I nodded.
He arched a brow. “And?”
“I want to talk,” I admitted softly. His lips parted as I added, “About us.”
Tezya gestured to the table in front of him. Now filled with empty chairs from everyone he had just kicked out. There was a map laid out across it. Tennebris and Lux were marked in red with other drawings I wasn’t familiar with. “I didn’t mean to interrupt,” I started.
“You didn’t.”
I definitely did, but I wasn’t about to press because I was happy he stopped the meeting. My pulse was bounding, and I couldn’t wait a second longer to talk to him. I wanted to know everything. I needed to know.
I was finally ready.
He watched me intently as I walked around the table and sat in the chair next to the one he took.
The tent wasn’t anything special. Besides the maps and a few cabinets that held files, all it had were chairs and one long wooden table toward the back. Even the ground was devoid of anything but fresh grass. It was a deep green, despite all the countless boots that stomped over the soil. I imagined a Luxian ground user had something to do with the lack of mud. Only the sleeping tents had furs laid out and the dining tent had step-up wooden planking. Everything else throughout the entire camp was just grass; plain, simple, and to the point.
“Why didn’t you tell me the truth?”
He didn’t answer right away, and I realized he was waiting for me to elaborate. There was so much he kept from me, so I started with, “Why did you make me believe the prophecy was about me and Sie? You made me think it’d be my child with him. It messed with me. This whole time I thought I was supposed to be bonded with him, until we… until you cut my hand that night, and I knew. I knew it was you because I felt it. So why did you lie to me if you knew you were the chosen one?” He cringed at my words, but I didn’t stop. “Why did you tell me to stay away from Sie when it didn’t matter?”
Dovelyn’s words came back to me. That I, above all people, should understand how Tezya felt. I was terrified to open up about growing up in a different kingdom. Yet Tezya was born from both. To be the prophecy child, the one both rulers feared. The one they wanted to kill and had made an elaborate, ill-led plan to do just that. I could understand his hesitancy, but I was still hurt by it.
“I was jealous,” he said, surprising me. “I mostly acted out of jealousy. I saw everything on the monitors the day I brought you up from the dungeons. I was forced to watch him kiss you in his bathroom. I knew you two had a history beyond just being obligated to wed, and I couldn’t explain why, but it made me jealous as hell. Even before I truly met you, when you were chained in that chair covered in your own piss and blood, I was jealous. It was selfish, and I didn’t have any good reasons. I didn’t even know you, but I didn’t want you with him.
“As for everything else,” he drew in a breath as he placed his forearms on the table before us. “I found out about the prophecy at a young age. I knew I was different when I started getting what I wanted. I didn’t realize it—my skin turning golden under my clothes as I compelled the servants for assortments of foods or to let me wander the halls late at night. I had no idea what I was doing, but my mother did. For years, she sheltered me. Raising me solely, never risking using a servant after myTennebrisian powers manifested. She warned me, scared me so thoroughly to never use that side of me, to never breathe a word of it to anyone. It was drilled into me every second of every day. She told me if anyone found out, the King would kill me, but he wouldn’t stop there. He’d kill my sister and brother too. I loved my family, and the King’slessonsnever stopped. Even when I was kept in isolation, I knew and understood his ruthlessness. I knew my mother’s threats were warranted. I’d seen the King try again and again to hunt down the prophecy, had seen him use Dovelyn’s visions to do it.
“Growing up, I didn’t want to believe it. I didn’t want to give the King a reason to kill my siblings. He tortured us our whole lives over nothing, finding stupid excuses to bring us into that room. I knew if I let slip who I really was, the things he’d do to us would be worse than anything I could imagine. I always felt like he held a power over me because of it, even though he had no idea.
“When I was younger, all I wanted was to live with my siblings in peace. I was terrified of being the reason he hurt Dove or Arcane, so I pushed that part of me down, never using my Tennebrisian powers. But after my mother died, everything changed. I started practicing in secret. I knew I had to become strong. I planned to get revenge on the King for everything he’s ever done. I wanted him dead, and our people needed him off the throne. So I started harnessing my Dark abilities whenever I was alone, knowing someday I’d need them. I made myself into a weapon so he couldn’t deny me a spot in the army. I fought my way to the top until I led it.
