Chapter 29 #3
“He’d realized my potential as a spy, not just an assassin,” Kallen continued, “and he expected a constant flow of information. Who was speaking about him, who was exhibiting less respect than they should, who was breaking the rules he’d set.
I walked as careful a line as I could, but… sacrifices had to be made.”
I kept working the knots out, gradually increasing the pressure and aiding my touch with the slightest brush of magic. “What do you mean, sacrifices?”
For a while I thought he wouldn’t answer. “If I didn’t bring enough information, he tortured me.”
I gasped. “Kallen!”
“It’s fine. That part, anyway. I had already learned to tolerate it.”
He spoke about it so matter-of-factly. Tortured. And not just once—he had already learned to tolerate it . That was far from fine.
“It frustrated him that he couldn’t get the reactions he wanted out of me anymore,” Kallen said. “Then he learned that torturing others in front of me was a better incentive.”
I stroked my hands over his shoulders to his upper arms. “I’m sorry,” I whispered.
“It is what it is.” His muscles flickered, like he was tempted to tear out of my grasp.
“So I played the game as strategically as I could. Targeted faeries I knew were cruel or ones I anticipated getting in my way. I even framed a few of his closest advisors. The more isolated he got, the easier he would be to kill one day.” He shook his head.
“Or so I thought. Instead, it made him more volatile.”
The fear over losing the catacombs was receding.
What a small price to pay, when Kallen had paid far worse over the years and was still fighting.
I trailed my fingers down to his forearms before digging my thumbs in there, feeling the strength hidden beneath the fabric of his shirt. Another soft exhalation left him.
“There were innocents, too,” he said. “Before you get the wrong idea. Faeries I betrayed because I was panicking and needed to say something, or because I suspected someone else had the same information and I wanted to act first to secure Osric’s trust.” He paused.
“Sometimes I was wrong about that and had them killed for nothing.”
It was unimaginable. First taken hostage in exchange for his house’s safety, then tortured into compliance, knowing that no matter what he chose, someone would suffer.
“And there were dark periods when everything felt cold and nothing mattered. I obeyed him then because it seemed pointless to do anything else. I imagined a vast scale teetering between us, and I told myself that so long as it eventually tipped in my favor, anything was acceptable.”
I had stilled, no longer massaging him, just holding his forearms in a grip that was growing too tight. “You were still a victim.”
“That doesn’t excuse it.” He looked over his shoulder at me, eyes dark with echoes of the past. “There’s truth to what Drustan says about me, Kenna. I have always been a monster, and not always an unwilling one.”
“You’re more than that.”
“Am I?” He shook his head, then faced forward again.
“The point I’m working up to is that for a span of decades, I told myself my heart had no use anymore.
I—” He broke off, then cleared his throat.
“I had already killed it, or tried to. But then one day the king ordered me to go to Earth House and retrieve a pregnant faerie for him.”
I stroked my thumbs over his wrists. I didn’t know why I was still holding him like this. It was almost an embrace—my arms wrapped around him, my front nearly pressed against his back.
He seemed to find it easier to confess without looking at me, too, because the words tumbled out of him.
“After I brought her to Osric, I found out the child’s father was from Illusion House and had told the king about the baby in exchange for a lesser punishment.
And that’s when I realized my heart wasn’t entirely dead, after all. ”
“Did you save that one?” I asked, my own heart aching.
He shook his head.
“But you started finding the pregnant faeries after that, didn’t you? You offered to help them.”
“In exchange for information,” he said bitterly. “Those motives weren’t all pure, either. I wanted to know what went on behind house walls—and there are plenty of bodies in the ground because of those deals, believe me.”
He was so determined to condemn himself. “You still risked a lot to save them. If the king had found out…”
“That’s why it was reckless.” His back expanded on an inhale, and he blew it out between pursed lips.
“Hector objected at first, but he soon grew even more passionate about the cause than I did. During the years I felt too broken to go on with any of it, he convinced me to keep trying. Even if it never came close to balancing out the evil I’d done. ”
He leaned back slightly, and our bodies pressed together. I stilled, clutching his forearms. Small tremors raced through Kallen’s body and into mine.
We were balanced on the edge of something. Every time we touched, we tested that balance, seeing what would finally be enough to push us over. I closed my eyes, inhaling his now familiar scent. Like cold midnights and rare spices and rarer flowers. “You’re too hard on yourself,” I whispered.
He ripped out of my hold so violently it startled a cry from my throat.
He spun, then clutched my shoulders to hold me at arm’s length.
His skin had gone cold—it was like being gripped by an ice sculpture.
“No, Kenna,” he gritted out. His nostrils were flared, and his lip was curled in an expression of scorn.
“Do not make me out to be some tragic, misunderstood hero. I could not possibly be hard enough on myself.”
My chest rose and fell rapidly. That scorn wasn’t directed at me; it was directed internally. Kallen hated himself. “So you made some terrible choices,” I said, voice shaky. “You also made good ones. Do those not matter?”
His expression was full of such horrible pain. Shadows wound around his neck and down his arms as his irises swirled black.
I’d once thought of his eyes as the openings to a deep pit where unspeakable crimes roamed like monsters and every kind instinct was shackled like a prisoner. There was more to him, though, and the more I saw of the person behind the mask, the more I wanted to uncover.
“I think they matter,” I said when he didn’t respond. I raised my hands to clasp his cold cheeks, and freezing tendrils of magic started curling around my wrists. “You’re not going to convince me to judge you, Kallen. Unless you plan to judge me for what I’ve done?”
“What you’ve—” He broke off, and his fingers tightened on my shoulders, like he was desperate to keep me away.
“What are your sins, Kenna? You give of yourself endlessly, no matter how much danger it puts you in. You freed us, when all I did was cause centuries of suffering. And you make me—” An anguished sound left his lips.
“It kills me. Everything you are. I can’t bear it. ”
I blinked rapidly. “You can’t— What are you saying?”
My heart was pounding so hard I felt faint. I leaned forward, pressing against his hold, wanting to know why he was looking at me like it was agony, but he couldn’t stop.
He released me abruptly and backed away. I lurched forward, and he reached out as if to steady me before cursing and snatching his hand back.
We stared at each other, breathing hard.
“I have to go,” he said.
“Kallen—”
He shook his head. “Not tonight, Kenna. Just let me…not tonight.”
My heart ached at the pain in his voice. I wanted to demand he stay and tell me more about his past and what he thought he couldn’t bear, but that wouldn’t be fair. He was a private person who had torn open his wounds for me, and he wanted to retreat to lick them in peace.
“All right,” I whispered.
I guided him back down the passage, away from the brambles and towards the nearest hidden door. I peered through a peephole and extended my magic to make sure no one was nearby, then opened it to reveal an empty hallway.
Kallen lingered, still watching me with that tormented expression. He raised his hand slowly to my face, running his thumb over my cheekbone.
Then his fingers slipped away, and the door closed behind him, leaving me alone in the dark.