52. Sie
FIFTY-TWO
SIE
I told Savannah to meet us at the training rings the next morning. I half wondered if she wasn’t going to show, but then I saw lavender hair swaying in the wind. She shrugged out of a gray sweatshirt, revealing a loose top that was too flimsy to be training in and tight black pants that exposed the exact shape of her legs… and ass.
I forced my gaze away from her body and turned to Peter. He kept hounding me relentlessly on how I managed to convince the girl who hated my guts to train with us. I ignored every taunt and told him to shut up unless he wanted me to stop helping.
Savannah frowned slightly as she approached Vallie. “How come you keep dyeing your hair black? You look better as a redhead.”
“I hate the color red.”
“Why?” Savannah pushed, and I wondered if bringing her was the wrong call. She had no filter. She didn’t hold back, and her curiosity got the better of her, regardless of what it caused others. Her mouth was too big for her own good .
“Because it reminds me of fire and because it reminds me of my brother.”
I entered Savannah’s mind, half terrified she was stupid enough to ask Vallie what happened to him.
Everyone knew Vallie was tortured by the King. Her grief didn’t have the mercy of being kept quiet, which I assumed was partly why she wanted to train in the middle of the night while everyone else was sleeping. I rarely saw her leave her tent during the day. But no one knew exactly what went down between her, Scotlind, and the King. A lot of it was assumed, but not everyone knew about her twin.
The King killed her brother, I said to Savannah, hoping she would drop it.
If she was surprised I entered her mind, she didn’t show it. She completely ignored me, instead saying out loud to Vallie, “I’m sorry.”
Vallie just nodded.
“Alright.” Savannah clapped her hands together after tossing her sweatshirt onto the ground. “Show me what you got.”
Princess Dovelyn found me later that night in the dining tent. I was exhausted and was only just sitting down to eat something for the first time today.
I never left the rings and trained the remainder of the day, trying not to think about Savannah and how her white shirt became drenched with sweat despite the cool draft. We started by running through the drills Peter and I had been teaching them. Savannah nodded, taking everything in, then went right into maneuvers of her own, showing Vallie and Lilia how to move their bodies in a way I didn’t think was possible. She ran through different exercises for them to do every day. It was a mix of stretches, core work, and body weight maneuvers .
“What do you want?” I snapped at Dovelyn, bringing myself back to the moment and shrugging off all thoughts of training.
She sat down next to me. Peter wasn’t around so I was at a table by myself. “I wanted to check up on you. How are you?”
I scoffed, nearly choking on my food. “We aren’t friends, so you can cut the act.”
A prolonged silence stretched between us as I kept eating. I waited for her to admit what she really wanted because there was no way she came over just to ask me how I was doing.
“You know you could be a little nicer and you might actually have more friends.”
That got me to look up. She was staring at me with a narrowed expression.
“I think the same can be said for you.”
“I risked my life to save not only you, but your brother too, the least you can do is not be a dick.”
“Do you want a thank you?” I snapped and regretted it as soon as I said it. I should say thank you.
She rolled her eyes before finally rising from the table. “Meet me by the fields when you’re finished eating. We can talk without anyone overhearing us. I do expect you to come.”
She left without another word. I watched her go. My fork halted halfway to my mouth as I stared after her silver hair.
I took my time finishing my food, even though my curiosity was eating at me. But there was no way in hell I’d let that show. The girl could create shields. We could have talked in the tent without anyone overhearing us, but she wanted full privacy, didn’t even want wandering eyes on us, and I had no idea why.
When I finally made it to the fields, Dovelyn was already waiting. “Alright. I’m here. What do you want?” I asked.
“I want to talk to you about your father—”
Oh hell no. I started walking away. There was no way I was about to talk to her about that, even if I owed her my brother’s life. I’d been actively avoiding thinking about everyone I lost. I tried to block out my mother and Moli. They didn’t deserve to die. The feeling of guilt and sadness and grief washed into me whenever I did and it was all too much.
And my father was even worse. The emotions I had about losing him were confusing as hell, and I didn’t feel like figuring them out. The only time I’d willingly open those doors was if Greyland wanted to. He was the only person I would uncover that grave for. The only person. And he was just as stubborn as I was.
“I knew him…” she said, her voice was soft, but I heard every word perfectly. I stopped walking. “Before you were even alive. I met him over a century ago.”
I slowly turned to face her, forcing myself to keep my expression blank, forcing all my emotions down. “So what?”
“So I wanted to tell you about him.”
