69. Confractus

confractus ~a ~um, a.

1. (of a surface) broken

Moonlight’s End has a doorbell, and for the first time, I hear it ring.

Quilliam doesn’t answer it, and neither does Dravik. Whoever it is keeps ringing insistently, so I head to the entrance and peer into the camera. Tall, broad-chested, disheveled platinum hair. Rax. Breathe. One circle left, and then I’m in the quarterfinals. Once I win that, House Hauteclare is erased. That’s all that matters.

I crack open the door, and Rax’s warm redwood gaze lights up when he finds me. “Hauteclare! You’re—”

“You shouldn’t be here,” I cut him off. The strain on his lion-bone face hardens.

“I know, but…I know what you mean now. About seeing memories. I made myself pass out in the saddle, and I saw some of yours, and—”

I go stiff. “You didn’t stop to think perhaps I don’t want you to see my memories?”

“It just…happened. I didn’t choose it.”

The idea of him seeing my life—the squalor, the joy of my childhood, the pain, the brothel… My body wants to reach for him, to take comfort in his arms, but my mind knows better. I start to close the door.

“Her father’s dead,” Rax blurts. There’s only one her we both know. “Her father’s been…” He pauses, struggling with the reality. “Killed. Because you—” His throat bobs. “And my pings are still blocked, so I—”

Redwood eyes roam me like journey, memorization, yearning. For truth, for me…I’m not sure which. What he feels has never mattered. This is reality, not the saddle, and in reality we’re entirely different beasts in entirely different gardens. But he’s brought me the final puzzle piece that slides it all into place; Mirelle’s cold fury at the triumvirate conference makes sense. Now she knows what it feels like to lose someone she loves dearly. It’s in the Hauteclare blood to annihilate one another—Father taught me that. Mirelle is Rax’s fiancée, so of course he’s worried; his future father-in-law is dead because of me.

It’s his family now, too.

“You’re shaking.” His voice interrupts my thoughts. I look up to see my hand on the door trembling. He reaches over and wraps his warm fingers around my cold ones, and I fight the urge to lean on him, tell him everything; the gardens, the heads, the core, what’s inside Heavenbreaker. If I tell him the truth, it’ll only position him closer to the chessboard. He’s a great rider, but he’d make a poor pawn, and this chessboard is far too heavy for his light smile.

I don’t want you to die.

“If Mirelle’s father is dead,” I say, “then it means he was one of the seven who killed my mother.”

Pain flashes hollow on his face, but his recovery is sharp. “You don’t have to keep doing this, Hauteclare.”

My stomach sinks. He’ll never understand, will he? straighten. harden.

“Yes I do,” I correct. “It’s retribution.”

“The best retribution—or what the fuck ever—is moving on, living a good life. Let them live with whatever bad shit they’ve done.”

My laugh is all teeth. “If I leave them alone, do they not thrive? Do you think any of the illustrious Hauteclares would give a second thought to the blood of a bastard and her sick mother on their hands? Would they not celebrate their unity under my death? The ‘preservation’ of their ‘honor’? Would they not go on to live even better lives because I died?”

His silence is answer itself.

“Are you truly asking me to move on when they won’t even blink when I’m gone?”

The courtyard watches us with all its repentant, empty-eyed marble angels. I laugh until it grows too bitter to swallow anymore.

“I stand by my original summation of your character, Velrayd—you’re a fool. A talented fool, but a fool nonetheless.”

The redwood of his gaze blazes hot, his hand squeezing mine. “Let me come in, Synali.”

His first time calling me by my real name. And his last.

I smile a Dravik smile. “No.”

I pull away and shut the door in one fluid move. His shout echoes around the courtyard.

“You can’t keep going like this—alone! Alone and doing reckless shit over and over on the tilt like it means nothing, all for this old creep of a Lithroi who’s straight-up using you!”

“You are your House’s son, Velrayd. Turn around and go back to your banquets and your glorious fetes and your pretty marriage. There’s nothing for you here.”

“I want there to be something!”

The obsidian in his voice is molten, raw, flooding the courtyard and encasing it all in a quick-cooling shell. A moment frozen in time. My breath feels like ten—the pain in my heart distant but tearing its way to fresh.

“If I didn’t make it fucking obvious enough, I want you—I want you to be safe.”

“So you can fight me,” I lead.

“So I can—so we can…”

talk. touch. The thoughts come unbidden into my head, like the saddle—like hearing someone else ring their intent clear at me. I touch the door, imagining his heat. impossible. The halo on his forehead is perfect. The halo on Mirelle’s, perfect. The halo on his father-in-law’s forehead must’ve been perfect, too, before Dravik killed him.

He’s marrying into my family. A family I must destroy.

impossible.

I walk away from the door. Rax’s shouts pierce from outside, but his exact words slip through my fingers like sand, and then Dravik’s low tone reverberates. There’s a scuffle, a shout. A red hovercarriage leaves the driveway minutes later, and something in my chest shuts tight when it goes. It’s impossible—I know that now.

The fire burns until its end.

With the diamond pendant, I grind out the penultimate circle. I lean on the wall—enough calluses by now that my fingers do not bleed anymore. In the dying artificial sunset, only one circle remains.

Only I remain.