Chapter 39
Thirty-Nine
“Tell me about them.” Mina and Adham hadn’t committed to much of a shared future, but perhaps they could share his past. “Tell me what happened.” Right when she wondered if she ought not to have pushed him, he appeared to resign himself.
“Over the years, my mother and father had both been robbed of their powers, then enslaved by other Sorceri. The three of us shared a difficult life, but we found some measure of happiness. And I was a good son, a genuinely good child.”
She imagined Adham as a golden-eyed boy, and her chest tightened.
“Some of my earliest memories are of hunting game for them, keeping our larder full. In the market, I stole things they enjoyed, anything to brighten their harsh existences. I thought they loved me in turn.” His gaze grew distant, his complicated mind awash in memories.
“Please, go on.”
“When I was six, I wandered out too far into the desert, tracking a deer. I discovered my power over sand among those mysterious dunes. My sorcery was so absolute, I knew I was the king of that element. A slave like me was the King of Sand, and in a desert realm like Sorselan, no ability could be greater. I expected my parents to be thrilled when I told them. Yet they looked at me . . . differently. I felt the love they had for me change as if it’d been cleaved with a sword.”
Adham paced once more, the firelight silhouetting his tense frame. “I think that’s why my mind turns to that fateful day in the dunes so much. It was truly the last day of my childhood. Of innocence.” He glanced up with an embarrassed scowl.
“What happened then?” Mina asked, though she could guess the ending of the story. That fateful day had been his last day to be loved .
“From then on, both coveted my soul, manipulating me to give it up. Especially my father. Even at that age, I knew I couldn’t part with something so important, but they were relentless. He told me he would use my ability better than I could and protect us with it—we could leave the slums and have all the food we could ever eat. Ultimately I trusted the two of them more than myself. I was eight when they persuaded me.” He stopped and faced her. “I was so young and gullible that I handed it over to him with love.”
Mina’s heart was breaking for the boy he’d been. “Did your father deliver on his promise?”
“No.” Bitter laugh. “With my sorcery, he took control of Sorselan with ease. He left my mother and me in slavery and married again, fathering another son he genuinely cared about.”
Mina bit out a curse. “Were you able to forgive your mother for her part?”
He shook his head. “I can’t explain to you what it feels like for a Sorceri to lose their root power, that soullessness, and she knew what it would do to me. They’d been tricked out of theirs, and they visited that same torture onto their child. In a chain unbroken,” he added almost to himself. “After my father left us, she grew unstable. I was on my own from about nine years old. I later heard that she drank a cup of wine with enough poison to end a Sorceri.”
This was his childhood. No wonder he’d grown hardened. “What happened to you then?”
“I endured. I grew tall and strong, so I was assigned duties as a laborer. Every day I was forced to dig sand, me, the former king of it.”
Mina imagined how she would react if she lost something so intrinsic. It would be like someone stealing her logic. She cast a glance at her arm wound. Someone basically had , setting her on a path to insensibility. Thank the gods, Adham’s soul had been returned.
“My existence was one of the deepest misery, interrupted only by rage. But nothing that happened to me during those years—no outrage, no violation—could compare to the treachery that had come before.”
Mina could guess what predatory Loreans had done to this male. Her heart ached for him, pain like a physical wound. She believed one day he might tell her all the details about his past, but not tonight. “When did you get your sorcery back?”
“For years, I plotted, waiting for a chance to strike. Decades trudged by before I could abduct my guarded half brother. I threatened to kill him, unless my father returned my soul.” Adham ran a hand over his face. “The bastard readily surrendered it. To save his other son, he gave up all his power—a move that fucked with my head worse than anything else he could have done to me. The man wasn’t a monster; that would’ve been easier to take. He could, in fact, feel love. He just hadn’t felt love for me .”
Gods. She’d once asked Adham who’d hurt him, imagining a capricious lover. It’d been so much worse.
“Think about it: if my own parents didn’t value me enough to safeguard my soul, then either no one is to be trusted—or I wasn’t worthy of protection as a child.” Looking weary, Adham sank down on the edge of the bed. “Both scenarios are grim.”
