Kalder looked away as guilt tore through him with fresh talons. “I’ve killed enough for one day. I won’t stand by and see another slain. Not if I can help it.”
“I watched you, young Myrcian. You didn’t take a single soul in battle.”
Kalder swallowed hard against the sour tears that threatened to fall. “I might not have lifted a sword with me arm, me lord, but the information I gave killed more than I could have on me own. I’m just as guilty one way as I would have been the other.”
Duel took his chin in one mighty fist and forced him to meet his gaze. “I want you to listen to me this day, Kalderan Murjani Dupree, and you listen well. What happened here today was a tragedy. You’re right about that. I take no satisfaction in the deaths of the people slain by this army. Or the part I took in it. But remember this. There’s not a man, woman, or child lying upon the ground around you who wouldn’t have cheered at the news of the deaths of my own people, and the destruction of my kingdom. Or yours, for that matter. These corpses you pity and cry for are the very ones who would have reveled in the deaths of my own family and all I love and hold sacred, and would have demanded your own life had you been taken by their soldiers. They would have lined the road for a chance to jeer at you, and would have thrown their own stones to carry you to your god as quickly as possible and laugh while you bled out from the wounds they gave you. So while I would not gleefully seek to take their lives when it’s not necessary, I will not hesitate to end them when I have to in order to protect the safety of what I holddearest, and neither should you. For the face of every woman and child you see here this day could very well be the face of your own family at home tomorrow. Remember, while ’tis fine to feel for them and mourn for them, do not let it ever blind you from doing what you must to keep those you love safe. Do you understand?”
Kalder ground his teeth. “Are you saying I should have given up the queen to those monsters?”
“Nay, lad. You followed your conscience. And in that you were true. I will never fault you for that. As you said, she sought only to protect herself and those who posed no risk to us. Just remember that every child she saved today will one day grow up with the memory of what happened here at our hands. And just as you hold yourself accountable for the fate of their families, so, too, will they. They will curse and hate you for your part in their past.”
And with that memory, the child would one day come seeking vengeance.
Duel had been right in that prediction.
Kalder bore those scars, as well. Some from later that night, when he’d gone to help the queen escape and she’d cut his throat and had robbed him before they’d left him to bleed out while they used the horses he’d brought for them to run over his body. Had Duel not come searching for him, he’d have paid for his kindness with his own life.
And then, other scars from fourteen years later, when the queen’s eldest son had recognized him and, forgetting Kalder was the sole reason they’d survived their ordeal, had buried his dagger deep in Kalder’s back while he’d been walking outside a dark tavern in some forgotten town.
That night, drink and fury had gotten the better of Kalder as he assumed his own brother had sent the attacker in for the kill, and before he’d recognized the man behind the vicious ambush that had almost paralyzed him, he’d torn his assailant apart and used the boy’s assassin’s dagger to cuthisthroat. It’d only been as the prince was taking his final gasps that Kalder had realized why he’d been attacked and who his assailant was.
Not one sent by Varice.
One sent by fate and chance.
In that moment, as the moonlight had revealed the young man’s face, even with his own wound throbbing and burning, he’d hated himself again.
War was a vicious cycle of hatred. The past was ever a mounting monster he couldn’t escape.
Like the darkness, it swallowed him and he couldn’t see past it. He was overwhelmed now. Unable to breathe.
To focus.
Every time he thought himself out of it, and away from it all, it found some way to seep back in and drag him under. An ever-tidal swell he couldn’t escape.
Everything has consequence.
Every action taken, and every one not…
And now he was lost to the past and he felt even more lost to the future.
***
Cameron’s heart pounded as she struggled to keep their enemies from Kalder’s inert form. He was in some strange trance that shecouldn’t break. Nothing seemed to work to make him realize where he was, or what was going on around him.
His skin was ice cold to the touch. Rigid. He was like a living statue.
Damn his brothers, all! They were a worthless lot to do something like this to him, especially while he was under fire. How could they be so cruel?
While she might not always appreciate her own sibling—wanted to choke the very life from him about half the time he was in a room with her—at least she knew Paden always had her best interests at heart.
Overzealous though he was.
Case in point, he fought by her side in this fight to protect Kalder, even though he couldn’t stand him and wanted to send him straight to hell. He fought and he bled for the man, for no other reason than because he knew Kalder was dear to her. His own feelings for Kalder be damned.
That was what family did.
They put the happiness of their loved ones first. Thought of them above themselves. That was what made them family. Not blood or bone.