I scoffed. “No, thanks. I know who my father was.”
“No, you didn’t, Sie. My father and Athler, they… they…” she let out a breath. “They changed him. The person you knew and grew up with wasn’t your father.”
“I don’t care,” I started. I didn’t want to hear this. I didn’t want to know…
“Well you’re going to listen to me whether you want to or not.”
“Why?” I snapped.
“Because I can tell it’s eating away at you. I can tell his death bothers you. You feel guilty about missing him. I can see what you’re doing. You’re spiraling, and as much as I don’t particularly like you, we need you in this war, and we need you to be mentally sane.”
“I’m fine,” I snapped, and I realized I wasn’t coming off remotely close to fine. My fists were clenched at my side, and I hadn’t realized I’d taken a step toward her. I was leaning down, practically spitting the words in her face .
She didn’t move. She just tilted her head up and met my gaze with her own piercing look of defiance. “Just hear me out once. Only once and then I’ll leave you alone.”
“I don’t need to hear you out at all. I’m leaving.”
I started to walk away when she said, “I’m either going to tell you in private now where you don’t need to worry about anyone else overhearing, or I’ll tell everyone at the next meeting, and you’ll be forced to mask your emotions while everyone stares at you. Your brother will most likely be there too. I’m sure you don’t want him hearing this in front of an audience. If you do this now, you can decide if you want him to know.”
“Fine,” I seethed. If she wasn’t a fucking air ability user who possessed shields, I’d compel her to never speak of it. But of course she was one of the few people who I couldn’t naturally compel—assuming she had a shield over her now, which coming into this conversation with me there was no way she didn’t. “You have three minutes of my time and know that I’ll kill you if you tell Greyland anything.”
“Five minutes.”
I ran my fingers through my long locks, then turned to face her, waiting for her to start, trying to put up my walls high enough so I could stomach to hear this.
“He used to visit a lot, making up excuses to get a work visa in Lux, and then he would spend every single free second he had with my mother. We had our own quarters away from the King, so no one ever noticed. It was just Arcane and I at the time. Tezya wasn’t born for another twenty years…”
I let out a breath, trying not to think about the fact that he also fathered the Fire Prince.
“I knew him from the time I was born. He was kind. He looked after Ar and I. He even brought us gifts every time he visited. I watched them together a lot—my mom and him.” She swallowed. “My father was never kind to her, and as all rank five marriages in Lux are arranged, I’d never seen it before. I never saw what it looked like for two people to be in love. It was intoxicating. I always spied on them under my invisibility, imagining if I’d ever find what they had someday. I saw them holding each other well into the night. I saw the tears shed every time he was forced to go. I saw his rage when my father called on my mother in public, and he was forced to sit back and do nothing. But as I got older, I also heard them talking. It was rushed whispers when they thought they were alone. Your father… he… he didn’t agree with the way things were. He wanted to get rid of the ranks altogether. He wanted a world where both Tennebrisians and Luxians could live together, and he could love my mother freely. Whatever the King said about him during the broadcast was a lie—”
“Dovelyn, I grew up with him. I know what he was like. He hated rank zeroes…”
“Let me finish, Sie. My mother didn’t die until Tezya was thirty-one. I was fifty. That means I’ve known your father personally for fifty years. I knew him. The real him, and he was more of a father to me than mine ever was.” She closed her eyes for a second before looking back up.
“I think you have the wrong person…”
“I watched him die during that broadcast, Sie. I don’t have the wrong person.” She blew out a breath before continuing. “When Tezya was born, they were more careful. My mother was terrified of what would happen if Tezya was ever discovered. When my brother turned four and the King’s punishments started, she wouldn’t let your father see us anymore. Ar and I were hurt, but Tezya was too young. He doesn’t remember him. They still saw each other, but it was stolen moments. He only came to my mother when we were asleep. They tried to hide it from us, from Tezya.”
Her breath hitched. “When my mother died, your father was distraught. He came to Lux without a work visa. My father and Athler found him before he even made it to our quarters. They thought he was there to overthrow them. Your father’s views were the start of the rebellion, Sie. He and my mother—they started it all back then. People were only just starting to act upon their anger for how our society was being governed and how our citizens were being treated.
