Trailing my thumb beneath my nose, the sneer I wore turned sinister. With one glance at its pad, I noted the vital hue that greeted me—a reminder that I was still, somehow, human.
The concept itself felt fragile after everything that had happened, all the secrets I had kept to myself. Each journal scattered across my desk carried them, their worn pages contained every ounce of information I harbored, but couldn’t disclose, not because of a lack of desire but because I wasbound.
It was a fact I hadn’t come to realize until I attempted to confide in Syoran, my inability to do so clarifying every ounce of clashing emotion I’d felt in the past—my lack of desire to offer the truth, the nauseating feeling that consumed my senses whenever I so much as contemplated doing so, and the anger that arose any time someone pressed me for enlightenment.
The brand burned into my flesh had not only served as a beacon for Rohen Levitte but also as the captor of my words, my autonomy, myvoice.
I was silenced by the dark gods' influence.
I knew where the second Eye of Ellira resided.
And I was the son of Elaros.
My truths.
But even that knowledge didn’t explain the unexplainable thread that looped itself around my throat. A draw towardmylittle siren that aggravated me beyond means, the only word to elucidate it beingMizani—something that the scrolls I’d stolen failed to elaborate on.
Golden glower narrowing, Alastair circled me again, bruising forming along his left cheekbone. “Your mind is elsewhere, Vayne.”
“Apologies.” Gathering a mouthful of copper-infused saliva, I spat on the rain-laden cobblestones. “I just find you quite… drab.”
He lunged forward, and I blocked his left hook. Without missing a beat, my knuckles greeted his unprotected side, colliding into his kidney with enough force that he nearly doubled over. The groan he released in response to the blow forced a smile to my lips.
Fingers weaving through his hair, I forced him upright until our noses fell inches from each other. “You’re weak.Pathetic.A man who served as the most pitiful excuse for a right-hand, formysecond.”
“I only ever wanted to protect you since we were kids,kids,Caspian! I always held space for you whenever you felt your world was crumbling.” His jaw feathered with the words, a familiar slice of anguish dancing through his irises. “Whenever you felt alone,Iwas there. I sacrificed everything while you sat aside, fat and happy, off the joys of lifeIprovided. I placed myself in front of dangerfor youand carried shared emotional weight, allwhile you leeched off me until you felt you’d gotten enough.Youattempted to killme. You are apitifulman, Caspian Vayne, a man who sucks the life from everything he touches and leavesnothingin his wake.”
Something in my chest ruptured at his words, the side of me that had died the day he turned his back on me. He’d betrayedus, and still, somehow, he blamed me.
“You wish to dodge responsibility? To dance around truth?” I hissed, tightening my hold on his hair. “If it makes you feel better, then paint me as the supposed villain in your story, Alastair Seridean. It’s a title I have borne my entirefuckinglife, and I have no issue continuing to do so if it helps you feel at peace before I put you to rest for the deceit you’ve bestowed upon me and the crew you supposedly cared for. I may not be a good man, but I sure as fuck don’t lie my way around the truth.”
“Youtried to kill me and nearly succeeded! What the fuck are you talking about?!” he screamed, his nostrils flaring with an anguish so perfected I nearly questioned myself about the events that unfolded that night. “Have you manipulated and lied so well that you now cannot decipher where the line between integrity and duplicity begins and ends?”
My breath lodged itself in my throat, and I had to force myself to blink, to process what he was insinuating.
Corruption and malice had woven themselves into our lives since before I could remember. It started in youth, when our minds were still malleable, and King Marellan readily took advantage of it. He’d pinned us against one another a handful of times, not to such detrimental extremes, but to the point we often questioned one another’s loyalties.
Had it continued? Had he been the one responsible for what happened on the sea that winter night? Or was it the gods, the other great manipulators of my life?
Palms slamming into my chest, Alastair forced himself away from me, and I allowed it. Taking a step back, he drew in a shuddered breath. “You do not get to sit here and claim innocence when you nearly gutted me that night!”
“Elaros…”I whispered down our connection, desiring answers I feared he wouldn’t be able to provide.“Was all of this… Was all of this a lie?”
“My ability to answer your query is asphyxiated by the ancient power that divided the true divinity of these lands.”A tinge of sorrow clung to his utterance.“But, I can say this: the foes you believe you have exist out of deception.”
Heaving for air, I shook my head, my gaze lifting to my former best friend—to the man who once held my heart. “Alastair, there’s?—”
Before I could spew my realization, before I could insinuate the Others' influence in our falling out, white-hot talons clawed their way from my heart and branched outward. Anguish slithered under my skin, devouring my entire torso and both arms. Speaking became impossible as I collapsed, knees slamming against the cobblestone street.
The royal crest. The bind.
“You need to breathe through it, Child.”
“Breathe? Fucking breathe?—”
The affliction grew, an unseen hand coiling its fingers around my throat with the same burning influence. One palm slapped the earth, the other pressing against my brand in hopes that something,anything,would stop its onslaught.
“Should I feel pity for whatever the fuck this is?” Alastair snarled, his presence looming.