“Of course you were worthy.” She eased closer to him. “What they did was horrible. But maybe your father gave back your power so readily because he regretted his actions.”
Adham’s gaze went distant. “I suppose it’s possible.”
“What happened to him?”
“Those he’d crossed when he took over Sorselan learned he was an Inferi once more. They assassinated him and his second family. My half brother was destined to die one way or another. My father should have kept the power and let me kill my brother.”
“But you wouldn’t have.”
“No?”
“No.” Over these days, she’d studied him and probably knew him better than he knew himself. “What did you do with your reclaimed ability?”
“Revenge became my mistress once more. I targeted all those who’d conspired against my father. I could hurt him—no one else should dare to and live. I hunted them in spectacular ways, mistaken for a vengeance deity. Then I took control of the realm. Doing so was child’s play. After a millennium of ruling, I grew bored. I left for other dimensions with sand, seeking a challenge, finding none.”
“And so you meddled with humans, becoming a god to them.”
He shrugged. “Why not? No deities were present. Few other immortals challenged me.”
“Were you happy? If the Gaolers hadn’t targeted you, would you ever have left that life?”
His brows drew together, as if she’d posed a question no one had before. “No, I wasn’t happy. But what else could I work toward? What was my purpose? I think people who are satisfied know something I don’t. They’ve solved a mystery I’ve just scratched the surface of. I want that mystery to be revealed.” He gazed at her face, parting his lips to say more, but then he must’ve thought better of it.
What he called a mystery might be what she called divinity , and maybe they were both right, seeking the same bond—the thrum and glow of alchemy.
At length, he murmured, “I would do a lot of things differently. Starting with never trusting my parents.”
“Is that why you’ve never had children?”
“I have it on good authority that I’d be a horrible father.”
“Who told you that?” She was livid on his behalf.
“No one in particular. Just a consensus over the years. And they weren’t wrong. After my parents’ treachery, I never put another’s needs before my own. I know little about fatherhood, but I believe you must put a child before yourself.”
“I’m so sorry yours didn’t.”
Resentment crossed his expression. “I don’t want your pity. I had enough of that as an . . . an Inferi.” The scars ran so deep that he could barely say the word all these years later. “Which is why I didn’t want to tell you.”
“I’m not pitying you. I’m feeling for you. Your pain has become my own.”
He studied her face, must be searching for a lie—one she could never give him.
Catharsis.
Was bullshit.
Silt had said the words aloud, giving Kosmina what she wanted. For better or worse, he’d acknowledged what had made him the man he was today, and she’d accepted it.
But he didn’t feel any better. A secret like his wasn’t steam to be released from a valve; it was a bruise best left untouched.
Uneasiness rippled through him at this vulnerability. He’d sworn to never again open himself up to the possibility of betrayal—yet he’d just dropped his shield and bowed his chest. Comprehension hit him: if Kosmina betrayed him too, he would not recover. . . .
He reminded her, “Now it’s time for you to keep your end of the bargain. You’re to tell me something you’ve never said to another.”
“Very well.” She held his gaze with unblinking eyes. “Sorcerer, my heart is open to you forever.” Such simple words—accompanied by an innocent caress across his cheek—fucking felled him.
He pulled her closer, inhaling the scent of her hair and relishing her breaths on his marked chest. While he’d been so mired in retribution and then conquest, he hadn’t seen what was right before him—the most remarkable female he’d ever encountered. And he was winning her heart.
Yet nothing was pure. She felt this way because she didn’t know about his latest lie. He’d taken something beautiful—her own trust—and tainted it.
Silt sullied. That was what it always did. What he did. What he would still do.
He stared at that ceiling and knew: I’m no better than my parents.
In time, she drifted off once more, wrapped in his arms. Considering her attack earlier, he remained awake. Drinking from his flesh regularly was the last viable option open to them, with all the risk that entailed.
He’d always envied Kosmina’s focus, but now focus only illuminated a shit situation. Fucked as fucked can be.