Adara’s thumb gently rubbed circles along his palm.
His eyes closed for a second. Then reopened and he said, “She died from illness when I was young. And every day since my father blamed me for it.”
Sparing a glance at her ring—her family’s emblem—Adara’s heart ached. For him. For herself. Lucky for her, she’d grown up with loving parents. She hadn’t been granted enough time with them, but at least she had never been scarred by the ones who gave her life.
“Dom, that wasn’t your fault,” Adara reassured softly. She could see it in his eyes—that his father had convinced him to blame himself as well.
He shook his head. “It may have been. My father believed I’d brought home some disease after I went outside to explore. You see, no one ever left for fear of the unknown. He said I strayed too far from home, contracted an illness, and passed it to her.
“He was a drunken bastard. He’d beat me for the slightest of mistakes. Saige, my older sister, too, if she got in the way to help me. Saige said he wasn’t always like that. Said that fighting in the war and our mother’s death had changed him beyond repair. But . . . it didn’t matter. He was dead to me the first time he took that whip to my back.”
Adara bit the inside of her cheek to keep from saying anything. He didn’t want her condolences. He would only view it as pity.
“Saige always had her nose in a book, whatever she could find that wasn’t destroyed in the war. She found a tome of legends, one that told the tale of an island overrun with deadly beasts that guarded enchanted water which bestowed eternal youth onthose who drank it.” A smile graced his lips at the memory of his sister.
Such a merciful sight after watching the agony in his eyes, hearing the pain with which he spoke. That small smile was filled with such admiration and love. Adara wondered how it was possible for someone to have such potential of a kind, loving heart, for it to be turned into the Dominic Nite who ruled Andreilia. The King of Keys who ruthlessly manipulated others into loving him.
She reminded herself it was because he had gotten rid of that kind, loving heart. Thrown it into the Plagued Sea. She couldn’t blame him. Her heart had once been the same. Young and naive and full of light. Trauma changed people. It made you rotten and cold and cruel, even when you didn’t want to be. Adara saw that part of herself as a mirror to him. She might still have her heart, but that didn’t change the fact that a shadow had been cast over it, leaving it cold as ice and dark as night.
“She’d tell me stories every night to chase away the nightmares. She’d make up stories about the island. Andreilia, she called it. In the book, it was never named. That was to be decided by the first one to lay claim to the land.” He laughed a little. Raw and full of despair, but a laugh nonetheless. “She said it meant ‘enchanted’ in a language that she made up. A language she created for just the two of us. One we used when we’d play and pretend to be in some other world, or when we didn’t want Father to know what we were saying. She told me Andreilia was our little secret. That no one else could know of it because, one day, we’d leave that dreadful place. We’d travel across the continent, sail across the seas, andwewould be the first to claim the island.
“I asked her about the monsters that lurked on the island, and she told me they would all disappear once we arrived. She said that once someone finally claimed Andreilia, the land wouldreflect them, as it was a reflection of the god that last touched the island.”
Dominic shook his head, eyes finding her—actually fixing on her rather than the memories he was reliving. “At the time, I didn’t understand, but now, thanks to you,” he said, squeezing her hand, “it makes a little more sense. Saige said Elysian and Daichi created thisenchantedisland, filled with magic and creatures of such ethereal beauty. A safe haven in the middle of the Plagued Sea for weary sailors who needed a place to rest along their journey across the deadly ocean. But Belor found out about the island that was saving souls crossing his dark sea, and he put an end to the marvel that was Andreilia, turning it dark and wicked. Someone, Saige said, needed to bring its life back.
“That was going to be us. She believed it with every bit of her heart. At least, that was what I believed as a boy. But as I grew older, I realized it was nothing but a story to distract me from our miserable lives, from the pain of the beatings, from the hopelessness of no escape, from the fact that we were going to die in that wasteland.
“It was all an elaborate ruse to keep that small morsel of hope guiding us for as long as possible. But one day, when I was twelve years old, I decided that pretending wasn’t enough. We were getting out of that desolate place, away from our father. We were going to find Andreilia.
“We stole as much as we could without him noticing; food, canteens of water, a few coins.” He shook his head, brown hair falling over his forehead. “We were so naive, sostupidfor thinking we’d actually make it.” A pained sound came from his throat as he opened his mouth to speak again, then clamped it shut, breathing deeply through his nose. His voice had a sharp edge to it now—fury and agony and misery. “A week . . . we made it maybe a week on our own. There was nothing, absolutelynothing for miles and miles as we traveled. Not a hint of life or water or hope.” His grip tightened on her hand.
She did not pull away from his fury. He did not need someone to leave him again, not now.
Not ever.
“We had to turn back, or we’d never survive. And when we returned, my father saw the pack, noticed that money and food had gone missing. He knew our plans, and he loathed us for it.” His hands trembled.
Adara placed her other hand on top of his, gently squeezing, a reminder that she was there for him.
“Saige.” He took a deep breath. “S-she took the blame for me. Said it was her idea. So he turned on her and struck her over and over and over.” His eyes shuttered. “I tried to kill him,” he said quietly but not softly.
No, Adara didn’t think she’d ever heard such calm, lethal rage in his voice.
“Grabbed a knife and slashed at him. He knocked it from my hands with barely a glance. I managed to scramble onto his back and wrap my scrawny arms around his neck and squeeze as tight as I could . . . but what was a twelve-year-old going to do to a grown man fueled by rage and liquor? I was thrown off him, crashed into a wall, and went unconscious. When I woke up, he was gone, and Saige . . . it was already too late. I don’t know how long I sat there in her pool of blood, cradling her broken body, begging for the gods to bring her back.
“After I realized my prayers would never be answered, I burned her body, filled a small vial with her ashes to carry with me, and left the rest in an urn in the house. When my father came back, I wanted to kill him, but I knew I’d never be strong enough.” Dominic pointed to the bandage on her shoulder. “I extracted venom from corpses scattered about the desert and placed diluted amounts in his alcohol, not enough to kill fromone dose. I gave him a chance to change, to live. All he had to do was stop drinking.” His voice cracked, and he tried to cover it with a cough. “But he didn’t, so he drank himself to death with a little help from me.”
Silence, hollow and cold.
“What happened after?” Adara couldn’t help but ask.
“I heard rumors of an exodus to the east. People began to tire of living in a dead land. They wanted to establish a home somewhere new. I followed in the distance, keeping close enough to steal supplies when needed but far enough to never be seen. What no one knew was that there had been three kingdoms to the east, discreetly rising to power as the two kingdoms in the west destroyed one another. Tarin, Remaline, and Lykrios. Lykrios had been closest to the coast, so I lived there while I made a plan to sail into the heart of the Plagued Sea and claim Andreilia as my new home.”
Home. That was what the island meant to him. A promise of life and safety. Adara had always wondered why he never left. With all that power, all that formidable fame, why had the King of Keys never left to conquer the world when he surely could? He never had dreams of becoming a king. He was just a boy who wanted a home and provided one for others like him.
He pulled the vial of ashes they’d taken from the Ruins. “I spread Saige’s ashes the first day I reached Andreilia, so at least part of her could be there. She deserved to be the first one to drink the water, to gain the magic that it gave me, to have the island reflect the grace of her soul. Now, the rest of her remains, along with that house, will be used to do some good for the both of us.” He tucked the vial of ashes back in his rucksack.
Adara blinked away the tears in her eyes, trying but failing to ignore the ache in her chest. “Your sister would be proud,” she offered. “Happy to know you made it to Andreilia.”
