Page 132 of Between Two Kings

Of course it counted for something. But it was not everything. Just because Tem was raised a certain way, that didn’t mean it was the only part of her identity that mattered. Tem was made up of two things, both of equal value.

“Don’t talk about my mother,” Tem snapped.

Maximus gave her a slow, strange smile. “Your mother,” he said, “was just like you.”

Tem had no idea what to say to that. Of all the things Maximus had told her tonight, that was the least of her worries. “I was trying to do the right thing,” she whispered.

“Right is relative, Temperance. You are a fool if you think you can do things better than I did.”

“There has to be another way.”

“Ignorant child. This is always the way things have been done.”

“No.” She shook her head. “It’s the way you do them.”

“You know nothing of how the world works, of how adults make their decisions. Power is hard-won and not so easily kept. It takes a miracle to obtain it and a single moment of weakness to lose it.”

“I don’t want power.”

“That is because you already have it. And tell me, Temperance. Would you give it up?”

Tem stared at him. Did she really covet power the way Bastian had—the way Maximus had? It was abhorrent to her. She didn’t want to be like them. But perhaps it was unavoidable. Tem had never been powerful until now. She knew what it meant to want something, especially something she would never have. She certainly never thought she’d have power. It was a new thing for her to be like this—to be a Hybreed. Would she give it up?

“You think you are so much better than your ancestors,” Maximus said, interrupting her thoughts. “You think you can do it all differently. But something always has to give, Temperance. Peace is an illusion.”

But Tem was not Maximus; she would not give up hope. She could choose a different path—for the kingdom, and for herself. “Peace is possible.”

“There is always a winner and a loser. The cycle cannot be broken.”

“You’re wrong,” Tem whispered.

“I am not wrong. And you will realize that before the end.”

But Tem was done listening to men who had no idea what it meant to sacrifice—men like Maximus who were born at the top of the food chain and would always remain there. Even now, imprisoned in his own home, he was sequestered from the outside world, safe from the basilisks he had tortured to get here. There was no justice, no fairness to any of it.

Tem whispered, “I will break it.”

Maximus didn’t reply.

They sat in silence until the guard returned to release her. The stairs were dark; Leo was nowhere to be found.

I will wait for you. More lies.

If Tem weren’t so weak from the bloodletting, she might have cared. Instead she ascended the staircase slowly, using the wall to hold herself upright. By the time she reached the landing, she was out of breath.

Caspen was nowhere to be found either. Had he gone back to the caves alone? Was he waiting for her in a carriage? She groped for him with her mind, but the corridor between them was still closed. Tem knew Caspen was angry about her decision. But she’d at least expected him to see her through this—to be here when she got out.

Tem was almost at the front door when suddenly she heard her name.

Leo was before her.

Chapter Twenty-Three

His lanky frame emerged from the shadows, his hair tousled. Tem knew that look.

“Are you drunk?”

There was no need to ask. Leo was clearly intoxicated—his face was flushed, his movements loose. Tem had only seen him this drunk once before, during the Frisky Sixty.