Page 176 of Fearless

A heavy silence bears down on us, one that Kai graciously lifts from our shoulders. “The king always kept his Fatals hidden. We never sawthem. The Silencer was the only one I ever met while trying to glean information about the Resistance—which I know now was a sham.” His laugh is humorless. “Though, it sounds like Damion met me long before then, when he told the king of my power.”

The queen’s eyes widen on me. “If that is true, then the king died thinking that you…”

“That I was his greatest failure?”

His Ordinary. His weakness. His death.

Even powerless, I killed him.

A slight smile tugs at my lips.

I hope he saw his daughter’s face—the Ordinary he despised—as I drove that sword into his chest.

“I’ll live with it.”

Edric

A seamstress will soon find her way into the final Trial.

This signals the beginning of the end, or so the king thinks. Adena is little more than a pawn in his game, plucked from the castle and thrown into the Pit for something as fragile as his ego. Edric hates the daughter he believes to be his, and as punishment for killing the woman he loves, the king will take Paedyn’s only piece of comfort in this world.

From high above in his glass box, Edric enjoys watching the weakness emanate from Paedyn Gray. She screams, and cries, and begs for a God who is wholly uninterested in such a plight. It is, oddly enough, a gift that the Trials did not end the Ordinary’s life—for the king himself wants such a privilege.

But, in the end, it is that rose atop Iris’s jewelry box that foretells his doom. Hatred begins to fester in Edric’s heart the moment he believes an Ordinary to be born of him. Yet, they share no strength, no morals, no ounce of blood. Paedyn Gray belongs to the queen and her love for a Fatal. But that does not make her any less a princess. Nor does it lend her any more strength as an Ordinary.

King Edric’s last moments are spent spilling blood and spitting enmity at a girl he has spent eighteen years loathing. Even so, he mentions nothing of her lineage, because she is not worthy of knowing the truth. The king wishes her to die having never known of the royal blood in her veins. He will not allow Paedyn Gray the satisfaction of understanding how much she has haunted him.

So he carves a circle upon her heart, just as his wife has done countless times atop his own. Though, this is no gesture of love like Iris intended, but the marking of what was lost, all for the Ordinary squirming beneath his boot. The king ensures Paedyn Gray will wear that mark until her final breath, because it hurts to bear the weight of Iris’s touch alone. It is in the Ordinary’s skin that Edric writes the truth of her birth, of the great love that died, and the spark of hatred that was born. Atop that muddy ground, mangled flesh spells out his love for Iris Moyra as the king lays her to rest with this final act of justice.

Though, in the end, it is he who is buried beneath the weight of secrets and betrayal. For he never learns the truth of those he loved—and how they loved one another.

CHAPTER 67Paedyn

“What are you talking about?”

Kitt’s words are a hiss, making me flinch. His red-rimmed eyes grow unfocused. My heart pounds beside Kai in this study that seems to be closing in on me. I almost try to convince myself that I’ve misheard the malice in my husband’s voice.

But it is no use. The crazed look he wears only confirms the words he spit so readily. It’s as though they have been smothered beneath his tongue for weeks before finally unleashing them.

This is not the Kitt I knew, nor is it the one I was beginning to befriend. This is the embodiment of a fraying mind.

“Edric wasn’t my father,” Kai answers, his shoulders stiff. “Myla already had a child when they were secretly wed—a powerful one that your father only wanted as his spare and weapon. So really”—the Enforcer takes a step forward, so stoic and sure—“Paedyn is your blood, not me.”

After all that time of calling Kai Azer a cocky bastard, that was precisely what he was. I had uttered the truth on a dozen occasions.

I watch the steely words hit Kitt, and yet, he hardly flinches. “That may be so, but you are my brother. You are more family than I have ever had. More…” He searches Kai’s gaze desperately. “More love than I have ever had. Father was obsession, Mother a ghost, but you… you showed me what love was.”

The reminder of my naivety nips at the corner of my consciousness. I’ve spent weeks trying to repair a bond I thought was only severed due to the killing of a king. But I realize now that Edric Azer was merely a variable in Kitt’s contempt for me. It is Kai he wants at his side—his brother and friend. And I alone stand between them.

“Why did you marry me?” I prod. “If I am a wedge between you two, then why not kill me?”

Kitt finally deigns to meet my stare. “My plans for Ilya require you.” I gape at his curt response before he’s turning once again toward Kai, features suddenly beseeching. “Together we will build the greatest nation—stretching far beyond the Scorches and Shallows. We will create a legacy that Father never dreamed of.”

Kai stares at the boy he’s called “brother” his whole life. “I thought you wanted to be exactly like Father—yourfather. Whatever happened to following in his footsteps, doing anything to make him proud?”

“Again,” Kitt says with a cough, “I grew up. Father told me of his plan for the Resistance, how his entire life was wasted trying to rid the kingdom of Ordinaries.” He shakes his head. “I spent so many years believing he was a god among men, that his plans for Ilya were beyond anything I could hope to achieve. But it was all so…mediocre. Obsessive.”

Kitt wags a finger in the air. “Yet, he had the gall to make me feel inferior my whole life. All I wanted was his pride, his approval, his love. So now”—his gaze widens with that wild look—“I will be so much greater than him. His name will be overlooked in the histories beside my own. Besideours.”

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