Maybe it’s the fact that love betrays its admirer. Love is a master trickster; it restores and ravages.
I glance at my mate, his fire covering our held hands. His muscular chest displays our mark. He stands protectively, like a warrior prepared to give his life for the weak. I’m honored to be his mate, grateful I had one night with him. A night filled with love and passion that was reciprocated. One night surpassed all the others I endured in this harsh land.
Sofia bends down and picks up the mage cuffs; she puts them on, adjusting them to fit snugly. “I’m on your side,” she admits. She cuffs herself, proving her point, then drops to her knees, sits, and looks down. It puts my senses on alert.
Titus tries to pull me behind him, but I step one foot ahead, eyes locked on a different version of myself dying.
“I do love you, Sable.” Hector’s voice is thick and raw, a fresh burn, blistering the skin to protect the tissue underneath. “I tried to change you.” A tear catches his bottom lip. He licks it, forcing himself to swallow what he’s done.
Even when facing death, Sable remains cold. Blood pours out of her back, covering Hector’s lap. “That’s… not… love.” If she had the power to yell, she would have.
“You once told me you were incapable of love, Sable. You thought that statement connected us. Hate bound us in your eyes.” Hector’s throat bobs. “It was a lie. You do love,” he nods repeatedly.
Reaching out, he dips his finger into her blood.
“You love this.” He smears her blood on his fingertips. “You adore your aggression and cruelty above all. Something broke inside you when you were younger. Shh, it’s okay. I understand. Instead of clinging to hope like your twin, you clung to detachment. I never lied when I told you we were cut from the same cloth. You see, I used to be detached. People grabbed me. I was given no other option. I was stitched to their unraveling edges. I became a part of a quilt that was oddly shaped, but nonetheless it proved warmth. Love. I was forced to feel, to fight for those who had no voice.” He curls his fingers into a fist and then glares at her. “To fight those who intend to steal voices.”
My tears pour out faster than her blood does now.
Hector rocks her back and forth. “I tried fighting you with my lips and my hands; I tried to soften you—reshape you. I gave you roughness because you rebuked joy. I tried everything to break you down.” He stops rocking, like he’s been slapped.
He grabs hold of a sharp inhale, forcing it into his lungs.
“Even last night, I tried to alter your mind, tried to carve out a piece of land we might both have, a place we could make a home, but you denied me. You told me homes are knives that plunge into your back. They trick you into thinking you’re safe when you’re not. That’s because your home wasn’t safe, isn’t that right, Sable?
“I know!” Hector sobs. “I know what your father did to you. You whispered it when you had nightmares.”
Wiping away tears, I try to see what eluded me in childhood. Something dark and sinister happened to my twin, something I missed, something much more destructive than the normal lessons my father forced us to endure.
Our home lacked love, but… it was still our home.I found safety within those walls.
What did Sable find?
“You hate the word ‘home’ because of what your father did to you. You hate your twin because your father pickedyouto hurt. Don’t you? Something similar happened to me, and that’s why I never gave up hope that I could fix you. I fought until now, until you held that sword like a match you were going to throw into oil.”
“Sable!” I stagger forward but stop. What did I miss? What did our father do to her?
Does it excuse her actions or explain the root cause of them? When the victim becomes the aggressor—when their definitions of right and wrong have been erased—how do you judge them?
“You tried so hard to make others think you don’t feel, but your motivation to burn down the world shows us all youdofeel. You do feel the bitterness of dying. It’s a relief you welcome. It’s not the knife in your back that made you gasp, not my betrayal that made you cry. Pain has become a numb ocean you have mastered sailing.”
Sable slides her hand to another tattoo, trying to kill it from his flesh, but unlike the other, this one remains. Her magic is fading.
Hector continues, “I would have pledged my army to you if you had wanted to change the world.”
Her hand slips free, slapping in her warm blood. I seal my eyes shut for a second, ashamed to be a voyeur.
“I did… want to… change it,” Sable breathes, a faint smirk at her lips.
Hector’s shoulders shake. “Destruction is not change, Sable. I wish I could have modified the future. I tried so hard, but in the end, he was right. He warned me it would end this way.”
“We all had to make sacrifices, something that alters our souls, but it anchors our destiny, ensuring we can withstand the trials ahead. He told me instinct would thrust my dagger forward, but my heart would fight to hold it back. He said the path I picked would shift everything. One was the future he wanted; the other was no future at all.”
My eyes meet Titus’s in recognition. “Everett,” I rasp. Titus looks back at Hector, then down at Sofia.
“We were never Sable’s pawns.” Sofia tilts her chin up. The once-beautifully sinister woman now looks like a child who is lost, scared, but in us she finds hope. “Sable’s both our pawn and opponent. Everett knew if Sable found the book alone, we’d all lose. So he tricked her, placing Hector in her path, which is why he’s covered in runes. Hector was bait. Sable bit the hook and dragged us along. You know your side of our story.” She finds her brother’s eyes. “We’ve been waiting to tell youourside.”
“You…” Sable hisses at Hector, “Didn’t win. My twin and her mate will kill you.”
