Chapter 46
KIT
NEXARIUM
She awakens suddenly, sitting bolt upright as her eyes adjust to the dim room.
There are two torches on the wall, a small sink in the corner, a glass door to her left that is sealed shut.
She can’t see much outside of it, save the reflection of other glass doors, the silhouette of a person across the hall.
She’s on a hard, stone table, manacles around her wrists.
Where is she? She frantically sorts through her memories, trying to remember the last place she was, how she ended up in what appears to be a prison cell.
Her neck aches, her body is sore, and she considers shouting for help, but assumes from the manacles around her wrists there isn’t help coming.
And that’s when it slams into her, a weight so heavy she can barely breathe. Task. She remembers his voice saying I’m sorry as he plunged a syringe into her neck.
He must have brought her here, wherever here is. Her eyes prick with tears, and she pinches the inside of her hand. She won’t cry. She will figure out where she is, and she will figure out some kind of plan.
Somehow.
Her magic is useless right now, with the arthcranite manacles on her wrists, and even if she could wield it, she’d need to get close enough to somebody to touch. And who knew how many people she’d have to get through?
The door rattles, and she looks up, startled as the glass panel slides back and Task is there.
His face is completely blank as he looks at her, as if nothing had ever passed between them at all.
Her heart feels like it’s been flattened, but there must be a reason for this.
He must be able to explain to her where she is, what’s happened.
“Task,” she says, her voice raspy and shaking. “Where am I?”
He turns, making sure the door has sealed shut behind him before he speaks. His voice is hard, stoic. “Xaria. House Dormius’ compound on Nexarium.”
She processes this. She was on the Polaris yesterday, but now she’s here.
They must have shuttled her here overnight, and the Luminaries will realize she’s missing shortly.
Surely they’ll try to find her, to figure out what happened to her.
She left her notes behind, a few vials of her blood, but she’s still important to the cure, unless they can find another Vitalis to supplement the production of the serum.
“Did you bring me here?” Kit asks, trying to keep her voice even as she attempts to make sense of this.
Task nods his head, once. “We’re in need of a Vitalis on Nexarium.”
“You didn’t think to ask me whether I’d help you? You decided that drugging me and taking me in the middle of the night was a better solution?”
Task is silent. Rage burns through Kit and she wants to hit him, throw something at him, bang his head against the glass door.
She trusted him, loved him, and he didn’t even consider that she would have helped him.
“Was this always your plan?” Her voice cracks on the question, hurt creeping through.
“Draven gave me orders before I ever met you,” Task replies, careful to keep his expression neutral. “The Fever…complicated things.”
Kit snorts, thinking that is a supreme understatement.
She feels at a loss for words, so settles only on, “I can’t believe you.
I trusted you.” She stares at Task, her gaze unflinching, taking in the man she thought she knew.
Disbelief wraps itself like a rope around her heart, pulling taut until she feels herself gasping for air.
Task sighs, looking up at the ceiling. “I told you not to. That there were things I couldn’t tell you.” He swallows, Adam’s apple bobbing in his throat.
“Then why didn’t you stop it?” Kit cries, and now she feels the tears spilling over, the anger and hurt rushing through her blood. How could she have been so wrong about him, so utterly blind to it all?
Task steps towards her, his face softening. His lips quirk, sadly, as he says, “Because I’m selfish.”
Task
Nexarium
There was never a world in which he could have both.
He was always going to have to choose between Draven and Kit.
And seeing her here now, in this cell, he feels pain like he’s never felt before.
Nothing like the agony he takes in from people when he assassinates them; this is a laceration deep in his soul, a wound he doesn’t think he will ever be able to stitch up again.
He’s here because Draven needs to begin the process of recharging his lifeblood.
He’d intended to avoid speaking to her, to simply bring her from the cell to Draven’s chambers, but as soon as he saw her, the anguish in her face, he couldn’t help himself.
He had to try to explain to her, to make her understand why he’d done it.
And she has a point. He didn’t ask her if she’d come, had abandoned that idea early on the more deeply he became acquainted with her. She would never leave her family behind, her friends, and more importantly Lumaria, just to save Draven’s life. It would be sacrificing one planet for another.
“I loved you,” Kit says, softly, tears glistening on her cheeks. Task wants to hold her, to wipe them away, but he keeps himself back. He stands against the wall as far from her as possible, trying to ignore the pain that flares at the way she says those words in the past tense.
He tries to remember that bringing her here will save Draven, will restore order to Nexarium, and ultimately, benefit the Consortium.
Draven had signed the Binding papers, Task standing next to him in his office, and the official heirship ceremony was set for next week.
The Council would pledge itself to Task in the event of Draven’s demise, seal his fate in the way he’d always hoped for.
This was what he’d wanted, what he’d worked for his entire life.
And this is what Kit’s mother had done before she escaped; Kit is merely continuing her legacy.
But it all feels different now that he knows her, that he loves her, that he’s seen what his life could be like with her. The heirship is an albatross around his neck, no longer the coveted thing it had been.
He clenches his fists at his sides, trying to avoid looking directly at her. He swallows thickly. “We need to go.”
“I loved you,” Kit says again, more to herself than to him. The words are like daggers to his heart, and he’s across the room, taking her face in his hands, running his thumb across her cheekbone.
She flinches away from him, her voice catching on a sob. “Don’t touch me.” He drops his hands, stepping back from her, feeling like he’s been punched in the stomach.
“I’m so sorry, Kit,” Task rasps. “Please.” He wants to get on his knees and beg her. He doesn’t know how this will ever end up right, is certain he’s delusional for thinking there’s any way to salvage this, but he doesn’t want her to hate him. It can’t all end like this. “Please.”
“What do you want me to say?” Her voice is unsteady, tears still pouring down her face. She wipes them with the back of one of her manacled hands.
He wants her forgiveness. For her to say she still loves him.
That she understands. He knows that’s not what he’ll get, but he wants it nonetheless.
Instead, he says the only thing he knows to be true, the thing that doesn’t matter, that can’t matter.
The thing that has ruined him so completely.
“I love you, Kit,” he says, quietly, closing his eyes.
“If you loved me, you wouldn’t have done this to me.” She sobs freely now, hair escaping the knot at the base of her neck, sticking to the tears running down her cheeks.
“Kit,” he sighs, pushing both hands through his icy blonde hair. “You’ll understand, okay? Try to understand.”
“Understand?” Kit lets out a hard laugh, her voice choked. “What is there to understand?”
Task looks at his Chronogram, sees the time. They need to get moving, or Draven will send someone for him. Someone less gentle, who won’t see Kit as a person, just as a tool. He hardens his heart, slides the stone mask over his face again.
“We need to go.”
“Go where?” Her voice is hoarse, and she looks small in this giant cell. Fragile. He wants to take her in his arms, save her from this fate, but he can’t.
“To my uncle.”