Chapter 68 Kidan
KIDAN
Kidan stared at her mother’s finger bones like they were a rare artifact, unable to comprehend what she’d discovered. “But my parents’ bones were destroyed—cremated.”
GK watched her quietly.
Kidan told him what she’d discovered over the past few weeks. About the mystery surrounding her parents’ murder. How to inherit a house’s culture. And, most of all, Resurption.
He spoke with growing alarm. “You wanted to use your mother’s bones to reveal her memories?”
Kidan didn’t blame him for his caution. Resurption was an Aseracti technique. Lusidio’s—no, Varos’s writing. “I know how it sounds. But if I can see into her memories, I can understand her better. I can get the mask and set any law I want. A law to make you human.”
Shock washed over him for a moment, taking in the weight of her words. His face retreated into the dark. “No.”
“No?”
“I’ll be no more than prisoner in your home.”
Her stomach roiled, as she saw the grief beneath his anger. “I… I don’t know what else to do.”
GK lifted the chain, letting it catch small particles of light, and grabbed her hand, putting it in her palm. The rain stopped, and time stilled, the planes of his face were sleek, the brown of leather.
“When a Mot Zebeya can no longer uphold the religion of Sageism, they surrender their bone chain.” He sounded like his old self now, achingly familiar, heartbroken. “I can’t follow you anymore.”
The chill from the dampness of the cold stone made Kidan tremble, a chatter built in her bones and teeth.
“You said all life must be protected, and if I’m in danger, it’s your duty to protect me.
” Her words carried nothing but sorrow at the thought of losing him again.
Last semester, she could have let him go.
But now she understood there was always a way to live with yourself, even at your worst. GK just needed one thing, one person to hold on to. “Was that a lie?”
His lips pinched together in a grimace. “Of course not. But I cannot live like this and keep my faith.”
Kidan shook her head. It couldn’t end like this. She’d brought him back to life, promised to help him, and she would, because he was meant to be by her side.
“No, you can,” she said, eyes burning.
“Kidan.”
She steeled her voice. “I will help you. I will make it right.”
GK said nothing, and his silence swelled with resignation. Cold, unbearable defeat. It broke Kidan to see him at war with himself. To see the most peaceful soul she knew lost somewhere deep.
The door creaked open, an explosion of light spilling inside. Kidan got to her feet, closing her palm over her mother’s bones. They stirred, giving her strength.
She’d expected Iniko or Arin but it was… June.
Holding some sort of cup.
Behind her, a large figure blocked the entryway. A pair of black terror-inducing eyes loomed closer.
Warde.
June carried an umber glow around her, accentuated by her long flowing skirt and tight-fitting shirt. She trailed a line between GK and Kidan, a strange sort of relief filling her eyes. “You found him.”
At a loss for words, Kidan stood numbly as June placed the cup before GK. Her skirt fanned out around her in shades of deep purple and black.
“What are you doing?” Kidan finally asked.
June froze for a moment, then glanced back. “It’s a concoction. Helps with his hunger.”
GK took the cup and drank it, grimacing. It looked like poison.
“We heard you two talking,” June said softly to him. “I know it feels impossible to live as you are, but it’s not.”
Kidan’s guard rose up, as she tried to parse June’s intention. Had she visited GK before? He didn’t look surprised to see her at all.
“Warde, show him,” June said.
Warde shuffled forward. Kidan stepped away. He was incredibly tall, almost twice the size of June. The vampire reached down into his shirt and pulled out a white chain—a set of interlaced finger bones.
GK’s head jerked straight, wonder breaking over his face. “You’re a Mot Zebeya?”
Warde gave a small tip of his head.
The smile breaking over June was so genuine it hurt. “Let him help you.”
GK’s gaze flicked to the window for a moment, a pinprick of hope expanding in his pupils. And Kidan dared to hope too. He looked at her, something shifting in his expression, becoming torn.
June walked to the door and nervously said, “Kid, can we talk?”
The nickname carved a painful reminder into her memories. Kidan steeled herself, nodded at GK as a promise, and said, “I’ll come back.”
When he said nothing, she followed her sister out. The ribbon in her sister’s hair lay among the curled braids, always neat and pretty, a guiding light.
June led her into the spacious corridor fit for a palace and opened a door with a key.
When Kidan realized where she was, acid spread down her throat.
This must be June’s room.
Kidan hesitated, not wanting to see the place her sister had lived in for nearly two years. Away from her.
When June waited at the threshold with a frown, Kidan tightened her hold on her mother’s finger bone chain and walked into the decorated room.
It smelled like June, a rush of wildflowers mixed with sweet pastries. Plants occupied every available space, swallowing the curved corners. Truly, it could have been mistaken for a greenhouse or the floor of a rainforest. Even Kidan’s nose itched with the pollen and fragrance.
A part of her wanted to break the plant pots and tear down the carefully arranged skirts.
But the Polaroid picture of Kidan and June on their seventeenth birthday made her pause.
It was proof that June still cared on some level, kept a piece of her.
They always celebrated birthdays five days early—June’s tradition, because she liked to take the pressure off the actual day.
It had been a simple birthday, but the most memorable since they’d done it out in a public place, a lovely restaurant with reasonable prices.
Kidan remembered the sound of strangers joining in to sing happy birthday as the small cake arrived.
June and Kidan had their faces lit up by the candles, glowing, and for a moment, felt the love of a large family around them.
Kidan was sure her parents, Aunt Silia, and her grandparents had been in that room.
