Chapter 47 #6
I pictured Kaelros’s throat beneath my hands.
His Shadow inside Maerox. Aurenya crawling toward Neseryn.
Vareena bleeding through Raiden’s fingers.
If I got out of this room, I would kill him.
Not because prophecy demanded it. Not because Alareth needed saving.
Not because Light and Shadow had chosen me for a grand destiny.
I would kill him because he deserved to be afraid before he died.
When the anger finally burned low, Aurenya returned.
My mother had put me into Vare’s arms because I was the child already within reach, then run back into a burning palace for the daughter who wasn’t.
Neseryn. Every time I closed my eyes, I saw a little girl reaching from beneath a table.
Those violet-rimmed eyes. My father’s violet eyes.
The woman who had nearly killed me in the Crucible had once been that child.
Kaelros had taken her from our mother’s body, stripped away the names that would have told the world who she was, given her Vexoria instead, and raised her inside the same darkness that murdered our parents.
Then Neseryn had figured out who I was. And said nothing.
I didn’t know whether I wanted to hate her or hold her.
Then Kieran entered every thought whether I invited him or not. Kaelros had sent him. Kieran had trained me because Kaelros wanted my Shadow cultivated. But Kieran had hidden it from his father. Protected me. Lied for me. Reached through the breach until his fingers slipped in my blood.
Hold on.
Which Kieran was real? The one sent to manipulate me, the one who kissed me, the one who loved me, the one who lied? All of them. That was the answer that hurt.
A presence brushed my mind.
Starborn.
My eyes filled.
Codex.
I am here.
A sob escaped before I could stop it. For once, I was relieved to hear that impossible, infuriating thing.
Tell me Kaelros lied about Kieran.
Silence.
Truth and weapon are not opposites.
My chest tightened.
Did Kieran know?
The Codex hesitated. My eyes closed.
How much?
Enough to wound you.
Did he love me?
Silence.
Answer me.
That truth is not mine.
I wanted to rage at it. Instead I whispered into the dark, “I hate you.”
I know.
Time passed. I stopped knowing how much.
Blood dried beneath the cuffs. My fingers went numb except for sharp bursts of sensation when I moved them, and my shoulder throbbed in time with my pulse.
Every sound beyond the wall made me lift my head.
Footsteps once. Not Kieran. A distant scream later.
Still not him. At first, I counted how long it should take him to reach Umbrael.
Then I remembered I had no idea how far into Umbrael I had been taken.
I counted breaths instead until I stopped counting anything.
Kaelros had known exactly what he was doing when he asked why no one had come. Eventually, the opening in my imagination stopped containing Kieran. That frightened me more than the chains. I rested my forehead against my arm.
“He’s not coming.” The chamber swallowed most of it. I said it again. “He’s not coming.”
The Codex did not answer. For the first time since waking, I stopped looking toward the wall.
That was when the wall shuddered beneath a violent impact. My head snapped up when another followed. The Codex vanished entirely. One instant, the ancient pressure existed somewhere behind my thoughts. The next there was nothing.
Codex?
No answer.
My heart slammed against my ribs. Shadow slid beneath the hidden door.
For one heartbeat, terror seized me. Then I felt the difference.
This was not Kaelros. I knew his Shadow now.
His crawled. This moved like smoke caught in a storm—fast, violent, familiar.
The wall cracked and stone exploded inward.
A guard came through with it and struck the opposite wall hard enough that bone snapped.
His body hit the floor and folded beneath itself.
Shadow poured through the opening, racing across the walls and ceiling before wrapping around the chains above my wrists.
A figure stepped through the dark. Tall and blood-covered. Green-gray eyes found mine. Kieran.
For one second, neither of us moved. His eyes darkened as he took me in. The blood-glass cuffs. The torn Solstice dress. Vareena’s dried blood still covering my hands and arms. The fresh blood beneath the restraints. My right shoulder hanging lower than the left. Then his gaze found my face.
“Menace.”
The word nearly broke me. Because he came.
Because Kaelros had told the truth. Because Kieran had lied.
Because I loved him. Because I wanted to hurt him.
Because some ruined piece of me still wanted him to cross the room and make everything stop hurting even though he was now part of the reason it did.
His Shadow surged around him. Kieran took one step toward me.
I flinched.
He stopped, and the reaction on his face hurt worse than the chains.
I swallowed against blood and grief and everything Kaelros had forced into my head.
“You knew.” His face went still. Shadow swallowed the ruined doorway behind him.
“Kieran.” My voice broke. “You knew.” He did not deny it.
That was the worst answer he could have given me.