“I saw them drag your dad down to the dungeons. I was under my invisibility and too much of a coward back then to come out of it and do something.” Her voice choked. “I didn’t see him for an entire decade after that. I thought… I thought they killed him. But when I saw him again, he changed. He was a different person. I think Athler used his abilities to change his way of thinking while torturing him. I think the effects of it over a decade were starting to seep into his being. I think he was brainwashed so thoroughly until there was nothing left of the person I used to know. When he finally returned to Tennebris, he hated rank zeroes. He got servants for the first time in his life. He worked his way up the Dark Council. I stopped following his life after that. It hurt too much. I had no idea he went on to start a family until I saw the ‘N’ on my mother’s grave. I didn’t realize the connection. The person you grew up with was a remnant of my own father, Sie. Anything you suffered was because of what the King and Athler did to him.”
There was a long moment of silence.
“I just wanted you to know it’s okay to grieve him and hate him at the same time. It’s okay to miss him even if he was a monster. I understand he wasn’t kind to you or your brother. I understand your life was difficult. But I owed it to him, to the man who used to raise me, to let his son know he wasn’t the kind of person you thought he was.” Her breath hitched, like she was gearing up for what she was going to say next. “I think your dad would be proud of you fighting in the rebellion, would be proud to see you working with Tezya—”
“I have to go,” was all I said as I teleported to the opposite end of the camp. I couldn’t stomach hearing any more. People whipped their heads in my direction, their eyes bulging as they took me in. The pure, undiluted rage was palpating from me in hot waves, as I cursed, “GET THE FUCK AWAY FROM ME!”
I started hyperventilating. I couldn’t breathe properly. I didn’t want to know that. I didn’t want to know that he was good. That the Lux King took away yet another thing from me.
I screamed, but I couldn’t hear it as it echoed throughout the camp. My ears were ringing, and my vision was blurring, but even through the haze, through the unshed tears that I refused to let fall, I could see Advenians squirming. They were running away in different directions to get as far away from me as they could. Good. They needed to run. They all needed to leave me the fuck alone.
Memories came back to me in hot flashes. I couldn’t shake them away. Him hitting Greyland. Him pressing hot iron against my stomach before having Moli heal it only to do it over and over again. His abuse of zero servants at our estate. Him belittling my mother. We didn’t have a voice in that household. We were all caught in his chokehold. But what we lived through, what we saw through him… Was it really just parts of the Lux King and Athler? Was the man who raised me really the same person who started the rebellion? He couldn’t be. There was no way…
The people around me weren’t leaving fast enough. I couldn’t stand to look at them as they sprinted away. As they looked at me for what I truly was—a monster. For how I used to view my dad…
I needed to be alone. I needed everyone to fucking leave because I didn’t trust myself not to rip apart whoever was in my sight until they were nothing more than fucking limbs pulled from bodies, until they were as lifeless and as dead as I felt—as dead as my father now was.
I curled my fists together and teleported to the border. I didn’t stop as I walked through the protective shield, even as I heard someone scream after me, my name dying on their lips as I entered the mortal territory on the other side. Light fingers grazed over my skin, almost clamping down around my bicep, but I teleported before their grip could take route.
I teleported, and I didn’t stop. Jump after jump after jump. A thrill ran over me at the use of my powers, humming deep in my bones. My abilities were the only thing in this world that wouldn’t betray me. The only thing I knew for certain.
I halted, my breath caught in my throat, once I saw where I ended up. I was at the dead river Savannah took me to. I hadn’t even realized I was heading here, didn’t know I had the jumps memorized, that I now knew the way on my own.
My eyes scanned the snowy river bank before I beelined into the trees, following the same path Savannah showed me.
I didn’t teleport. I walked this time. I wanted to feel my feet move one step in front of the other. I wanted to feel the dirt beneath me as I made my way toward oblivion. I didn’t stop until my feet no longer had purchase, and I was plummeting toward the rapids below.
I didn’t feel the sensations running through my stomach this time, didn’t feel the drop.
It was too fucking close. I hadn’t leapt as I fell into the water, only just missing a ragged rock protruding from the waterfall.
Too bad.
I let myself sink—down and down and down. At some point, I started screaming. Water rushed into me, burning me from the inside out. But it didn’t numb the pain. It didn’t take away my agony, only amplified it.
My brother’s face flashed in my mind just as my lungs burned to the point of constriction. I couldn’t leave him. I couldn’t let him lose another person he loved. I had to suck it up. Fuck. I had to bite down my own pain because it would be nothing compared to what losing me would do to Greyland .
I started swimming toward the surface, taking my damn fucking time as I did and savoring in the last drags of agony.
When I finally took a gasp, a lungful of air filling me, I promised myself that the King would pay for this.
I would get my vengeance.