It had been the last birthday they celebrated together. Had June known it then? As she beamed at Kidan, had she known she’d leave by their eighteenth birthday?
Kidan traced the picture, wondering if they’d ever celebrate their birthday with as much joy as they did then. Eighteen had been catastrophic and Kidan had spent nineteen in her cramped apartment with noodles and a mess of piles of papers, searching for Uxlay.
Their twentieth birthday was soon. And twenty-one—
GK’s words swam in the back of her head. Why so specific? What was it about that number that haunted her mother enough to write it in her journals? And if it was true and Kidan died then… June would be alone.
So? Let her be alone. Let her know how it feels.
But those thoughts sounded weak. More than revenge, Kidan wanted the truth from her sister.
Kidan kept searching the mantel for another picture and found it, gut curdling. A picture of a woman smiling, her large arms around two girls.
Mama Anoet. The smell of burning skin and cigars engulfed her at once. Kidan put the picture face down quickly, trying to calm her breathing.
She cleared her throat. “I can see why you left. This place… suits you. It’s pretty.”
June appeared surprised, frowning. “I didn’t leave because this place was pretty.”
Kidan wasn’t in the mood to argue. In truth, she was exhausted. Mostly, confused.
“How did you know about the compulsion marks?” she asked, studying her. “About Varos?”
Her sister knitted her fingers. “Rasi. He told me.”
“A vampire told you all this before he died?”
June gave a tense nod.
“Why did you help Susenyos at all? Aren’t you with Samson?”
A flash of disappointment touched her face. “Because I don’t want to see anyone hurt.”
Kidan’s snort came out harsh and unexpected, but it was out there, and she couldn’t take it back.
June’s eyes fell. “The way I treated you… it was cruel, Kidan. There’s no excuse for it and I’m sorry.”
There they were.
The words Kidan craved to hear. All she’d wanted for nearly two years was for June to come home, to say these exact words, embrace her.
Kidan had had to let go of that dream. Even as it killed her.
Kidan had faced down Susenyos once, Samson multiple times, yet it was her own sister who seemed to leave her helpless.
“This is cruel, June. What you’re doing right now.” Her voice twisted with harsh pain. “Don’t do this if you’re just going to leave again.”
June rushed forward, grabbing Kidan’s hands.
They felt like black rot, burning and infected.
June’s eyes were two pools of grief. The sight made Kidan’s chest constrict.
This was how June cried when she felt helpless, when Mama Anoet yelled at her or when her hair was being braided in painful tugs.
She’d rather suffer in silence, afraid anything she said would create more trouble.
“You tried to kill me,” Kidan said, trying to tug free. “You hated me so much you wanted me dead.”
June’s grip tightened, and she shook her head, sending tears everywhere. “No, I wasn’t thinking straight. It was a mistake.”
Dranacti—that was what had finally brought their conflict to a boiling point. The pursuit for power—for the artifacts. Kidan had finally chosen family over those things, but her sister couldn’t be trusted.
“You want the mask, don’t you?” Kidan asked. “More than anything?”
She couldn’t stand her sister’s tears nor the break in her sobs. “I had no choice.”
“Why?” Kidan’s shout made their hands part. “Why do you want it so desperately?”
Wrapping her arms around herself, June said nothing. Her lashes sparkled with tiny drops.
Kidan exhaled, shaking her head. Her gaze landed on Mama Anoet’s collapsed picture. “I wanted to die, June. Right after you left, I wanted to die.”
Slowly, June lifted her face.
Kidan continued. “I bought a pill from the Mathew boys in high school and put it inside the butterfly charm. After I found you, I was going to take it.”
Her sister’s face broke in horror. “I didn’t know… this was never what I wanted.”
Kidan turned her cheek aside. Finally unveiling all of this was making her throat close up but she had to get it all out.
She looked to the ceiling so her tears wouldn’t come.
“Every day, I was convinced I was becoming like them—vampires who’d kill without feeling remorse.
There was no line I wouldn’t cross for you.
So I needed to die too, didn’t I? To make the world safer for people like you. ”
June’s face shifted from one wave of emotion to another. “I can’t fix this, can I? It’s too late?”
The loss in her voice made Kidan’s gut wrench. She wondered how it was possible to be this hurt and still wish no trace of it for the one who had hurt you.
This had to be love. But the seasons apart had hardened them, shattered their trust to dust. Kidan wished they could go back in time. Because no matter how they healed from this, it’d never be the same. Kidan had to let herself mourn the old June, the one who existed before Uxlay.
“Tell me how to fix this,” June insisted, her warm eyes burning.
“I don’t know,” Kidan whispered, studying her sister’s face. “I don’t know why you left me and until I do, I can’t trust you again.”
Her sister nodded slowly, tried to smile through her tears. “Then I’ll wait. I’ll be here until you can trust me again.”
It was the smallest of steps, fragile. Maybe naive.
In the oval mirror perched on the wall, the top half of June’s back showed, her green top slightly damp. A crescent-shaped scar was planted in the middle of her brown back, similar to the one Kidan bore on her chest.
Actis never scar. And if Susenyos’s claw marks meant something, could these scars mean something too?
“June,” she said, brow furrowed. “Do you remember how we got our scars?”
Her ribbon bounced as June’s fingers went to her shoulder, lingered there a beat, then dropped. “No.”
Kidan nodded, turning away. “I need to see Susenyos.”
June nodded slowly. As Kidan traveled the polished tiles back to Susenyos, she wondered why her sister appeared nervous, as if she were lying.