I clench my jaw and look back toward the ceiling.
“I take it this morning didn’t go well with Aggie? Could Mirren not use her power?”
An image of Mirren flashes in my mind, her green eyes glowing with righteous hurt as she marshalled the strength of herself and sent it splashing into my face. “She candefinitelyuse her power.”
Can more than use it. Vitality pours from her, almost too beautiful to bear witness to. The magic uncaged the ocean that was locked inside her and now it flows with a life and vibrancy that’s contagious.
And when her power touched me…it took everything not to take her in my arms, to run my lips over every shining part of her and taste it for my own.
But that’s the problem. Something as beautiful and powerful as she is should not be tainted by the Darkness that stains me. I’ve ignored it, selfishly lost in her touch, but Avedis’ words sent it colliding back with brute force.
I can pretend as much as I want. Pretend I’m worthy of Mirren, pretend that touching her with blood-soaked hands won’t affect her. But none of my pretending changes the truth of the matter. I am Cullen’s son, through and through. The Praeceptor’s heir by birth and blood.
And also, his truest enemy.
Both terribly dangerous things to be.
And I won’t risk Mirren’s life for my own happiness. I’ve always known I live on borrowed time; that one day my father would discover the truth and come for me, a knowledge that has only grown since our encounter with Shivhai. By now, my father surely knows I survived. Cullen’s pride is a living thing, terrifying in its inexhaustible zest. Even now, he may be tearing apart the entire continent, uprooting everything that stands in the way of righting the imbalance done to him.
“The assassin knows who I am,” I finally tell Cal.
Alarm flashes on his face, replaced quickly by sadness. I don’t need to say more; there is no need to explain the darkest places of my heart, because he already knows them. My deepest fears and most desperate hopes, Cal is familiar with them all.
“What’s he planning to do with the knowledge?”
I shrug with a nonchalance I don’t feel. “Apparently nothing. He says he doesn’t want to risk the Praeceptor’s wrath.”
Cal mulls this over. “Refreshingly wise for a paid blade.”
I nod in agreement. My father would never allow the keeper of this information to walk free, able to carelessly spread it. Controlling the spread of information is one of the most basic tenets of warfare.
“If he isn’t planning on doing anything with the information, what’s changed?”
Nothing.Everything.
I tell him Avedis’ suspicions about the movements in the Dark World and that they’re somehow connected.
“So, you think Cullen is actually behind Denver’s kidnapping? Not the Achijj?”
“I don’t know. But honestly, it doesn’t matter. It’s been coming since I left Shivhai alive. It’s only a matter of time before the Praeceptor finds me and when he does, he will not play fair. He is ruthless and I am his heir. He sees my betrayal as something to be rectified. He will only be satisfied if I am unassailably under his control once more. And if he can’t have that, he will take his payment in blood. He will take everything from me before finally killing me. And I can’t…”
I trail off, running my palms roughly over my eyes as if I can clear away the images of my father’s ideas of retribution. Cal has heard some of it, but he doesn’t know the lengths my father will go. The terrifying monster inside him that he feeds with other’s pain. “We need to save Denver and then we need to get Mirren back to Similis. The faster the better. I can’t put Mirren in my father’s sights. It’s bad enough I’ve already done it to you and Max—” My throat tightens.
Calloway pushes himself up so that he’s propped on his elbows. Anger flashes on his face. “You haven’tdoneanything to Max or me,” he says hotly.
I shake my head and make to push myself up from the ground when he grabs my arm and wrenches me back toward him. “Look at me,” he says forcefully, “you can’t go around shoving everyone into a protective bubble. Max and Ichooseto be where we are and everything that entails. The good and the bad.”
I open my mouth to argue but fall silent at the look on Cal’s face. His cheeks are reddened and his mouth presses into a thin white line. It is such a rare occurrence that it takes me a moment to recognize. Cal is not angry. Cal isfurious.
“You sit there and espouse freedom for Nadjaa, for Ferusa, but when it comes to being brave enough to offer the choice to the people you love, you turn into a Similian. Youcan’tprotect people from the bad without also keeping them from the good. And you shouldn’t try.”
“Cal, it’s different with Cullen, it’s—"
He gets to his feet. “Max never had a say in what happened to her before. I didn’t have a say in being forced to leave Siralene, or my parents and sisters being burned alive.Youhad no choice when you were forced to do what you did. Wehavea choice now. You don’t get to invalidate them just because you have a martyr complex and think you’re the only one allowed to suffer.”
Cal meets my eyes and for a moment, I think he might hit me again. But he only shakes his head. “If you respect Mirren, you’ll give her a choice, too. Doesn’t she deserve that?”
With that, he leaves the gym, the door banging roughly on its hinges as it slams behind him. I stare at it long after it’s closed.
