“You had memories of the other world? The one before this one?” The Worldkeepers had said that only their markings could preserve memories. But if Kaelis is somehow able to keep them—perhaps whatever it is that also allows him to wield reversed cards—do I dare hope?
“I think there was something about her magic that allowed me to remember her. Or perhaps I could tap into echoes of her that lived in these stones.” He unknowingly dismisses my hope, and I try not to deflate. I don’t want to seem anything but focused. Listening to his story is the most important thing right now. “I have these visions of my mother calling out to me. Telling me to seek the World. I know they’re not memories—they can’t be, I was just a baby when she died. But I think she must’ve known that my father would do something and tried to thwart it. Tried to put something in me that would find its way back to her.” He speaks with such longing that it’s impossible for my heart not to ache for him—with him.
“For years,” Kaelis continues, “I tried to tell my father of these visions. My tutors. Anyone. They would keep me awake at night and haunt my waking hours.” He drags his eyes back to mine. “They had me thinking I was losing touch with reality. Father locked me away, alone, for days on end, because I was ‘unsafe’ to be around. He had healers see me, test all manner of cards upon me…” Kaelis runs a hand through his hair, his words trailing off.
“For how long?” I ask, trying to hide the pain I feel on his behalf.
“The visions were always a part of me. But Father’s effort to ‘remove’ them? Years.” A brief, low laugh, more bitter than poorly steeped tea. “The irony when he confessed that some of the things I’d been told were untrue turned out to be fact.”
I tighten my grasp on his fingers but say nothing more. What can be said in the face of everything he’s endured?
“After coming to the fortress—in secret, mind you; it was as forbidden to me as it was to everyone else—I went to the one place I could think of that might hold the answers.”
“Clan Hermit,” I finish with a whisper.
He nods. “There, I found more instances of her. I found records of Revisan that didn’t make sense when compared to what my father said and what I’d come to know as the truth. I dug deeper. Searching through texts that others had written off as inaccurate and unreliable. In them, I saw proof of my father’s treachery.”
Why didn’t Naethor’s wish eradicate all proof of her?The question haunts me. Could it have been unintentional? A misinterpretation of fate? Possibly…But the more I learn, the more I wonder.
“If Clan Hermit gave you the proof you wanted, then why…” Can I bring myself to ask it? The point of no return is before me, and I am too scared to cross the threshold, so I’m surprised when Kaelis does it for me.
“Why did I destroy Clan Hermit?” He glances my way with a slight, bitter smile. “I wish I could tell you what happened that day…It was the first time I ever used a reversed card. No, it was the whole fucking deck.”
His heavy sigh is twinged with guilt, and Kaelis runs a hand through his hair.
“Those at Clan Hermit told me I was mad for claiming Revisan wasn’t a long-lost kingdom but a recent destruction. They chastised me for thinking that the twenty-first tarot existed at all—that the world could be rebuilt. They wanted to confine me, trap me so I could be returned to my father and he could ‘continue tending to me properly.’ As if ‘tending to me properly’ didn’t mean locking me up and allowing the tutors to do as they pleased.
“Those in Clan Hermit said they could help me by stripping my mind of these memories that plagued me. They held me down. They were going to take my deck and put me in shackles, and all I couldthink of was defending myself—getting them away, getting myself away. I meant to harm, Clara. Of that there’s no doubt. But only the ones who were in that room trying to capture me. I never meant…What I did…” Kaelis trails off, gaze softening, growing distant. A tiny shiver rips through him. “I don’t even know what I did. The cards had a mind of their own. It all became hazy, as ifsomethingwas being ripped from my very soul. I had never had a card reverse before; it was as though that power had been waiting for the right moment to break free.
“When I came to, all those people were gone. Dead. Because of me. Sometimes at night I still hear their screams. I will carry them with me until the day I die.” He covers his eyes with his hand. “I am a monster.”
I don’t answer him right away. Instead, I shift closer and press my forehead to his temple. This close, I can hear every quivering breath. His body is tense, as if bracing for my judgment.
For a revulsion that isn’t coming.
“I don’t think you’re a monster…at least not for this,” I finally whisper, lips grazing his cheek. “You were a boy backed into a corner, abused, afraid, confused, and possessing a power that you didn’t even know you had.”
He huffs a laugh that’s almost the sound of the relief he clearly won’t allow himself to feel. “A tragic childhood, woe is me. Isn’t that what all wretches claim as the excuse for their horrible actions?” His words are like sharp daggers he holds at his own chest.
I lift my head and force him to meet my stare with expectation alone. “If you were truly a monster, you wouldn’t care if I thought you were one or not.”
Kaelis searches my expression, as if waiting for me to give some other caveat. I hold fast. He retreats, glancing away.
“I killed them all,” he says in a voice that is small, and quiet, and almost boyish. “Every man, woman, and child who carried the blood of Clan Hermit on that day. Near and far. Their deaths are on my hands.”
For the first time, I see in his eyes the full scope and horror of what he has done. I’ve known his calm, arrogant, and unflappable demeanor has always been armor. But I never realized the full extent of his shame.
“I was cleaved in two that day. One part of me doesn’t—fuck, a part of me doesn’t even regret killingsomeof them. The ones who hid my father’s secrets and his crimes, the ones who were willing to tie me down and strip my mind: Let them rot. But the others…” He swallows and then forces himself to continue, as if this might be the only time he’s able to get it all out. “There were innocents, Clara. I would be lying if I told you there had not been dark nights when I wanted to take my own life in recompense.”
My grip tightens on him, as though I am the lone tether holding him to this life. To this moment. Stomach knotting, I press myself to him.
“You don’t hate me?” he whispers.
“I don’t hate you.” I shake my head.
“When we rule…I will search for any who have ties to Clan Hermit—those who have likely lived in hiding, in fear of my ire. Those who were Clan Hermit by blood and those at the manor all died. But perhaps there is someone who married into the family who happened to be away when the destruction occurred. If such a person exists, I will try to make what amends I can. At the very least, I will see the crater turned into a memorial. It isn’t enough, but I will give all I can.”
“Then it will be enough.”
