“I just wanted you to know it’s okay to grieve him and hate him at the same time. It’s okay to miss him even if he was a monster. I understand he wasn’t kind to you or your brother. I understand your life was difficult. But I owed it to him, to the man who used to raise me, to let his son know he wasn’t the kind of person you thought he was.” Her breath hitched, like she was gearing up for what she was going to say next. “I think your dad would be proud of you fighting in the rebellion, would be proud to see you working with Tezya—”
“I have to go,” was all I said as I teleported to the oppositeend of the camp. I couldn’t stomach hearing any more. People whipped their heads in my direction, their eyes bulging as they took me in. The pure, undiluted rage was palpating from me in hot waves, as I cursed, “GET THE FUCK AWAY FROM ME!”
I started hyperventilating. I couldn’t breathe properly. I didn’t want to know that. I didn’t want to know that he was good. That the Lux King took away yet another thing from me.
I screamed, but I couldn’t hear it as it echoed throughout the camp. My ears were ringing, and my vision was blurring, but even through the haze, through the unshed tears that I refused to let fall, I could see Advenians squirming. They were running away in different directions to get as far away from me as they could. Good. They needed to run. They all needed to leave me the fuck alone.
Memories came back to me in hot flashes. I couldn’t shake them away. Him hitting Greyland. Him pressing hot iron against my stomach before having Moli heal it only to do it over and over again. His abuse of zero servants at our estate. Him belittling my mother. We didn’t have a voice in that household. We were all caught in his chokehold. But what we lived through, what we saw through him… Was it really just parts of the Lux King and Athler? Was the man who raised me really the same person who started the rebellion? He couldn’t be. There was no way…
The people around me weren’t leaving fast enough. I couldn’t stand to look at them as they sprinted away. As they looked at me for what I truly was—a monster. For how I used to view my dad…
I needed to be alone. I needed everyone to fucking leave because I didn’t trust myself not to rip apart whoever was in my sight until they were nothing more than fucking limbs pulled from bodies, until they were as lifeless and as dead as I felt—as dead as my father now was.
I curled my fists together and teleported to the border. Ididn’t stop as I walked through the protective shield, even as I heard someone scream after me, my name dying on their lips as I entered the mortal territory on the other side. Light fingers grazed over my skin, almost clamping down around my bicep, but I teleported before their grip could take route.
I teleported, and I didn’t stop. Jump after jump after jump. A thrill ran over me at the use of my powers, humming deep in my bones. My abilities were the only thing in this world that wouldn’t betray me. The only thing I knew for certain.
I halted, my breath caught in my throat, once I saw where I ended up. I was at the dead river Savannah took me to. I hadn’t even realized I was heading here, didn’t know I had the jumps memorized, that I now knew the way on my own.
My eyes scanned the snowy river bank before I beelined into the trees, following the same path Savannah showed me.
I didn’t teleport. I walked this time. I wanted to feel my feet move one step in front of the other. I wanted to feel the dirt beneath me as I made my way toward oblivion. I didn’t stop until my feet no longer had purchase, and I was plummeting toward the rapids below.
I didn’t feel the sensations running through my stomach this time, didn’t feel the drop.
It was too fucking close. I hadn’t leapt as I fell into the water, only just missing a ragged rock protruding from the waterfall.
Too bad.
I let myself sink—down and down and down. At some point, I started screaming. Water rushed into me, burning me from the inside out. But it didn’t numb the pain. It didn’t take away my agony, only amplified it.
My brother’s face flashed in my mind just as my lungs burned to the point of constriction. I couldn’t leave him. I couldn’t let him lose another person he loved. I had to suck it up. Fuck. I had to bite down my own pain because it would be nothing compared to what losing me would do to Greyland.
I started swimming toward the surface, taking my damn fucking time as I did and savoring in the last drags of agony.
When I finally took a gasp, a lungful of air filling me, I promised myself that the King would pay for this.
I would get my vengeance.
FIFTY-THREE
SCOTLIND
I’d been backin the camp for four weeks now, and I spent every single night in Tezya’s tent.
The first week, we helped out in the healer’s tent all day and night that we barely slept. More Advenians Tezya rescued had died, most were in worse shape than we thought, but a lot survived too. Many were getting stronger and being discharged.
Some people recognized me from when the King brought me down to their cages. Many thanked me endlessly, and I had to constantly repeat myself—it was Tezya who saved them, not me.
They were the only Advenians who hadn’t seen the broadcast, who hadn’t seen me standing up on that stage. And being thanked when I did nothing felt wrong.
I could feel people staring at me everywhere I went now. I knew it was probably a mix of disgust from what they watched, but another part of me knew it was because of what I now looked like. I knew I had scars everywhere. I could see them on my hands and arms whenever I dressed in the morning. I tried not to look too long and had been wearing long sleeve shirts and pants to hide as much of my skin as I could. But my hands… I couldn’tnotsee them. It was like I outwardly became how everyone perceived me.
I tried not to think about it. I tried to put all my focus into helping others so I didn’t have a spare moment to think about myself. It worked until it didn’t. Slowly, the healer’s tent was emptying, and I needed to find something else to do.
By the second week, I started training with Kallon. I was working on my enhancement with her every day, seeing how long we could open her portal. Since I never disclosed the location of the first camp when the King held me captive, we’d been practicing portaling large groups of people between the two areas, testing out how many times we could do it before we were spent.
It also served to get anyone who never experienced it used to the aftereffects of portaling. The crippling nausea was no joke, and aside from Tezya first bringing everyone here, most never portaled in their life.
