Page 12 of Bright Blinding Ruin

“There you are,” he says with a smile. I don’t get up, so he comes and joins me, sitting beside me and mimicking my position. The sunlight shines above us, highlighting the warmer tones in his brown hair and making his brown eyes sparkle with flecks of amber.

Like I said before, he’s cute. A bookish sort of cute. Sitting there, beside him, feeling so out of sorts, I’m reminded of the feeling I had the night I kissed him.

A mistake. Who can forget the man lied to me to get me to do what he wanted?

Kind of like Invictis, now that I’m thinking about it, only Frederick’s lie isn’t as bad.

“Thank you for bringing my father back,” Frederick says. He sits so close to me his arm touches mine, but I don’t move away from him. I’m too tired to. “I never thought him being alive was a possibility.”

All I do is nod.

Frederick’s next question is an abrupt change of subject: “Are you all right? You seem… off.”

I offer him my right hand, not so he can hold it, but so he can see that I’m now tattoo-less.

“What’s…” He must realize it then. “Where did your mark go?”

Everything is so raw, so recent, but this might be the only time Frederick and I have alone, and I don’t really feel like spilling it all in front of everyone else. Maybe Frederick can make some sense of it, tell me what I should do.

So I tell him. I tell him everything. I tell him about Invictis tricking me by pretending he was Empress Morimento’s son, how he says he’s a weapon sent to destroy all of Laconia and I made him whole again. I even tell him about seeing Morimento in that world of white and how she said I need to go to the undercrofts of every castle—after I bring Fred back to Laconia.

Still don’t get why Fred is so important. The man’s half-mad. Sure, he might be smart, but I doubt he knows a way to end this.

The story takes a long time to tell, and throughout it Frederick listens intently. He makes no judgment, says no snide remarks. The only thing he does is sit beside me while he listens to the story of how I fucked up spectacularly.

Only when my depressing tale is over does Frederick say, “Wow. That’s… quite a tale. I’ve never heard of Invictis before. I’ll have to see if any of the books in the library mention it.” His voice quiets to a bare whisper when he adds, “I must admit, though, I don’t believe Invictis is the reason you could do all that, Rey.”

I meet his eyes, questioning.

“You never thought you were special, but Prim knew. I know it, too. Don’t let Invictis deceive you.” My doubt must still be evident, because Frederick asks, “You still have it, don’t you? The Hilt of Storms?”

“Yeah, it’s still in my bag, but…” But what use is it to me right now?

“Pull it out.”

I grumble, not knowing where he’s going with this, but I go into my satchel all the same. My hand finds the metal hilt tucked away in the bag, and I pull it out into the bright light of day, holding it between us.

Just a fancy hilt made of black metal. Nothing more. It isn’t like I can summon lightning and make a cool magical sword like Gladus. It’s basically a paperweight.

“See?” Frederick says, as if that’s that.

“See what?”

Frederick lets out a sigh before poking the hilt with a single finger. He draws his finger back instantly, wincing as he turns the tip of it toward me, showing me that the hilt burned him. “Even without Invictis’s power, you can touch the Hilt, which leads me to believe it was never its power that let you do so to start with. It was always yours.”

I open my mouth to argue, the need to say he’s wrong deep in my bones, but no words come out. I can’t deny what I just saw, nor how the Hilt of Storms seems to weigh absolutely nothing when I’m holding onto it, like it’s an extension of my own arm.

“You have power inside you,” he tells me. “You simply need to unlock it and accept it.”

A weird sound of disbelief and incredulousness escapes me, but no matter what I do, I can’t take my stare away from the Hilt of Storms.

“Now, going back to what Morimento told you. She wants you to visit the undercrofts in each castle—I have no idea why that would be. The undercrofts aren’t meant for the public; only the empresses were allowed inside their depths. There’s no record of what’s inside any of them.” Frederick rubs his cheek. “But she wouldn’t have mentioned it if it was not important.There must be more to it. Perhaps my father knows.” He stands, dusts himself off, and offers me a hand.

I take it, allowing Frederick to help me up. Together, we find his dad and have a long talk.

Chapter Six

Blackness is all that surrounds me. I don’t know if I’m standing or sitting; all I know is that I’m surrounded and I’m not alone. Something else is with me, something that’s always been there. Something evil and cruel… something whose power refuses to be defined.

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