“I already knew about Brighta. Dovelyn and I discovered it a month after our mother’s death. She had a vision about the place existing and swore it was our mother urging us to come here. At the time, it was a small refuge only just starting to become a rebellion. Dravenburg wasn’t even born yet. We started visiting as our own means to escape Lux. But once therebellion started to pick up, things changed. The first time the King ordered me to kill all the wives and children after a battle—he wanted me to go into their homes and slaughter them in the middle of the night—I knew I wasn’t going to go through with it. So I brought them here and have been doing the same ever since.
“The camp will always be a place of refuge, but it has also turned into its own rebellion and has grown over the past couple of decades. Many Advenians aren’t satisfied with staying here their whole lives. They want to fight back. They hate the Lux King and the ranking system from both kingdoms. Most of the battles didn’t end immediately. There are families who lost loved ones before we could bring them here. They have a reason to be mad, and now they have a reason to want change.
“Tennebrisians and Luxians have been living here for as long as I can remember. We live without rank. If a child is born within the camp, they won’t get branded. Everyone is equal here, everyone is just as important as the next.” He took a deep breath. “Secretly, selfishly, I hoped there’d be more people like me. But over the past century most of the Advenians in the camp have kept to their own families, only coexisting but never mixing.
“But then I learned about you—a Luxian who had been living in Tennebris. I was intrigued by you. Some part of me wanted you to be pregnant when we went to collect you. If you were, maybe my mother was wrong about the prophecy. But then I saw you, and I instantly regretted that wish. I didn’t want anyone else with this burden, especially you.
“Then, I was forced to train you, and I started to care for you despite trying not to. I was terrified the King would hurt you. I knew you were vulnerable as long as you stayed there. Even after the results with the healer came back and the King found out the prophecy wasn’t about you, the threat was still real. He would have killed you both if he saw you together, so I gave youthe warning to stay clear of Sie because of it. If he even had the slightest inkling you were pregnant, he wouldn’t have hesitated to murder you both. I didn’t want to give the King a reason to kill you, but more than that, I didn’t want Sie’s hands on you. Some part of me knew I told you to stay away from him partly out of jealousy. I know that’s fucked up, and I’m sorry.”
I stayed quiet. The only sound in the tent was my breathing, leaving me in uneven waves as I listened to Tezya talk and open up about everything.
“I wanted to tell you. I thought about it, weighing the risks and going over my options. I’m sorry I didn’t, Rumor. It was never my intention to lie to you.”
“Then why did you? You could have just told me all of that…” I thought back to our promise the night I found out he was the Fire Prince, the night we said no more lies.
“Because I would rather risk you being pissed off at me like you are now, than you being in the hands of the Lux King again. It had nothing to do with not trusting you because I trust you with my life. But I didn’t want to put that burden on you. I didn’t want to make you more of a target than you already were. The King’s fascination with you meant you were being watched too closely. I didn’t put it past him to use Kole on you again.”
I shuddered thinking back to the monitor room and how everyone saw everything inside my mind, how I’d never felt so violated before, so exposed.
“I know it isn’t an excuse, but I was terrified of what he would do to you if he found out that you knew about me,” he continued. “What he did to me that night, that was nothing,nothingcompared to what he would have done to someone if he learned they had information on the prophecy.”
I swallowed. “You don’t get to decide what’s a burden to me.”
“I can see that now.” He turned his wrist over. I caught a glimpse of his five brand before he drew his arm off the table. Itmade me wonder what his rank truly was because he had to surpass a rank five. He was declared that strong from his Luxian abilities alone.
I turned to face him, finally meeting his gaze. “I can’t take any more lies. I don’t want to keep things from each other. I want to know everything, no matter the burden, no matter the risk.”
