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His eyes gleam in the dull light of the dark room, and something inside my gut trips with fear. He’s talking about the void. He has to be.
“Trying to connect to it was too dangerous,” he continues. “I was in the midst of negotiations over the power to open a portal into the Lands Below, as you may remember. I couldn’t risk losing what I’d gained in a bid for more.”
I feel sick. Some part of me is suddenly certain I don’t want to hear any more of this story. My father swirls his wine glass, then takes another sip.
“Luckily,” he says, “your mother had just kindled another life. It was the perfect opportunity for me to manipulate the latent magical potential of her unborn—”
Oh, stars. Memories slam into me like my father’s polished boots crushing a teacup into the paving stones outside our cavernous house.
The locked door to my father’s chambers. My mother screaming and screaming, and the horrible silence once her screams finally stopped. Waiting in the marble hallway until the door finally opened. Throwing myself at my father, screaming that I’ll kill him, I’ll kill him for what he did.
Acid fills the back of my mouth. I barely have time to spin away from Alindra before the contents of my stomach explode across the stone floor. Tears sting my eyes as my body convulses, heaving everything I’ve ever eaten onto the floor of what must be my father’s new chambers.
When it’s over, I wipe the back of my hand across my mouth and shake my head. I’m not sure I can stand up. I’m not sure I can look at my father again.
Varitan sniffs.
“Well,” my father says, with a disgusted glance at the pool of vomit I’ve just left all over his floor. “Anyway. My work was interrupted when your mother kidnapped you and abandoned me, but apparently, my experiment was still successful. I was able to manipulate the magic of her unborn child to create a connection to the worlds past the Lands Below. To what you call the void.”
Screaming stars above. Rowan. Rowan’s magic. His connection to the void, the way it seemed to call to him, even as a kid. Hells, even as an adult who should know better. Flashes of memories dance through the wreckage of my mind. Therian’s barn shattering from the inside as the dark tentacles of Rowan’s magic erupted from the packed earth floor. Blue flames pouring from Rowan’s eyes when he touched his magic. The shadow monsters of the void turning to run from him, even before he called his magic.
Rowan telling me he mapped the void. Rowan gloating over the chess board in the World’s End pub, drunk and cocky and as close to genuinely happy as I ever saw him get, at least until Arryn came into our lives. Rowan pushing the door to our little house open, returning from days or months in the void, smiling like the cat who spilled the cream as he asked if he’d been gone long enough for me to miss him.
Rowan’s fingers tracing the stars I painted on the roofbeams, naming them when he thought I wasn’t looking. Rowan’s tiny puckered red face staring up at me through a swaddle of blankets as Charay rushed behind me, trying to save our mother’s life. The little wrinkled frown that crossed Rowan’s forehead when I held him to my chest and whispered that I’d always protect him, no matter what. As if he could already tell what an impossible task that would be.
“Phaedron,” my father barks.
Some flicker of ancient survival instinct makes my chin snap up and my eyes rest on my father’s face.
“Your brother is quite difficult to work with,” he declares.
Of course he is. The insane urge to laugh bubbles up inside me again, and again, I squeeze it down.
“I’ve made certain commitments that require the use of those abilities I gave him,” my father continues. “Commitments that I cannot rescind. Your brother does not seem to appreciate the gravity of my situation. But with you, well. That changes everything.”
He gives me another slow, creeping smile that makes me feel like a rope has just pulled tight across the soft skin of my throat.
“I trust you’ll be able to motivate him, now won’t you?” my father asks.
“Why would I help you?” I growl, but as soon as the words are out, I realize I know the answer.
My father drains his wine glass, then tilts the empty orb at Alindra.
“If you don’t,” he replies, casually, as though he’s commenting on the weather. “I’ll kill her. Slowly. Painfully. And trust me, she’ll be awake for it.”
He sets the glass down. There’s a hollow ting as the crystal base meets the wooden table.
“I remember you, Phaedron,” my father says as he narrows his eyes. “I remember your misguided sense of justice and how much you hate to see what inevitably happens to the weak. If you’d had Rowan’s power, this would have all been so easy.”
My gut lurches once again, but this time there’s nothing inside to come back up. I shiver, then pull myself up to meet my father’s gaze.
He’s right, damn it. This would all be so much easier if I had Rowan’s power. Because Rowan lives for Arryn, for the heart magic that connects the two of them. I’d have no such motivation for staying alive.
“What do you need?” I ask.
My voice sounds like nails dragged through broken glass. My father gives me a smile that reminds me of all the stories I’ve heard about wolves.
“Ah, Phaedron,” he replies, with a magnanimous gesture toward the wine bottle. “I’m delighted you asked.”
