Page 75 of Her Dark Promise

“You made a deal with her! You—” He pulled his shirt down exposing the scar on his chest. “We—can’t escape even if we wanted to, and I am telling you, that is the last thing I want to do.”

“We don’t need her deals! We escape, tell everyone, and then come back and kill her to ensure that she doesn’t come after our family. No more sacrifices. Problem solved.”

“If you think I am going to leave after finding out that we are living under the same roof as a woman who has lived for almost four hundred years then you are sorely mistaken.” He looked away and mumbled to himself, “Is that why she keeps calling us boys? Because if so then that makes so much sense!”

He removed the quill from behind his ear and scribbled notes down in that damned notebook.

“I am responsible for your well-being, Soren!”

“Since when?” He was now staring at his brother, quill in hand. “You have never cared enough to take any interest in my life before, so why now?”

“What are you talking about?”

“Bast, you didn’t even know that my entire academic career has been centered around the three hundred and seventy-year-old woman who is alive and breathing in another room in this very castle.”

Alright, he could stop mentioning my age now, I didn’t need any more reminders.

“How was I supposed to take interest when you were always stuck in your room reading? Or off somewhere traveling and studying? You took any chance you could get to escape home.”

“You were always Father’s favorite; there was never any room for me.”

“You are an entitled bastard!” He spat. “You never had any pressure, Soren. You were allowed to be exactly who you wanted to be. Don’t you see that? The family, the legacy, all the rules, that was on me. Forgive me if I didn’t ask whatever the fuck you were drawing in your sketchbook from day to day.”

“You sound just like her,” he said evenly, and I knew he was referring to me and my lecture to him earlier. “You are right—I have had the privilege and freedom to escape home, but the cost of that was a disappointed father. I was a stain to him, one he couldn’t scrub off. Perhaps I do not understand your pressure, but you do not understand what it is like to be nothing to a man who brought you into the world.”

My heart hammered in my chest—all the words I threw at him in anger, about him not understanding me or Emilia, all the while he’d been living with his own loneliness and pain.

There was silence between the brothers. They just stood staring at each other until Bastian turned away, running his hands through his hair, unsure of how to proceed.

He whispered to himself, “It wasn’t fucking worth it. This is all my fault.”

Soren asked, “What wasn’t worth it?”

“Not killing her when I had the chance,” Bastian seethed.

Soren sighed, seeming to want to put his brother at ease.

“Bast, nothing you did would have stopped me from coming here. I was already planning on coming the moment I got home from university. What is happening to me is not your fault.”

“Why do you care about her?”

Soren lifted his round glasses from his face and rubbed the back of his hand across his forehead, taking a minute to gather his thoughts.

“Do you remember my friend, Léna?” When Bastian shook his head, Soren continued, “She was my best friend when I was younger, and then she was one of the chosen when I turned ten.”

Bastian lowered his head. “I didn’t know. I’m sorry.”

“I vowed to save her. I promised her that we would run away together, but Father caught me and hit me, knocked me out, and by the time I had awoken, it was too late to meet her. I followed her path and saw Léna standing before the queen and another woman. Anyway, that’s not the point.” He chastised himself. “I have been obsessed not just with this castle, but with this queen from the moment that I laid eyes on her. And this is the first time I have had a chance to return, and you willnotkeep me away.”

“If you think so highly of her, why hasn’t she ended the Reapings? She’s had several hundred years to find a way, yet she’s sat back and allowed it to continue.” Bastian gave Soren a moment to answer but continued when his brother stayed silent. “I’ll tell you why, brother. The Reapings protect her. She’ll let hundreds of children be torn from their families if it means nobody finds out who—what— she is.” Bastian slammed his fist into the bedpost. “All of the fucking sacrifices were pointless, and she knows it. She even kept one for herself! That girl, Emilia. She could have had a new life somewhere with a good family, but instead, she’s trapped in these walls so that monster can have another pet. She’s sick.”

My stomach began to roll because even if I wanted to fight his words, nothing he said was wrong.

“Perhaps we just do not understand her like we think. Maybe there’s more to all this. Back then, they were burning witches… The famous War on Magic. Maybe it’s all connected to her.”

Bastian scoffed. “It doesn’t matter what you say. My word is final.”

Soren sighed and turned his head, crossing his arms over his chest.

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