I laugh bitterly. “Father was never proud. Of all the emotions foreign to him, that one he understood least.”
“He was a terrible father,” Remus agrees with characteristic lightness, “but he made us great.”
“Great?” The word tastes like ash. “He created us and despised us in the same breath. Used us like dogs, then put us down when we were no longer useful. We all watched him murder Layden right in front of us, like it was a lesson.”
“I’ve seen humans with their dogs,” Thing says softly. “I don’t think we were thought of so highly.”
The truth of it cuts deep, but Remus just laughs. “You think you’re so much better? The second you had the chance, you did the same thing to us. You chained us like animals for two hundred years. At least with Father, we were free to wander and... feed our appetites.”
“Your appetite for war and destruction?” I snarl. “Would there be anything left of this world if I’d let you continue your bloodlust?”
“You forget,” Remus says, his smile turning razor-sharp, “you weren’t my only jailer.”
“Then take up your disputes with your twin.” I narrow my eyes at him. “He voluntarily walked into that basement to save the world from the both of you.”
For a moment, pure rage replaces Remus’s cultured mask. If there’s anyone he hates more than me, it’s Romulus, the other half of his soul and the conjoined twin whose face sleeps at the back of his head. The tactician to Remus’s madman, Romulus is the conscience he never wanted.
They worked as one for centuries, an unstoppable war machine. One always slept while the other was awake. Until Romulus turned against his twin and helped me forge those hell-metal chains.
“What will you do now, brother?” Thing asks, breaking the tense silence. “You have a consort and kit to think of.”
What will I do?
The answer should be simple, but Thing’s calm rationality after two centuries of mindless snarling throws me off balance. “I will do as I have always done.”
Thing shakes his head, and I swear I see disappointment in those red eyes. “You must go gently with your consort. She is small, and humans are easily damaged. Plus, she now carries your kit—the hope of a future for all of us. If you cannot learn gentleness, you will not be allowed near her.”
Behind him, Remus rubs his hands together in anticipation of violence.
The old rage flares, demanding I put Thing in his place. “I would never hurt my consort!”
“Perhaps,” Thing says gravely, “that is what Creator-Father thought as well. And yet we all know how that ended.”
His words slice through me like a hell-metal blade, cutting off my protests before they can form.
Ah. Yes.
The thing we never speak of. The reason our family was shattered beyond repair that day in Moscow, when the city burned and Father’s true nature was finally revealed completely.
Our youngest brother, Layden—beautiful, tortured Famine—had connected with Father’s consort in ways none of us understood. She’d been the gentle presence we’d never known, the mother figure our creator had never provided.
Then Father lost his temper, as he always did...
And we came home from the blood-soaked Moscow streets to find her broken body at the bottom of the stairs, Father commanding us to “clean up the mess”...
Layden snapped.
He attacked our Creator with the fury of true grief, but he was built for widespread destruction, not close combat. Father toyed with him, slicing off his magnificent wings and pouring molten hell-metal over the wounds so they’d never heal and re-grow.
Even then, we thought it would end there.
But when Layden kept calling him a murderer, kept demanding justice for the woman who’d shown us kindness...
Father drove a hell-metal sword through our brother’s too-soft heart.
While we stood frozen. Watching.
Doing nothing as our brother died.
