Chapter 6
CHAPTER SIX
ARKEN
As Kieran began to expand upon our little arcane puppet show, crafting a variety of shapes and figures out of Shadow to come play with my Light, I felt a wave of gooseflesh rising across my skin.
As my golden tendrils softly sparkled overhead in wisps and swirls, the spires of his Shadow seemed to taunt and tease, his arcana encircling mine in a sort of whimsical waltz.
I used to play like this as a child, locked away and comfortably alone in the darkness of my room, whispering to myself, dreaming up tales of adventure.
I had crafted my little toys out of more than just Light—but I didn’t want to think about that right now.
Kieran’s steady hand had pulled me out of the dark, dismal place where I kept my most dangerous secrets hidden, and I had no intention of going back there.
Not when his Shadows made my body react like…this.
The urge to misbehave was rising with every passing second, but truth be told, my body was exhausted.
I hadn’t had a panic attack in quite some time and had nearly forgotten just how much that piercing fear could wring out of me.
I was certain this sudden onset of enervation had nothing to do with the fact that Kieran and I had spent the entire day fucking across every spare surface of his townhouse, though. No, certainly not.
After another few minutes of our silent, playful puppetry, I turned on one side to face him, planting my elbow against the mattress to prop up my head.
“Tell me something I don’t know about you yet,” I requested, testing my luck.
Some days, I felt as though I knew Kieran like the back of my hand.
I had studied the man with the same degree of affectionate fascination I accorded all my favorite texts and faerie tales.
I memorized every detail, every tendency, making note of all his patterns, all his quirks.
And yet sometimes, a certain heaviness would pass through his expression, something utterly indecipherable glazing over his eyes when he thought I wasn’t watching him…
and I found myself questioning if I really knew anything at all about this man.
“I think you know me better than anyone, Little Conduit,” Kieran murmured, turning to mirror my position.
A touch of darkness was forming in circles beneath his glacial gaze, the comforting rasp of his voice deepening the more exhaustion weighed upon him, too.
“Like, legitimately. I’ve never been this close to… well, anyone.”
I felt a pleasurable flutter in my belly, beating with the gentle chaos of a million moth’s wings. I had known that much—he made it apparent I was an exception, but there was something about hearing him say it…
“Surely, there’s got to be something,” I teased, batting my lashes and offering a coy grin. “Come on, now, Captain.”
“Anything?”
“Anything.”
“Thirteen is my favorite number. My lucky number, if you will,” Kieran said softly, eyes a bit distant.
“I hate to break it to you, Vistarii, but I did, in fact, already know this. Yet another thing we have in common, remember?”
“I wasn’t finished, you impatient little menace.” He chuckled, flicking the tip of my nose. “I was about to tell you why.”
My eyes widened, and I pressed my lips shut firmly to avoid any further interruption. He laughed again, rolling his eyes at my dramatics before flopping on his back again, gazing up at the ceiling.
“If you recall, I told you I had a rough childhood, but things improved when I was taken in—informally adopted by another family.”
There was something slightly detached in his tone of voice, something almost…
conflicted. I nodded along, not wanting to press.
Insight into Kieran’s past, freely given, was a rare thing—and though I was starved for it, I would give him the space he needed to sort through what he was willing to reveal for now.
“They took me in when I was eleven,” Kieran explained.
“And the first several years with them were…challenging. Moreso for them, I realize now, but it was difficult for me to learn how to live among them. Being around them was a very, very different experience from my early upbringing. Better, of course. So much better. They were welcoming, kind, educated, and empathetic…Meanwhile, I was…”
He trailed off, tilting his head, measuring the words before they left his mouth.
“I was a little fucked up, truth be told. For the first year or so, I didn’t speak. Not to my father, not to the staff…what little I said during that time was always reserved for Vi—” he coughed, the last word coming out too garbled for me to catch. “For my adoptive father’s son. My older brother.”
The brother he doesn’t speak to, I recalled, though they had been close for many years. The only family he has left.
“I hated him at first,” Kieran confessed.
“My brother, that is. I think I envied the attention he received from…Well, basically everyone. He was Silas’ first and only natural-born son, and deeply beloved by everyone within the estate.
And they all treated me with kindness, made efforts to be fair and equitable to us both, but…
I don’t know. I was just a fucked-up kid, afraid my brother’s extreme importance in the world meant that mine was non-existent.
His brilliance made me feel disposable, and the ease with which he moved through life made me feel like a burden.
Oh. I felt the tip of my nose prickle, relating a little too heavily to that last bit.
“He was fuckin’ stubborn, though. Dead set on figuring me out.
I think I was almost like a puzzle to him—and not in a bad way.
He was just…exceptionally smart. Even at thirteen, he had the sharpest of minds.
You may be the only other person I’ve met who is quite so clever.
My obnoxiously intelligent brother had never met a problem he couldn’t solve until the day I darkened their doorstep, and he was Hel-bent on figuring out the fix—the secret key to befriending me. ”
Thirteen. So, fairly close in age. Only a couple years older, I noted.
“It took him two years. I’m sure that sounds like a long time, but all things considered, I’m impressed.
Because even I didn’t know what the ‘key’ was.
It’s not like I was waiting for him to pass some kind of test, I think I was just slowly warming up to them all over time.
Very, very slowly, much to their chagrin. ”
Kieran paused, closing his eyes for a moment. I watched that little bump of cartilage in his throat bob as he swallowed hard.
