“But you. You go out there and treat your life like it is disposable. Like it is weapon to be used up and thrown away. Like your death would not destroy people who care about you!”
“Maybe that's exactly what it is!” The words tore out of me before I could stop them. “Maybe I am disposable! Maybe my life is just a weapon! Maybe that's all I've ever been!”
“No.” He shook me. Once. Hard enough to rattle my teeth. “No. You do not get to say that. You do not get to decide your life is worthless when people are dying to keep you breathing!”
“Why not? Everyone else gets to decide what I'm worth! My father decides I'm worth parading in front of cameras! The advisors decide I'm worth using as a political tool! The press decides I'm worth nothing but scandal and speculation!” I shoved at his chest. He didn't budge. “Why can't I decide for myself?”
“Because you are wrong!” His voice broke on the last word. Actually broke. “You think this thing you do at night makes you strong? Makes you free? It does not! It just makes you dead man walking! It just makes you corpse that has not stopped moving yet!”
“So what?” I shoved him harder. Still nothing. “So what if I am? At least I'm doing it on my own terms! At least I'm choosing how I burn instead of letting this palace smother me piece by piece until there's nothing left!”
“You call this choice?” He let go of one shoulder to grab my face, fingers pressing into my jaw. Forcing me to look at him. “This compulsion to throw yourself at danger every night? This need to bleed? This is not choice, Sebastian! This is suicide dressed up as heroism!”
“Better than sitting in that throne room pretending I'm not drowning!” My voice cracked. “Better than smiling for cameras while I die inside! Better than being the perfect prince everyone needs me to be!”
“Then ask for help!”
“There is no help!” The words exploded out of me. Louder than I meant. Rawer than I'd ever let myself sound. “There's no fixing this! She's dead, Viktor! She's been dead for eighteen years and nothing I do brings her back!”
My chest heaved. My hands were shaking. I was shaking.
“Nothing I kill or save or sacrifice makes any fucking difference because she's still gone! Still dead! Still bleeding out in my memories every single night!”
Viktor's grip on my face softened. Just slightly. “Sebastian?—”
“She took the bolt meant for me.” The confession came out broken. Jagged. Like swallowing glass.
The memories crashed over me. Rain. Gunfire. The smell of smoke and blood and my mother's perfume.
“She threw herself in front of it. Chose me over herself. Didn't hesitate. Didn't think. Just moved.” My voice was shaking now. Everything was shaking. “The bolt went through her shoulder. She was trying to push me down. Trying to cover me with her body. And I just. I just froze.”
Viktor's other hand came up to my face. Cradling it between his palms. But I couldn't stop. Couldn't hold it back anymore.
“I stood there. Watched her bleed. Watched the light go out of her eyes while she told me to be brave. While she pressed her necklace into my hand and made me promise to be more than this.” Tears burned behind my eyes. Hot. Unwanted. “And I couldn't do anything. Couldn't save her. Couldn't stop it. Couldn't be anything except useless.”
“You were child.” Viktor's voice had gone soft. Gentle in a way that hurt worse than his anger. “You were not supposed to save her. That was job of guards. Of security. Of adults whose responsibility it was to protect. Not yours.”
“But she protected me instead!” The tears spilled over. I couldn't stop them. Couldn't hold them back anymore after eighteen years of refusing to let them fall. “She chose me! She died so I could live! And for what? So I could grow up into this? So I could become this broken thing that can't stop hunting in the dark?”
“You are not broken.” His thumbs brushed at the tears on my cheeks. Gentle. Careful. “You are grieving. There is difference.”
“It's been eighteen years!”
“Grief does not have expiration date. Loss does not heal just because time passes.” His forehead pressed against mine. “I know. I know, Sebastian. I know what it is to lose someone and carry that weight forever.”
“Then you understand.” My hands came up. Gripped his wrists. Held on like he was the only solid thing in a world that wouldn't stop spinning. “You understand why I can't stop. Why I have to keep going.”
“I understand you are trying to die without admitting it.” His voice was rough. Raw. “I understand you are trying to get yourself killed and calling it justice.”
“I'm not trying to die.”
“Then what are you trying to do?”
I closed my eyes. Felt more tears slip free. Felt them track down my face and disappear into nothing.
“I'm trying to find out who ordered the hit,” I whispered. “On my mother. On us. That night wasn't random. It was planned. Coordinated. Someone wanted the royal family dead. Wanted my mother specifically dead. And I need to know who. I need to know why.”
Viktor went still. “Sebastian?—”
