Chapter 72 #3
“Yes, the place where our people thrive,” Serguei said anxiously.
“Two years later, when you were weaned, your mother decided it was time to bring all our people into her city.
She came back to tell me and to find the stone the red king had spoken of.
But when she arrived in the city, her old squadron carried out the plan the Drutes king had devised to capture her.
He was furious—he wanted her dead and the stone back.
From here, you know what happened: the squadron killed Elaizer and made it look like Ravena did it.
I killed your mother, but I couldn't follow her into death, because her last request was that I take care of you.
She loved you so much that she placed that request in my mind, knowing I would have died that night too.
So I left Ravena's body in the cavern and went back to tell the king I'd fulfilled the agreement.
I needed to get our people out of the city before Elitium started killing indiscriminately.
And I did. I saved everyone and stayed within the walls to honor the agreement and serve as the king's Pillar. That night, I returned to the tunnels to retrieve her body and bury it somewhere proper, but something monstrous interrupted me.”
“And this is where the lines of destiny crossed,” Julius said.
“The presence tried to enter my mind, but I repelled it easily.
It had Ravena's gift, but it was weak and untrained.
The voice I heard asked me about the stones that had been there before, and I asked who it was.
I felt it analyzing every part of my gift, probing the depths of who it had found, just as I was doing with it.
Then it withdrew and said it wasn't ready for me, but one day it would return to reclaim what I had stolen.”
“And has she ever tried to get the stones back?” Zion asked, curious.
“Not yet,” the psychic whispered, so quietly that the general only heard him because his hearing was sharper than normal.
“And Ravena?”
“When I reached the cavern, there was no body to bury.” He looked at his clasped hands, his heart racing as he relived all the despair he'd felt.
“That was when the reality of everything crashed down on me.
Ravena's death. Our people in the forests.
A blood agreement on my shoulders. Your birth in the midst of all those deaths.
I don't remember what I did when I left the tunnels.
The only thing driving me forward was vengeance against everyone involved in the anti-Drutes movement.
Exterminating them one by one until the walls were safe, until you were safe from them.
I must have spent the entire night hunting and only came back to reality when not a single person involved in the deaths of the Drutes children remained.
I killed ten thousand five hundred people, and Elitium couldn't punish me because it fell under the Law of Succession.
Every one of them had our people's blood on their hands. But after my revenge, he ordered me never to take another life.”
Zion sighed. It was an epic tale, even more tragic than he'd imagined.
He had racked his brain trying to understand why Elitium hadn't killed the psychic when he was slaughtering people like insects.
Zion had suspected the king spared him because his gift was too powerful to discard, but here was the truth: Serguei couldn't be judged.
Still, that wasn't everything. One more point needed clarification.
“Why did you erase Kyller's memories?”
“That had nothing to do with my ego, Zion.” Serguei slid his hand over his face, trying to compose himself.
“I erased them because she wouldn't have been able to recover from that trauma on her own.
You would have lost your partner in the first year if she'd lived with those memories.
There are wounds that time can never heal, especially wounds that deep.
If I hadn't done it, the medical psychic would have.
Then we'd have had a problem with the king if he saw Ravena's face in those memories or learned, through the girl's mind, that a general was helping Lagherta rescue and protect Drutes descendants.”
“I saw that future with my own eyes. He's not lying, boy,” the Sonar confirmed.
“What happened to the other leaders? Lea, Amenadiel, Luanda?”
“Killed by Elitium. Every one of them.” Julius stared into Serguei's eyes, and the psychic held his gaze.
“But watching them die wasn't the worst part,” Serguei said, wiping his face to hide the tears.
“The worst part was knowing it was my fault.
I could have saved everyone if I'd listened to your mother.
I was stubborn, bet on a future that didn't exist, and lost everything. There's no place for any of us here.”
Zion couldn't block his power as that second, suffocating gift swelled within him, taking on a life of its own and stretching invisible arms toward Serguei.
The psychic's pain hit him full force, making him squeeze his eyes shut to bear the visceral stab in his heart.
It was a putrid, hungry pain, cultivated over years, that still carried the taste he remembered from childhood: rotten fruit under the sun.
“Why didn't you tell me this whole story before?” he asked, his voice pained.
Serguei trembled, unable to meet his eyes. Sitting there, he seemed so small, his heart laid bare in his open chest.
“How could I?” A tear dripped onto the carpet. “You're the only thing I have left, Zion. How could I taint the only good part of my life? This mistake is mine. I thought I could fix it without involving you. Once again, I was wrong.”
The general paced the room. He stopped and opened his mouth to speak, then closed it and resumed pacing.
“I don’t understand.”
He stopped in front of the psychic. Once again, they stood face to face, and Zion was still the ten-year-old boy afraid of what his father might say.
“I didn’t want it to be like this.”
“Then what did you want?” the general asked, his voice anguished.
“I don’t know!” Serguei shouted, losing his composure.
Zion flinched. “You were the only thing left of her, the only piece of her that remained. I wanted to make you a better man than I ever was, but I didn’t know how to handle it—didn’t know how to handle the past. I was afraid to tell you and have you pull away, afraid you’d leave me once you knew what happened.
Afraid you’d abandon me, just like Ravena did.
Hatred seemed like a better path than indifference, and I let us go on that way. ”
Now the tears were flowing, and Serguei couldn’t contain the flood.
Zion was speechless. He didn’t even know where to begin sorting through the mess of his feelings.
This wasn’t the cold man who had taught him that feelings were weaknesses.
He looked at the psychic and tried to fit this new perspective into all his childhood memories, but none of it made sense.
He took a deep breath, ready to put his emotions into words.
But a groan of pain echoed through the room, cutting off his train of thought.
The three men looked at Kyller, who was trembling under the blanket.
A tear of blood dripped onto the wooden floor as the Sonar announced:
“It’s begun.”