“Is it a well-known story on Vitality?”
Kel was pretty certain it was. “You know my father?”
“The guy who literally just passed the crown onto your sister a couple of weeks ago?” he drawled. “No. Never heard of him.”
“Cute.” It actually kind of was. Very few people dared get sarcastic with Kelevra, but even from the beginning, Rin hadn’t been afraid to. “When I was six, he did something that pissed a few people off—don’t ask me what, I don’t remember. I was too young to care about politics at the time, and I haven’t been told since, most likely because I’ve never shown an interest in knowing. The why doesn’t matter, in any case, only what came next.”
He didn’t think of that time often, and for a moment he paused to collect his thoughts, trying to decide what details were and weren’t important. “I was kidnapped on the way to school by my driver. He was trusted by the family, on payroll even before I was born, and had once driven Lyra to school like he was responsible for doing with me and my little brother.”
“Wait,” Rin stopped him, “your what?”
Kelevra shrugged. “He’s not spoken about.”
Aside from the anniversary of his death, his name was practically taboo. It should probably bother him, but he could hardly even recall the kid's face now after so much time had passed.
“He’s…dead?” Rin asked.
He nodded.
“I didn’t know,” Rin murmured.
“Don’t, Flower.” He gave him a soft smile. “We weren’t like you and your brother. It’s no great loss.”
“That’s only because you were never given the chance for it to become that.”
Kel pursed his lips, finding he didn’t like thinking of it that way, and continued with his story to avoid delving any deeper into the why of that. “Our driver took us to an office building a city over, a seedier location we were unfamiliar with. My brother, Kaiden, cried as soon as he realized we weren’t going to make it to school. He had a presentation in his art class he’d been excited about. Something about the planetary alignment in the galaxy if I remember correctly.”
If he really tried, he could almost picture the Styrofoam diorama Kaiden had spent the weekend putting together with their sisters.
“What about you?” Rin’s voice broke through his thoughts. “How did you feel?”
“Afraid,” he replied. “It was the last time I ever felt anything like that. Real fear. We were there for a few days before we were discovered. Baikal’s father had helped track us down and the Royal cavalry swooped in like damn idiots, blasters blazing. Our kidnappers—Mr. Juy, our driver, and two other guys I don’t know the names of—barely spoke to us the days we were there, so we had no clue what was going on or why we were being held at all.”
“Money?” Rin guessed.
“Enough for them to hop off the planet and disappear,” he confirmed. “My father refused to give it and they’d been in negotiations all that while. Earlier that morning, they’d threatened to cut my brother’s fingers off on camera as an incentive for him to hurry up and concede, but I stepped forward instead.” He’d wanted to protect Kaiden…Like a fool.
“You loved him,” Rin sounded awed by that realization.
“I suppose.” He shrugged. “Maybe. Maybe I was simply trying to play the hero. A dumb six-year-old kid, looking out for his little brother like he’d always been instructed to do. Anyway, I was known for my looks even back then. Not in a creepy way, but in a doting way. Everyone constantly talked about how I would grow up to outshine both my sisters and my father in the looks department. That was why they did it. They made sure I knew before it happened. Mr. Juy, the guy I’d grown up with, the guy I’d trusted, whipped out a blade and slashed me across the face faster than I could realize what was coming. The eye was gone before I even knew there was pain.”
And there’d been a lot of it. He’d screamed in agony and dropped to the concrete ground, clutching at his face, rolling around as the pain tore through him.
“My father’s men arrived a couple of hours later, storming the place. They killed his two accomplices, but Mr. Juy had been with us at the time and heard them coming. He slit Kaiden’s throat right in front of me before he tried to kill himself. He cut, but he must have been too big of a coward to take his own life. It wasn’t nearly deep enough. He was captured and made to wish it had been. I was rushed to the hospital, and the last thing I saw in that room was my brother’s corpse lying in a pool of his own blood on the ground. There was a funeral, but I hardly recall.”
“Kelevra…” Rin shook his head, clearly at a loss for words. A rarity for him.
“Don’t feel bad,” he told him. “They had the replacement eye created and implanted within six months, and I actually prefer it. I came back different, and they realized it early on, but the damage was already done and they all knew it. Who I am today is the version of myself I am most familiar with. I like who I am. I accept who I am. That day may have been the catalyst, but who cares? It happened, it’s over, and there’s no changing the past, even if I wanted to.”
Why should he though? Kel was awesome. He had everything the Emperor did just without any of the responsibility. His remaining siblings doted on him, and his father had always treated him like a prized possession after he’d been the only son to return.
He bent over as if to divulge some great secret, wanting to lighten the mood even though he’d been the one to darken it. “I used to watch cartoons with the Insight Eye during family dinner and no one knew.”
“That’s way too normal of you,” Rin chuckled, and it was obvious by his expression that he knew exactly what Kel was doing, but he didn’t call him on it, allowing things to settle seamlessly. “Especially since I’m fairly certain they would have just let you watch them if you’d asked.”
“Probably. They let me get away with anything, still do. Back then, it also helped that I was never intended for the throne. Knowing they wouldn’t have to entrust the planet to me allowed them to turn the other cheek, so to speak.”
“They know about…?” Rin circled a finger at him.