I didn’t quite understand why he had chosen this, of all things, to share with me tonight.
I would have been pleased with any small tidbit, happily lapped up whatever minor revelation he might have wanted to share.
I would have taken the tiniest glimpse of anything, but this?
Fates, this felt so heavy. But I was honored to bear the burden with him, because this story ran deep for Kieran.
I could hear it in his voice. These memories… they ran deeper than blood.
Maybe that was why he needed to share them.
The weight of our memories never seemed to fade in silence.
Solitude, however sweet, only ever seemed to amplify that which haunted people like us, the void of absence attracting all of our ghosts, inviting them in until they took up residence in the deepest recesses of our hearts.
Thank you for inviting me in instead, I said silently, not wanting to interrupt, but willing the sentiment in his general direction all the same. This means more to me than you know.
Kieran cleared his throat before continuing.
“In retrospect, everyone in that house had the patience of a saint, but…I digress. The family was big on events, always hosting something. Balls, banquets, soirees…there was always something to celebrate. But for whatever reason, Silas had always seen our name days as a closer, more private family affair. Now, as I mentioned, for those first couple years, I barely spoke. That included refusing to answer, no matter how many times Emma, the cook, would cluck about asking when I was born. Even if I had been talking with any manner of frequency at that point, I don’t think I would have told them…
the event of my birth wasn’t something I was taught to celebrate. Not until I was worthy.”
Worthy? Fucking Fates, he was just a child.
So much of Kieran’s story was leaving me with more questions than answers, but again, I held my tongue. We had broken plenty of rules as of late, but this one remained sacred. A boundary I wouldn’t dare to cross. Kieran kept his secrets, as I kept mine.
Still, I felt a trickle of rage slip into my bloodstream, fury over what must have come before Kieran found this new family. What could leave a boy so traumatized that he could barely speak? For years?
“But when I say I’m very observant, I learned from the best. My older brother had eyes like a hawk, and he noticed that for two years straight, I would disappear from my bed on a specific night in late October, and I wouldn’t return until the next night.
I didn’t do anything special. I’d just wander the woods all day long.
For some reason, I’d often find myself returning to the place where they’d found me in the forest… I couldn’t tell you why.”
The image of a young boy with ice blue eyes and raven-black hair, wandering alone in the woods, made my chest tighten. Oh, Kier…
“And so, the next year—the year I turned thirteen—my brother found me in the woods. He’d been waiting for me in the clearing, actually.
With the help of his father’s guards, he had managed to set up a series of straw-stuffed striking dummies in the middle of the forest, and he handed me a shortsword with a stupid little green bow wrapped around the scabbard.
He said, ‘Happy Birthday, Kieran,’ with total confidence.
Like he was dead certain he wasn’t wrong…
because, well, he wasn’t. I was born on October twenty-seventh. ”
I frowned, realizing the date had already come and gone this year.
“Don’t start with me, Little Conduit,” Kieran chuckled. “You can make it up to me next year. Besides, it’s not like we celebrated yours at the end of last February, either, right?”
“How did you find—”
“By abusing my privileges and access to private student records, obviously,” he interrupted, rolling his eyes.
Damn. Even Laurel and Sia hadn’t managed to get that one out of me yet. I also wasn’t particularly big on celebrating my birthday, but I had…other reasons for that.
“My older brother’s gift that year wasn’t just the sword—it was forcing me to train with him.
All godsdamned day. He ran my ass ragged with drills, instructing me on how to wield that blade, teaching me the rules of engagement in a duel, and showing me how to defend myself against a certain style of attack.
Through what must have been tedious amounts of observation, my brother had finally figured out how to speak to me in a language I understood. ”
I burned with curiosity, desperate to understand why bloodshed had been Kieran’s native tongue ever since he was a boy.
It didn’t bother me, not in the ways it probably should have.
That protective fury still simmered in the background, yes.
The anger I felt toward those faceless figures in my mind, the ones who had failed to protect Kieran’s innocence… That still burned quietly from within.
But the fact that violence was a language Kieran still spoke with perfect fluency? I had never shied away from that part of him. If anything, I had been drawn in by such dangerous ferocity…his predatory grace.
My eyelids grew heavier and heavier as the night wore on, though I urged myself to stay awake, lest he have any more revelations from his past.
“I started talking that day. When we returned to the estate, it was the first time I ever thanked my father for taking me in. I don’t think…
” Kieran paused to swallow hard. “I don’t think I’ll ever forget the look on his face, or the way my father pulled me into his arms with tears in his eyes.
Life got…so much better after that day. So much easier.
Everything changed the day I turned thirteen. ”
His voice was thick with both emotion and exhaustion. “So…Yeah. That’s the embarrassingly soft reason why thirteen is my favorite number. And let the record state that if you share that with anyone else, namely Jeremiah or Hans, I will be forced to kill you.”
His tone was so clearly teasing that I didn’t even bother to roll my eyes. I just gazed back at him with sleepy eyes and a soft smile. “Thank you, Kieran.”
“You’re welcome,” he murmured. “But naturally, Asher, you know I have to ask…”
I tilted my head, curious.
“Why is it your favorite number?”
I shook my head before stretching my arms above my head, failing to suppress a yawn before rolling over. I nestled myself comfortably into his arms, pressing a kiss against his bare chest.
“That’s a story for another day, Captain,” I whispered.