His fingers dug into the soaked fabric of his trousers, his nails biting the skin beneath. He wanted to speak, to defend himself, but every word he could form sounded like cowardice in his own head.

He had really wanted to win, and he saw his victory, but what happened... even he couldn’t explain to his father.

"It was all supposed to be over..." Nikolai lamented bitterly. "It was meant to have Rhane gone. And you—" he jabbed a finger at Gerald’s chest, "—you let him walk away." The man taunted his son.

Gerald swallowed hard, his throat dry despite the rainwater dripping into his collar. "It wasn’t—" he began.

"It wasn’t what?" Nikolai snarled, cutting him off so sharply Gerald recoiled into the corner of the carriage. "Wasn’t your fault? Don’t you dare sit there, soaked like a drowned rat, and tell me you tried. Tried is what men say when they’ve already lost. Tried is for those who crawl behind true leaders. I did not raise you for ’try.’ I raised you for triumph."

Gerald wished the carriage would overturn, that the storm would crack the wheels and bury them in the mud. At least then this torment would end. Or— he could find Rhane and lunge a dagger into his chest for always making him look pathetic and stupid in front of everyone, including their father.

"You shame me every time you breathe," Nikolai spat, waving his hand in disgust. "I could have had another son. Anyone but you. I’d rather have an enemy at my side than you... you—you are a pawn too dull to recognize the game he’s already lost."

Outside, lightning split the sky, flooding the carriage with white light for a heartbeat. In that brief illumination, Gerald saw his father clearly...and it was there, the resemblance. Not of him... but of Rhane.

Gerald had never looked like his own father, in skills or in features. Was that why he failed at everything? Or was it because Rhane still breathed?

For the first time in Gerald’s life, he didn’t have the zeal to whine or protest. He laid his head back and stared at his father in darkness— the same darkness that was threatening to swallow him whole.