His head lifted at last. His eyes burned like coals.
“What could you possibly say to me? That you’re sorry? That you did it for us?” The edge in his voice could flay skin. “You put me in this hell. I’ll bet you killed your father, too.”
He scooped a handful of rust-colored dirt and hurled it at my face. It stung my eyes; grit filled my mouth.
“And you framed me by killing my own mother!” he roared. “We were supposed to live free. We had a future—you destroyed it!”
“It wasn’t supposed to be that way,” I muttered, wiping grime and spit from my cheek.
“Yeah?” His expression twisted into something I didn’t recognize. The boy I’d known was gone. What crouched before me was feral, a creature forged from pain. “How was it supposed to be, Salvatore? Tell me—how did you think I’d feel when you stabbed my mother?”
He lunged. The sound he made wasn’t human. His hands clamped around my throat, as strong as iron.
“You framed me because you’re a coward,” he snarled, breath hot against my face. “You ripped my life apart because you couldn’t stand being alone!”
Air fled my lungs. My vision swam. His fingers dug deeper, choking the world to a blur. I clawed at his wrists, panic clawing back harder. With a burst of desperate strength, I tore his hands free and rolled him beneath me, pinning him to the stones.
My breath tore out in ragged gasps. Blood streaked my lips. “You’re right,” I spat. “You want the truth? Fine. Yes, I killed your mother. Yes, I couldn’t bear being alone. So what?”
I jabbed a finger at his face, trembling. “I lost everything while you—” my voice cracked into a growl “—you always came out on top. You always had something left. Everything I didn’t.”
A laugh broke from me, hollow and jagged, the sound of something fractured. “And now we know why. You’re the son of that jackal bastard, Severen.”
“You—” Lazarus snarled. He surged up, and we collided again. Fists, elbows, teeth—the fight was a blur of movement and breath and blood. We rolled across the floor like wild beasts, chains clattering, the green glow pulsing with each strike.
The snakes hissed from the dark, unseen but near. Their whispers filled the air, a rasping chorus that sounded too much like laughter.
Lazarus tore free and staggered back, his chest heaving, his eyes two burning shards. His voice came out low, shaking, every word dripping malice.
“You’re exactly what your father made you—weak, hollow, a fucking monster.”
He turned his face away, refusing to even look at the wreck I’d become.
That word—weak—dug its claws into my skull.
In an instant, I was a boy again.
Bare knees on stone. Fists bloodied. My father’s shadow towering above me, his voice cracking through the air like a whip.
“You think you’re a man? A man doesn’t cry. A man doesn’t beg. You’ve been a disappointment since the day you drew breath, and you’ll die one.”
Then Helena’s face followed—pale, pitiless. Her mouth twisted in disgust.
“I loved Julian. Not you. You were nothing but heat and arrogance, Salvatore, a body that knew how to take but never how to please. I used you because I was lonely, not because I ever wanted you.”
My father.
Helena.
And now Lazarus.
The last person I had left—the only one who had ever stayed.
Even he had turned his back on me.
The weight of it hollowed me out. I slid down the wall until the stone bit into my spine. Every breath scraped my throat like shards. There was still another trial ahead, but I no longer cared whether I lived or died.
The only thing left inside me was the need—the desperate, humiliating need—to get Lazarus back. To claw at whatever pieces of brotherhood we still had before the shadows devoured them entirely.
