Page 123 of A Promise of Peridot
I gave a shallow nod and brought the steaming mug to my lips, the room suddenly chilly again despite the roaring hearth.
“I went back to Yale months later with my plan. We had everything we needed, but I wouldn’t do it without him. I couldn’t. He was my older brother, my closest friend.” Kane sighed. “I worshipped him.”
My heart might have been bleeding. “What was he like?”
“Brilliant. Funny. Agreeable. He hated conflict and never had a cross word to say about anyone. He was stronger than me,” Kane admitted with no shame or arrogance. “And calmer. I had always been ruled by my emotions. They often say the dragon child is controlled by whatever is in their heart.”
“That’s what your father called you that day at Siren’s Bay. ‘The dragon child.’ ”
“He used to say we were the same. The only two dragon-shifting Fae in our family. In all the realms, now. Every time he says it, it makes me sick,” Kane said, staring up at the ceiling.
“What did your brother say when you went back to him?”
Kane laughed, bleak and unfeeling. “ ‘You’re going to get us all killed.’ ” He finally turned to face me, eyes piercing. “And he was right. As always. It was exactly what happened.”
I knew how the story ended, but still, his words pulled the air from my lungs.
“Aleksander turned on us. Told my father everything in return for freedom for his people, enslaved as one of my father’s many armies. I, too, had promised them freedom, but we were the riskierbet. So my father knew we were coming.” Kane’s voice had grown quiet. “I only landed one single blow on him with the blade. Down his back, along his spine. In that moment, harnessing the Blade of the Sun, I thought I had vanquished the greatest evil to ever live. But all he did was laugh.”
Lazarus and his punishing gray eyes, knowing in that moment he had won. As horrible an image as any I could fathom.
“He said it was the only chance I would ever get, and that I had failed. And then, he annihilated us. Days later we were brought out to the gallows to watch those we loved executed in front of his entire court.”
I couldn’t stop my sharp intake of breath. My trembling legs. I didn’t want to hear any more. I didn’t want—
“Dagan’s wife and infant child, Griffin’s parents—his father was Lazarus’s own general. Briar’s husband. Each of them, hanged one by one. I can still hear the creak of the wood beneath their feet as they walked... The snaps of their necks. I dream of it nearly every night.
“It was a vicious show of power and mercilessness. He made sure every single Fae and mortal in the realm knew never to cross him again,” Kane said, his hands shaking. “And then he brought up my mother.”
My stomach sank so quickly I was sure I would vomit. I gripped my mug until my fingertips grew white.
“His own wife, Arwen, his own queen.” Kane’s eyes were shining. “He had her killed because he knew it would devastate me and Yale more than it could ever hurt him. I can still remember the look of shock on her face. They hadn’t had a happy marriage by any means, but still. She had never seen it coming.
“Before I could move a single muscle, Yale... He tried to saveher. Got about four feet before my father took him out himself. He killed him instantly. A spear of ice to the base of his skull.
“They hanged her moments later, while she was still weeping over her son’s body. I lost them both. Because of my stupid, fearless righteousness.” He wiped brusquely at his eyes before taking another sip of his tea. The rain continued to slam against the cottage roof.
Hot tears coated my cheeks. “Kane, I...”
“My biggest regret isn’t trying to overthrow him. It isn’t even that I failed. It’s that I didn’t die protecting them.”
“How can you say that? Theychoseto fight beside you.”
“That’s why it should only have been me up there,” he bit out. “They died because of my failure. I have to live with that, every day.”
He leaned back and released a long, slow breath. “After, my father assumed we would be so scarred, so beaten into submission that we would return to our rightful places in his court. He even offered Griffin his father’s post as general.
“Some considered that generous. Many felt it was better to be with Lazarus and alive than against him and dead. Or worse. But we couldn’t stay another minute in Lumera under his rule. So Griffin and I fled to Evendell, with as many in tow as we could manage.”
Kane was quiet a moment, before adding, “I spent the next fifty years blaming myself for what happened—hating myself because of it. There was no end in sight to my self-loathing, to my need for revenge—it was the only thing that could justify their sacrifice. Could make my life worth living. It was all that mattered to me.” His eyes lifted to mine with a look I had never seen in them before. “Until I met you.”
Too many emotions were welling up inside of me. Ones I had been fighting to keep buried for weeks and weeks—
“You are not to blame for your mother’s suffering, Arwen. You are pure good, pure light. I’m sure that’s why your mother lived as long as she did. Not in spite of you, butbecauseof you.”
More tears ran down my cheeks, swift and heavy. “I’m so very sorry,” I whispered. “I can’t even imagine—”
“We all have to live with our choices. But you didn’t make any to hurt the ones you love. These things happenedtoyou, Arwen.” He took the mug from my stiff hands and placed it on the table with his own, before threading my fingers through his. “You are not to blame. For any of this. You have to forgive yourself.”
