36. Thorne
Chapter 36
Thorne
The moon shines brightly in the sky tonight, and there’s not a cloud in sight.
Maybe the heavens wanted to witness the ritual of the Reckoning for themselves. The original Knights believed the gods would look down from Valhalla during this trial and handpick their chosen ones.
I’m standing on the peak of the Saddle Ball Mountains with Caspian and Lucian. The three of us are dressed in our Knights tunics, but we’re wearing a black sash on our shoulders. The mark that’s worn to represent life and death. Apart from the ritual of the Reckoning, it’s also worn by executioners.
The Reckoning represents the true birth of a Knight and the death of the old self.
I put all my worries and the events of the last few days aside to be in top form tonight.
Of the eight pledges who were sent into the rough terrain for tonight’s trial, four stand before me. The four I was confident would succeed from the get-go:
Kade, Dmitri, Logan and Alek.
Tonight they were pitted against the Bratva task force and a pack of ravenous wolves while they attempted to catch two prisoners.
Blood must be spilt in this ritual, so we were given Bratva prisoners who were sentenced to death for murdering an orphanage full of children.
Our pledges retrieved the prisoners, and now they have them bound and gagged at my feet, ready for me to give the final command to complete the mission. To kill.
I look at them—Kade, Dmitri, Logan and Alek—raw-faced and bloodied. I thought my Reckoning in Russia was fucked up, but what I did to them for the last six hours will forever leave a mark.
To me, the other four might have tried, but they didn’t make the cut because they didn’t want it as much as these four did.
Tonight was the only night where no one was assigned to a group, but these four found each other and worked together to make sure they all got here.
Put simply, they understood the assignment of life and death, and it will bond them for the rest of their lives.
The other four are yet to make it back. As they have failed, I am no longer responsible for the condition they return to us, dead or alive.
“ V etu noch' vy stanovites' muzhchinami. Zapechatay yego svoyey zhertvoy ,” I speak in Old Norse, which translates to ‘On this night, you become men. Seal it with your sacrifice .’
I look at Kade, who reminds me so much of myself and stares at me as he slashes the throat of the prisoner at his feet.
Alek has been given the task of killing the second prisoner. The group assigned him with that task, not me. They think they decided this to distribute the tasks evenly, but I know they did it to make sure he’s on par with them. They’ve been a pack for years and have only just accepted him into their fold, so watching him kill will test him.
The group doesn't realize that Alek knows exactly what they’re up to, and he’s potentially more deadly alone than they are together as a group. He’s the kind of man who will do whatever he needs to do to get what he wants.
That’s why he doesn’t just slice his prisoner’s throat from ear to ear the way Kade did. Alek uses the sword on his back and rams it straight through the prisoner's throat. And he does it with a sadistic smile on his face.
“Well done, men.” Caspian steps forward. “You’ve worked hard and I am happy to select the four of you to be part of my elite. From this night onward we are brothers in arms bounded by the Oath. Take the bodies away. I will see you back on campus.”
“Yes, my Lord.” They speak in unison, bowing their heads.
They proceed to take the bodies away, and Caspian, Lucian and I look at each other.
It’s over.
We picked our elite, and now we have the task of being the elite.
“Any thoughts, guys?” Caspian looks from me to Lucian.
“Not from me,” Lucian replies. “I’ll go pack up the stuff.”
“I’ll join you,” I say, falling in step with him.
Lucian wanted to talk about the warning message. He has a contact from Markov Tech checking it out. They’re a company within our alliance. I might have given Levgen everything to investigate himself, but that doesn’t stop me from finding out where that message came from.
“Actually, cousin, I’d like a word,” Caspian calls out to me.
I stop in my tracks. Lucian glances back at me, offering a look of support. We both knew Caspian would want to speak to me at some point. I’ve been dodging him for days.
It was three days ago that the incident occurred. Prior to that, I’d seen him just after Ivy and I got back together. That’s a long absence for us.
I turn back to face him.
His expression is stern with that no-nonsense look he sports when he knows I’m keeping something from him.
It’s particularly bad tonight because I’ve never kept anything from him for this long.
“Hey, what’s going on?” I try to make my voice sound like my usual jovial self. The carefree guy who thought he had the world at his fingertips.
“How about you tell me?”
“Nothing to tell.”
“Don’t insult me with that bullshit.” His voice rises and his face hardens, showing the depth of his frustration. “Thorne, I take you for a brother. You and I have been closer than I was with Zak.”
His words are like a punch to my gut and I feel like shit. Because he’s right.
Zak was his older brother. When he was alive he was the best brother anyone could ask for, but he and Caspian never shared the closeness that we have.
“You haven’t been the same since you’ve been with Ivy. I know something's going on with you and I wish to God you would tell me.”
I stare back at him, wanting to share it all with him, but everything goes back to keeping Ivy’s secret.
It’s not that I don’t trust him, but it’s not as simple as that.
“There is something going on.” I swallow past the rocks in my throat.
“What is it?”
“I can’t tell you right now.”
His brows snap together. “What the fuck does that mean?”
“It means what I said. I can’t tell you right now.”
“But—”
“Caspian. There are some things I can’t give you, and I’m asking you to trust me to tell you when I can. Please. Do this for me. I swear to you, on the Oath, that I will tell you the first chance I get.”
He sets his shoulders back, lifts his chin, and stares me down like he’s going to fight, but then his jaw loosens and he nods. It’s with reluctance, but he nods.
“By the Oath, you swear.”
“By the Oath, I swear.”
“I’ll remember that. I’m not happy about it, though.”
“I know.”
We walk back to the cars in silence and pack up our stuff before we head back to campus.
It’s only nine. Not that the time matters these days. But now that I’m by myself, I think of Ivy.
Today was the first since she left the hospital that I didn’t see her.
I wanted to give her parents a break from me. Her mother in particular is very uncomfortable around me.
I’d head to the Verge and get a drink, but I can’t bear it tonight. I’d either have some girl trying to rub her tits in my face, or I’d run into the new elite partying.
My phone rings, piercing through the silence of my apartment.
It’s Lucian.
We didn’t get to talk earlier because Caspian was around. I tried calling him when I first got back but his phone was switched off, so I sent him a text.
I grab my phone from the coffee table and answer. “Hey, man.”
“Where are you?” There’s a serious edge to his voice that piques my attention.
“My apartment. What’s going on?”
“I found a whole bunch of stuff for you. It’s…not good, Thorne. None of it.”
My scalp tightens with the trepidation of what he could have found. “What did you find, Lucian?”
“Answers to everything. It’s Levgen, Thorne. The message came from him. But he’s behind it all, and he might have put Ivy and her mother in danger. He was the one who hired the scar-faced man for both attacks. He had your family killed.”