I splayed my hands against his uniform’s sculpted breastplate. His heart thundered beneath my palms. It pained me to see him this way. “Three things, remember?”
His lips twitched up before falling. “My mother…” He breathed slowly, in and then out. “Was not a good woman. Others my age in Pipirima had mothers who hugged them. Touched them with tenderness. The only physical contact she gave me came from her fists, feet, and belt.”
My stomach sank in horror. His hands wound around my wrists, as if seeking something to ground him to the present.
“I never understood what I did wrong. I cooked and cleaned for her. I tried to stay out of her way when she was in a mood. All she saw were missed spots of dust, under and overcooked garbage, and a waste of money. A waste of space. A waste of life. Useless, she’d say. Good for nothing except another mouth to feed. I was eight by the time I finally left.”
“So young,” I whispered. Anger flooded my veins.
“I’d wake up in the middle of the night to find her hovering over me with a pillow or a knife. To cope, I told myself I’d imagined it. It was a nightmare.” He shook at the memory.
Considering how highly he regarded Hector, I tentatively asked, “What of your father? Where was he?”
A callous laugh. “My father was hardly around. He was either drunk, on his boat, or drunkonhis boat. He’d come home and see the bruises, the bleeding, the swollen eyes, and pass out. When the beatings grew more frequent, he made excuses about how many fish he needed to catch and disappeared for hours, sometimes days. He’d ignore me as I screamed and begged for his help. But there was nothing in those eyes of his except indifference. It’s a miracle I survived infancy, let alone eight years.”
My eyes honed on the crook in his nose. I stroked the bridge of it as the scars on his body flashed through my mind. “Why would she bring a child into this world then?”
“I don’t know, and I never will. My memories of those days are dismal, but I’m positive they were part of the apostai. The things they’d say about Scorpio and the Astrals were vile. When I found you, Serpentine had felt familiar somehow, as did the symbols on its coins. It all but confirms their affiliation.”
If what he said was true… I shuddered. Serpentine was no place for a child. “What happened to your mother?”
“She died… in an accident,” he said carefully. “A fire that destroyed our home. My father and I got out, but my mother didn’t.” He straightened, as if walling away that part of his memory. “That was when I left. My father didn’t care what happened to me nor I him. I sought shelter with the other villagers, even though none had ever helped me before. They all thought trouble followed wherever I went after that fire, so they shut their doors and turned their backs. To survive, I had tosteal and lie and cheat. I wasn’t proud of it, but I was desperate. I stowed away on a trade ship and eventually found myself in Antares. The world was so much bigger than I ever knew, but no more kind. I didn’t understand how people could see me, skin and bone, and not want to help.”
“Raithe…”
“Everyone cared more about their reputations and self-interests than helping those less fortunate. I was only offered help for something—often vile—in return. Leeches, I called them. I knew about the shelters that existed for parentless children. Those were mostly filled with children whose parentsdidwant them, but they’d been born under a different Zodiac sign. I knew I wouldn’t fit in. I was an outcast, I was wrong, I was…other. I knew it from the way other children stared at me—afraid.
“Some whorehouses took me in, giving me a place to rest my head at night so long as I earned my keep through chores. But the women—and men—started to stare at me… differently. ‘Pretty boy,’ they called me; their touches lingered, and their requests turned lewd.”
My fists curled at my sides.
“When I refused… well, even the brothels didn’t want me then. I was losing the will to live, to go on, for what was the point? No one cared whether I lived or died, and all I knew was suffering.”
Water trickled down my face. He was so young,too young, to have had those kinds of thoughts. To have lived that experience at such an early age was unbearably heartbreaking.
Raithe stroked away my tears with his thumb, as ifIneeded soothing. “Then one day I tried to steal from the wrong people. The Scorpion seer, in fact. Gregorios. He’d been on his way from the Royal Academy when I snuck past his cadre of guards. He had so many jewels on him, and my intuition said?—”
“Your intuition?”
“A gut feeling,” he corrected quickly. “I thought if I could snag even one jewel, then I could feed myself for weeks. But before his guards acted, Gregorios stopped them. Even with his blind, white eyes, he looked right at me and said, ‘You will save this queendom from ruin. We will meet again.’”
“What?” I gasped. “How did he know that?”
Raithe shrugged. “He received some sort of prophetic message from Scorpio about me. His words gave me life. A reason to go on. A purpose. I wasn’t useless or worthless like my parents believed. All my pain and suffering wouldn’t be for nothing.”
Nausea filled my belly. No wonder Raithe was so determined in everything he did. Why he relied on only himself. Coming from a childhood of abuse and injustices, it made sense in a messed-up kind of way. “Did you have to sacrifice your father, or did he meet a timely and well-deserved death before you were Chosen?”
Amusement temporarily eased the pain in his eyes. “I was on the Isles when I found out he drank himself to death. The point is, my mother made me into the fractured, twisted man I am. I haven’t been able to trust anyone but myself. My purpose for surviving her cruelty is what fueled me to always succeed. I’m the weapon now, but I don’t like using the same force on others that was once inflicted upon myself.” He clenched his jaw. “Except Kole. And Baron Ionis. Even Maryn. I could shred anyone apart who disrespects you with no remorse.”
“Raithe.” My fingers slid up his shoulders and into his hair, gripping the back of his neck. “You don’t?—”
“What I’m trying to say is that I haven’t let anyone in because there’snothinginside me to see, Rahzlyn.”
“Respectfully,” I whispered, “I disagree.”
“Sometimes I think you disagree with me for the sake of disagreeing.”
I curled my fingers into his hair. “Whatever you think, you didn’t deserve that. I’m so sorry for what happened to you.”
