Sighing like we're ruining all her fun, Maven stabs the blunt knife into the thigh of Fake Maven as she turns to face us. The changeling wails and shrieks about the pain, but Maven ignores it as she blows a strand of dark hair out of her face, as perfectly composed as ever.
"Fine. If you must know, I was taken to the Nether when I was little. But I wasn't the only one. Thirteen human children were brought there to be raised to…compete."
"Compete for what?" I ask.
"The chance to become thetelum. Amadeus's chosen weapon."
Silas frowns, setting the sword aside. "Amadeus?"
Maven looks away. "You know him as the Entity. Although he made me address him as Father."
I stare at her.
And stare.
But it doesn't sink in, so I continue to gawk. The Entity. As in…the living world's literal worst enemy.
"Holy fucking shit. So when you told me you were adopted, you meant by the literal king of the Undead? The same asshole that the original monsters rebelled against over a thousand years ago when they escaped the Nether?That'sthe guy who raised you?"
"More or less. Still want me as your keeper?"
Silas is in an equally useless level of stupefaction, so it's up to me to cough out, "And…what about thisGideon?"
"He was another one of the kids there. We were each kept separate and isolated as we were trained for years.Necromancers ran tests and experiments on each of us to determine the strongest. I was ten years old the first time they finally allowed us to mingle. I stupidly thought it was so we could finally socialize and make friends, but I realized the real goal when one of the other kids tried to drown me."
I wince. What the hell? She was fuckingten.
Maven's expression turns equally wistful and bitter. "Gideon saved me. He was the oldest kid taken from the mortal realm and decided to take me under his wing, so to speak. We all knew we were rivals since Amadeus made it clear that only one of us would survive to be his weapon. But he also started to make it clear that he favored me. As you can imagine, the other children didn't like that."
"Gideon didn't like that, either," Silas surmises, his face dark with anger.
She hesitates as if she doesn't want to share this next part. I'm tempted to pull her into my arms, soothe her, and tell her she doesn't need to talk about this. Even though she's trying to keep her face neutral, she clearly hates talking about all of this.
But I need to know.
"I cared for Gideon and had no idea he harbored resentment for me. Years later, when he claimed he was in love with me and began imploring me for affection in secret, I let my guard down. It wasn't love of any kind, and by that point, they'd already been conditioning me against physical touch for years. But everything Gideon told me about intimacy made me…curious. I just wanted to know what it was like."
Maven clears her throat and looks away, trying to hide the moisture in her eyes. "I didn't even feel human anymore. I needed to feel something.Anything. Gideon finally wore me down, and I gave in."
"And then he wrung your pathetic neck," the changeling taunts.
I ball up my fists, trying to steady my breathing. I want to kill that bitch for mocking my mate's horrifying tale—but any sudden movement right now, and I might lose it and shift.
Maven rubs her arm, still not meeting our eyes. "Yes. I woke up when he was trying to strangle me. I could have killed him right there if I'd tried, but I just…didn't try. I was too shocked. And then Amadeus broke down the door and dragged us both out to his throne room. He rarely exhibits emotion, but he was outraged. His chief necromancer had strict rules that I wasn't to be touched by anyone under any circumstances. So to find me in that state…"
She grimaces. "In defense of himself, Gideon accused me of being too soft-hearted to ever be thetelum. He said only one of us could make it, and he was giving me a merciful death instead of letting them break me like they broke the others. He must have thought Amadeus would be impressed by his ruthlessness. Instead, it gaveFatherthe bright idea to rip out my 'soft' heart and replace it with something more befitting of his chosen weapon. But first, he made me watch the Undead tear Gideon apart. We were the last two survivors of the kids taken from the mortal world, so I became thetelum."
She quickly swipes away a tear before it can roll over her cheek.
Oh, gods.
I don't even know what to say. I knew Maven's past was dark, but…that?My stomach churns as I realize that my tight-lipped mate is probably leaving out plenty of other horrors I don't want to even imagine.
"Sangfluir,"Silas whispers hoarsely.
I watch as Maven forces her poker face back on. It's like she can't stand shedding a tear in front of us. But then, with a hellish background like that, there's no way she ever felt safe enough to be vulnerable about her feelings.
"There, you got some answers. Don't bring that part of my past up again. And you." She turns back to the changeling, which has been slowly working on getting its fingers to move to its command. "I'll only ask one more time. Where. Is. Kenzie?"
