My eyes skate over the faces around the campfire.Family. Not a curse word anymore. But still so easily lost.
“I was just Eleni’s shadow. She was the one who dared. Dared to steal from the royal coffers. Dared to defy Mother with more than just sarcasm and aggression.” A dry laugh escapes me. “We collected allies without even realizing it. It wasn’t the goal, but people rallied to our names.”
“You were loved.” Griffin says this like it doesn’t surprise him. Like it shouldn’t surprise me.
I shoot him a wary look. He doesn’t understand. “Fisans still hold vigils to pray for the Lost Princess. All these years, they’ve prayed for my safe return while I kicked up my heels in Sinta, as far away as I could possibly get.”
Griffin doesn’t say anything. I didn’t expect him to. He can’t possibly defend me now.
“Otis grew up, too, and jealousy warped him. Mother always seemed so focused on me, and everyone else loved Eleni. He could never get the better of us in a fair fight, so he perfected underhanded moves.” Flashes of pain, red welts, searing burns. I suppress a shudder. “His fire whip could bend around corners. I’d never see it coming.”
A low sound rumbles in Griffin’s throat. Everyone looks somber. They saw Otis and his fire whip. They saw me turn the magic back on my brother and then flay him alive before I stabbed him in the heart, just like Otis stabbed Eleni.
“Laertes, Priam, and Ianthe were still young, their magic immature. They sometimes squabbled amongst themselves, but they never bothered us.”
Sudden pain slices deep into my chest. This knife has cut before, but the blade twists harder now. Ajax, Thaddeus, Eleni, Catalia—gone. What did Otis do to the little ones once I left?
Carver tosses blades of grass into the fire. They glow and then curl up, burning. “This gives us insight into your cuddly personality, but what does it have to do with the Chaos Wizard calling you Harbinger?”
Griffin slants his brother a warning look. Carver has been acting differently lately. One minute he’ll joke and spar with Beta Team, laugh with Griffin, or flirt outrageously with me, and the next he’ll shut down, turning irritable. Lately, he’s had that edgy look.
I take a deep breath. Secrecy is a hard wall to tear down, especially when the stones are cemented with guilt. “Griffin has already heard, or guessed, a lot of this, but I want you all to know the whole story now.”
Flynn smacks the back of Carver’s head. “So stop being an ass.”
“Sorry, Cat,” Carver mumbles, rubbing the spot Flynn just whacked.
I wave his apology away. There’s no need. “With Ajax and Thaddeus out of the picture, Eleni was Beta Fisa. I was Gamma. But Mother always wanted me to be next in line. She saw herself in me, I think—no Fire Magic, sly powers like compulsion and hearing the truth in people’s lies. She tried to train me to drive creatures and encouraged me to latch on to people’s minds, but I refused, and nothing she did could make me.” I laugh bitterly. “Just to spite her, I ignored my advantage over nearly everyone—then and now.”
“No one should be able to control another person’s mind,” Griffin says.
“No, and there aren’t many who can, but I still should have learned to control creatures. I know the basics. I could probably do it if I didn’t have to fight Mother’s hold at the same time, like with Sybaris and the Vrykolakas.” I twist my fingers in the warm folds of my cloak, fidgeting in a way I never used to. “Learning doesn’t mean doing, and it doesn’t mean using the power maliciously like she does. But I was afraid she was right, and that I’m just like her. She was always telling me that.”
“You’re nothing like her,” Griffin says fiercely. “Just having that fear should tell you you’re not.”
I want to believe him. And maybe I do. A little. “My stubbornness enraged her. I reveled in infuriating her until I understood where it led.” Sorrow and regret are millstones on my chest as I admit, “She blamed Eleni for holding me back.”
Griffin’s deep voice simmers with anger. “She forced you and Eleni apart. Forced you into an arena to fight.”
I nod. I already told him this, pretending those horrible days trapped in the sweltering arena weren’t about me. “She wouldn’t feed us. She wouldn’t give us water. She got into our heads, pounding away with lies and images of betrayals that never happened. We resisted.” AndGods, did it hurt. “We fought back until we were weak and bleeding and not sure of anything anymore. I finally lost all sense of myself, all sense of the truth.Icracked first. My heart was never as pure as Eleni’s, and Mother knew it. She counted on it, because she wanted me to be the one to walk out of that trap alive.”
“So you fought each other in the end,” Griffin says quietly.
“Fought hardly describes it. We kicked and bit and clawed at each other like animals in the dirt. Mother must have been so happy to have finally gotten what she wanted that her concentration wavered, and we snapped out of it.” I swallow, my throat thick. “Eleni crouched over me and held me and promised that nothing would tear us apart.”
I press my lips together, my eyes burning. “But then a shadow fell over us. It was Mother. And Otis. She dragged Eleni off me. Eleni twisted and fought with whatever strength she had left, keeping herself between Mother and me. Mother told her she was weak. I could hardly move, but I started screaming because I knew weakness never went unpunished. I somehow got to my knees, but I was too late. Mother handed Otis a knife, and he stabbed Eleni through the heart.” My voice trembles and turns raw. “I couldn’t stop it. She died right next to me, and I didn’tdoanything.”
Shifting closer, Griffin presses his lips to my temple. “I’ve changed my mind. You don’t have to go on. Not now, not ever if you don’t want to.”
I reach over and grip his hand. He squeezes mine back, and I take that small comfort, even though I don’t deserve it. “But Carver’s right. I haven’t gotten to the Harbinger part.”
“You have the right to your past, Cat. It doesn’t have to be a part of our future.”
I close my eyes, my heart aching. I meant it when I said I wasn’t fit to lick Griffin’s boots. He should have believed me.
“It is our future,” I say. “It’s everyone’s.”
Griffin’s hold on my hand tenses. This is the start of losing him. But he deserves the truth, so I force myself to go on.
