Page 4 of Knot What She Seems
“I like crunch,” I counter.
Caran just flips me off as he stalks into the kitchen, and my brother’s gaze follows him for a second before returning to me. Immediately, Teddie’s expression falls, and I know what he’s going to say before he says it.
“Stage three.” The words come out as a hoarse whisper, barely audible, but they roll through my ears with all the impact of a high-speed train.
Fuck.
No.
That’s why Caran was crying.
I try to school my reaction, try to act like this news isn’t a crowbar to the skull, like it doesn’t make my stomach clench or tears gather behind my eyes. I’m not sure I’m entirely successful.
My brother has karkinos, a disease only carried on the alpha gene. Rare. So rare that there’s no known cure. And the medicine for it…only the Noths have it. The goddamned, wretched country of Nóthos that has sought to conquer ours for the last fourteen years.
“That’s not all,” Teddie says, shifting his hips, reaching and pulling out a bent letter from his back pocket, then handing it to me.
As I take the paper, the linen quality screams out its contents, telling me that Teddie’s bad news is doubled this week. Unfolding it, I see the crest for Eros Academy on the top, a shield with two lions tearing at one another in a massive glorification of violence. My eyes scan the first line.
We are pleased to announce that you’ve been invited to attend our fall session for alphas…
Invited. Ha. As if Eros Academy wasn’t essentially a conscription for every noble alpha male out there the second they turn twenty-five. Exceptional alphas who test in are also admitted these days.
With a war that’s lasted over a decade, the need to produce soldiers and find strategists has become more and more essential. Of course, female alphas go to a different school, one in which they’re taught how to fly our drones and coordinate attacks. Eros focuses on front-line battle brutality.
The words on the page become indefinable scribbles as emotions scratch at the insides of my eyelids.
My immediate thought is to beg our parents for help again. But they and the other fucking imbeciles at the palace—otherwise known as scientists—think that karkinos is like asthma. They think, because some alphas have “outgrown” the illness, that everyone will.
In my gut, deep in the darkest part of me, I don’t think that’s the case for Teddie. Especially not with this news.
Stage three.
There’s still a chance…but not if he goes to fucking Eros Academy. Not if he’s pushing himself to the limit every damned day.
He needs rest and medicine so that this disease will stop eating away at him.
I glance over at my twin, whose face is a mirror of my own in so many ways. Dimple on the right side. Thin upper lip with a strong cupid’s bow. A smirk that can incite smacks to the shoulder. We’re both tall and on the thinner side, even though he trumps me by about two inches. The only major difference is the angel kiss near his left temple. A little spot shaped almost like a heart. And the scar near his collarbone. One he got in a fight that feels like it happened a million years ago. In another life. One in which he defended me.
I owe him for that scar.
For a lot of things.
Clearing my throat, I clench the letter tighter in my hand, staring down at it. My fingers glide over the woven texture of the paper as I think, as cloudy resolve morphs into a plan, as the plan formulates into a series of steps, as the first step becomes as clear and defined as a slab of stone.
My eyes meet my brother’s. “You can’t go.”
“I have to.”
“You have to, but you can’t. And Mom and Dad have proven themselves useless too many times to count, so we can’t ask them to get you out of it.”
His eyes roll, but he doesn’t argue with me. I scoot closer to him until our knees touch. “So, you’ll technically go. Butyouwon’t.” I have to take a deep breath and fortify myself before I add, “I’m going in your place.”
Teddie snorts. And that snort—which rightly belongs in a stable, it’s so disgusting—turns into a belly laugh that brings Caran out of the kitchen.
With an oven mitt still on his hand, he pops up an eyebrow. “What’s so funny?”
“Brylee says she’ll take my place at Eros. Can you imagine?”
