Page 61 of Revealing Fate

Something inside Kal rattled his carefully constructed cage of composure. “No. Perhaps I should have.” White hot tongues of painful fire licked at him at the very idea of taking Kitty’s life. Kal was a seasoned killer, but he could never. He already hated himself for putting hands on her. The feel of her slender neck cradled in his claws, so easily snappable, haunted him.

“Where is she?”

“Inside.” Asleep. In his bed.

Santhe leaned her elbows on her knees, rumpling the skirt of her dress. “She lied to you. Deliberately misled you. And you broke laws you helped establish, ones you claim to uphold, to save her from herself. A mess she created.”

Kal set the empty bottle aside and considered uncorking a second. “Are we counting her sins, or mine?”

“I’m just trying to understand.”

“And I thought we weren’t doing this tonight.”

Santhe purged the air from her lungs in a forceful exhale. They sat for some time, neither speaking. Kal’s buzz reached its initial descent, his increased metabolism burning through the excess of alcohol. The gentle sounds of the forest composed a lulling symphony, an illusion of tranquility.

“So, what now?” Santhe eventually asked.

Kal scrubbed at his face. “Fuck if I know, San.”

The tension bracketing her mouth said it wasn’t what she wanted to hear.

The weight of responsibility sat heavy on his shoulders. “I should hate her. Hell, I’m trying to hate her.” And why shouldn’t he? Kal had every right to it. And yet, for all his anger, all his hurt, he couldn’t hang on to the loathing. He hated that she’d lied. Hated that she hadn’t trusted him enough to accept her truth. To safeguard it.

Then again, look at how he’d reacted when she finally had. He couldn’t fault her reluctance.

Santhe stared into the dark. “I’m the wrong person to offer advice on hate, Kal. Some days I feel made of it.”

Kal leaned his head back, eyes drifting to the thick canopy high overhead. He wished he had an unobstructed view of the clear night sky, the swirling galaxies, and innumerable stars.

He’d made some semblance of a life here, in this little cabin nestled within the sanctuary of Stillwater Wood. With the people of Meress and the Cozened resistance. Yet a piece of him existed, buried deep within the boy he used to be, that longed for home. At least, for what it once was. For briny air and sea mist. Towering ocean cliffs draped in aquatic foliage. For an endless horizon, its infinite line kissing the ceaseless currents of a roving sea.

“One day we won’t be prisoners of our hate, Santhe,” Kal said, forcing himself to believe it. “We’ll have peace. We will remember what it feels like to wake with wonder, instead of facing each day with uncertainty and fear.” He’d give his life to make it so.

The smile that lifted Santhe’s lips was sad. “That’s why you’re the one to lead us, Kal. That’s why people follow you. Because you remember a time before fear. A world before hate. You remember the light.” She stood, smoothing the front of her skirt with a gentle shake. “The rest of us don’t have those memories. We’ve only ever known the dark.”

Santhe left, then, but her words hung in the air long after she’d gone, leaving Kal to ponder them alone.

Chapter 24

TEMPLE HEART

IMOGEN FELL INTO A STEADY rhythm over the next several days. She woke in the morning and rounded with the Fates, seeing to their needs, trying to offer the kindness and connection she’d missed when she had been in their place.

The newest and youngest among them remained the sole exception. Imogen wasn’t yet ready to face the female whom Vulgren seemed so eager for her to instruct. The enthusiastic commitment to her role as a Fated Mother, a thing Vulgren preened ad nauseum about, had Imogen skipping the new Fate’s chambers each day. Imogen wouldn’t be able to avoid her forever, but she’d put it off as long as possible.

Her afternoons were spent checking in on Karrick. They maintained the ruse that Imogen was the only shurii capable of entering his chambers safely. A deception easy enough to perpetuate, considering Karrick had attacked and maimed a handful of guards in years past. He insisted on accepting only one meal per day, so every afternoon, Imogen entered the gated entrance pushing a cart laden with three meals’ worth of food.

By the sixth day, Karrick’s color had improved, his brown skin retaining some of the glow she remembered. The hollows under his eyes became less pronounced, and the wounds he’d sustained began to heal.

She never stayed long. The truth of their situations gaped between them like a desert canyon. Try as she might to cross that void, each day they grew closer to Karrick being forced to service another female, and each day the gap widened, wedging them further apart.

She only sat near him as he ate a little more with every visit, sometimes speaking of mundane things, other times relishing in his silent nearness. Anything more was too painful for either of them.

Second Lieutenant Prestyn Gore became Imogen’s personal guard. He escorted her everywhere she went with dutiful obeisance. She did not trust him, but she grew confident that his loyalties trended more and more toward her and increasingly away from Vulgren. She could tell by the flicker of annoyance he sometimes forgot to conceal when Vulgren made to touch her hand in passing, and the occasional glint of contempt in his eyes when Imogen was forced to argue her position.

He followed her then, as she made her way to the Temple of the Rising Dawn to meet with Queen Serebine. The sun blazed high overhead, basking the city in warmth. Imogen remembered a time when she’d flee the late afternoon heat of early autumn. Now, she relished the feel of it on her skin because it meant she was no longer underground. She’d spend the entire day in the blistering climate if she could, watching her umber skin darken as the hours passed.

Instead, she climbed the steps to the Goddess’s ivory stone temple and passed through a set of towering double doors. The temple’s interior was cavernous, with pale intersecting archways steepled high overhead. Grand stained-glass windows spilled a kaleidoscope of color onto the marble floor. At the far end of a long aisle, a masterpiece stood tall and picturesque.