Page 48 of Marked By the Dark Lord
“No,” Irrt’ok growled. “Someone bound the spell to summon me to a book. She simply read it.”
“And you let such a nobody banish you back here for a decade? Come now, Irrt’ok, I thought better of you than that.”
“I’m glad to hear that, my liege,” Irrt’ok said, dipping his head toward the ruler of House Duloke, the strongest faction in Faerie. “Because it wasn’t her.”
The click of footsteps on stone stopped. “Then, who? Surely not some mortal.”
Irrt’ok’s face spread wide into a smile. “Oh, no mortal at all.”
The leader of House Duloke turned, noting the smug smile on his subject’s face. “You seem inordinately proud of yourself. I hope, for your sake, the answer is worth making me ask.”
The minor Fae’s smile faded immediately. “My apologies, my liege. But yes, I think you will find it quite worthwhile. You see, the one who defeated me was none other than your brother.”
Red light lit the corridor as a pair of scarlet eyes burned bright. “Really? My brothers are dead, Irrt’ok. I watched them die myself. You know that. You were there. Are you saying one of them lived?”
“Rill’ok and Priv’ok, yes,” Irrt’ok replied, the smile returning. “But no. I was referring toKorr’ok.”
Silence ruled as moments turned to seconds. Then, a millimeter at a time, the smile on Irrt’ok’s master's face grew wider.
“Come, Irrt’ok, there is apparently much to discuss,” said Kraw’ok, the leader of House Duloke. “Much to discuss indeed.”
Chapter Twenty-Three
Mila
Istared through the ceiling, seeing visions I had long repressed or forgotten about. The guest room was quiet, and Korr’ok had left me alone since we returned. Perhaps he was pissed at the sudden ending to the date, or maybe he realized I wasn’t in a good state. Either way, he’d given me space and time, both of which I desperately needed.
Am I a monster?
The question circled ceaselessly through my brain, coming and going with an ebb and flow like the tides. Sometimes, I thought hard, without an answer, and other times, I was so lost in myself that I barely considered it.
But it was a valid question to ask. I had killed Victor. I was responsible for his death. Maybe I hadn’t known what I was doing, but then again, maybe I had. When I reached for the book, I felt the malice contained within. On one level or another, I had to have known that by opening it, nothinggoodwouldcome. Which meant I had embraced the evil. I had become the monster.
And that wasn’t even considering what may or may not have happened to Sarabeth and the others. Were they even alive? I didn’t know. There could be more blood on my hand.
“My fault,” I whispered to the empty room. “I have to accept it. There’s no changing what’s been done. Only the future.”
Could I change who I was becoming? Or had my fate been sealed, dooming me to end up like my parents? Monsters in their own way.
I shuddered as, all of a sudden, I was back in the kitchen of the house I’d grown up in. A two-story affair located on a quiet cul-de-sac. No picket fence, but ivy had grown up some of the brick walls. There were two clean, new cars in the driveway, and we took two vacations a year.
Everyone thought it was idyllic.
“A fucking C? You got a C? All that money we paid for a fucking tutor, and this is the best you could do, you stupid shit? How are you going to get into medical school with a C? You need to do better!”
I shrank away from the memory as the wooden spoon turned my backside red, bruising it so bad it hurt to sit for a week.
That was first grade. First fucking grade.
The next year had been no better. A spoon for a low grade. A belt for specks of dust I had missed while cleaning the entire house.
“You don’t pay any rent. We don’t have any freeloaders in this house. You have to learn your place. Now get to work! The real world won’t just let you live for free. It’s time you figured that out.”
That was my father. He’d alternated between telling me that I was gone the moment I turned eighteen, that I was so stupid I would end up on the streets selling my body for crack, and that I needed to shape up if I wanted to get into Columbia or any of the other “good” schools.
One time I’d asked him which one he wanted. He beat me, breaking a rib, for my “insolence,” as he put it.
I ran away after that and ended up in Mrs. Johnson’s “Home for Hurting Youth” at the tender age of ten. Even thinking the name brought a snort. Why had nobody ever thought to look into the irony of the name? You didn’t go there for help. You went there togethurt.
