This is the link I have been waiting for, looking for, without knowing where to start. This boy knows whose hand bears the bone tattoo. He is how I find the monster. He can guide me to him if he’s cooperative, and if he isn’t, he can be bait. If he’s the father, the man will surely come looking for him.
And when he does, I’ll be waiting.
I make my decision in a stuttering heartbeat, stepping in front of Hoff. I’m hardly aware of what I’m saying. All I hear is the roar of vengeance in my ears, the monster inside me rearing its head.
“I’ll claim him,” I hear myself say.
An apprentice? Ha. I swore long ago to take no apprentice. How could I? How could I risk anyone learning what I truly am, knowing that I am indeed the monster they fear? That behind all my talk of honor and integrity and duty lurks a Cryptic of my own, its claws vengeance, its venom fury.
I’ll take the boy. I’ll feed him and clothe him. And he’ll lead me to the quarry I’ve so long hunted. After that… I’ll find some excuse to send him back. Likely by then he’ll be desperate to escape anyway.
“I’ll claim him,” I say again, and the plan is set. It’s all in motion. I’ll play master for a few weeks, until I’ve gotten what I need from him, and then the boy and I will be rid of each other for good.
We’ll both be better off that way.
The secret retracted its claws from Rolan’s brain with a sibilant hiss.
He sat back, eyes blank, his mind glassy.
“Boy?” Luc stretched out a hand, then closed it uncertainly. “Is it done? Is it over?”
Rolan said nothing. He felt he would never speak again. He felt as if a Cryptic had cut him lengthwise with a long, wicked claw, and at any moment now, his body would realize it and he’d split into two halves.
Luc watched him, his brow low with concern. “You haven’t taken the oaths yet,” he said. “You can tell me what you saw. It helps, to speak it aloud. Whatever it was, I can help you carry it.”
Drawing in a trembling breath, Rolan stood and shook himself. The secret still clung to him all over, like cobwebs.
He looked at Luc. Reallylookedat him. Past the mask of honorable duty Rolan had just praised like a truth-blastedfool. Past the warrior, past the farmer, past the father he’d been.
And he saw a man like any other. A man ruled by anger, like his own pa. By vengeance, like Hoff. By lies, like every person who had used Rolan in the past.
He looked at Luc and saw all the worst parts of everyone he hated and feared bound up in one man. One man he’d grown to trust. To idolize. Tolove.
Like an idiot.
“You never wanted me,” he whispered.
Luc frowned. “What? What are you talking about, boy?”
“I’m talking about the man with the bone tattoo.”
Luc’s face went slack. He sucked in a breath, leaning backward, away from Rolan. A look flashed over his eyes, a terrible look, and Rolan thought of the monster Luc himself had said lurked inside his mind.
“It wasyours, Luc,” Rolan went on. His voice sounded strange in his own ears, both hard and brittle, and cold, so cold, like thecrackle of a frosty winter morning. “Your secret. All those times I joked you’d have to fight one of your own secrets, and now…”
He laughed bitterly.
Torchlight made shadows dance on the Arcanist’s face, but otherwise, he was completely still. A man turned statue, not even blinking.
“What’s the man with the bone tattoo to you, anyway?” Rolan asked. “Why do you hate him?”
“He killed my family,” Luc said hollowly.
Rolan took a step back, feeling like he’d been punched.
No.No, it couldn’t be true.
“He set the fire that took Miriel and Mylas,” Luc went on. “I never knew his face, nor his name. Only his hands. After he set the flames, I ran to catch him. But he went out the window, and the only glimpse I had of him was his hand gripping the sill before he dropped. I’ve been hunting him ever since.”
