The strange artificial light of the Dying Lands was growing dim by the time we made it back to our tomb. Iris’s shivering had started to subside but her limp was back.
“I have to rest it,” she said, grimacing. She furiously rubbed the sides of her arms again. “And find some way to warm up. How did you stand the heat?” she said almost jealously.
“It’s called being part fire elemental,” I said.
Iris rolled her eyes. “Of course. Silly me.”
There were some children play fighting on the stone platform across from us. My breath stilled as I spotted Lukas among them, evaluating the group with a shrewd eye. He still hadn’t left? I figured he would have been halfway to the volcano by now. Maybe he hadn’t figured out how to get the other shards, or maybe with his new alliance with Onora he didn’t feel the need to even try getting the crown.
Regardless, he was still here. And that gave me an idea.
“Riley…” Iris was eyeing me. “Don’t even talk to him. Nothing good can come of it.”
“I just need a few answers,” I said. I gave her a pained smirk. “He won’t hurt me. He’s already given us to Onora, he won’t want to damage his prize.”
Iris pointed to her leg with a “history has totally proven you wrong, girl” sort of look. I didn’t even believe what I was saying, but against my better judgement, I found myself striding across the stone bridge to the platform and stopping outside the group of sparring children. And they were sparring, not playing like I’d originally thought.
Some of them, the witches and other magic users, I assumed, wielded swords made of sticks they clacked together with surprising ferocity. A young shifter changed into a panther kitten and lunged at her opponent. I thought it was adorable, right up until she started chewing at her opponent’s arm like it was infused with catnip. Her opponent—a witch—howled in pain and tried to kick her off, managing to catch the panther beneath the ribs and send her stumbling back with a pained mewl.
Lukas watched them all impassively. He didn’t say anything, didn’t even step in. I couldn’t imagine what he was looking for. The guy wasn’t an idiot. He was ruthless and cunning and had absolutely zero remorse or compassion, but what could he possibly see in these kids other than the sadistic pleasure that they were training for war instead of having a childhood?
He looked sharply at the next pair of children—a couple of wolf shifters—as they attacked each other, popping back and forth between their human and animal forms. The boy managed to bite the girl’s front left paw and she winced, limping backwards. The boy immediately shifted to human form.
“Sorry! I didn’t mean to bite that hard! Did I hurt you?”
The girl shifted back, wincing. “It’s okay. It’s not the worst—”
Lukas smacked her across the back of the head, sending her sprawling. I let out a shocked cry as he brought his hand around to the boy, sending him to the ground too. I looked around, sure that someone would step in, but the few parents who were paying attention watched impassively from the sidelines. One even nodded their approval.
Lukas knelt next to the boy who rubbed the spot where Lukas had hit him, tears in his eyes. “Do you remember what I told you?” Lukas said.
“To not…To never show weakness,” the boy blubbered. He sniffed hard, trying to keep his tears at bay. “I’m sorry.”
“Not yet you aren’t. If you were, you’d never do it again. Never show weakness, any of you,” Lukas said to the rest of the children who’d stopped to watch, eyes wide. “It’s only fuel for your enemies. It shows them that you can be hurt.”
The girl rolled over, still clutching her injured hand. She tried to push herself up but collapsed, whimpering. My heart clenched. I fought against every desire to run out there and help her up.
“Stop,” Lukas said as the little boy stepped forward. “What did I just tell you?”
“But she needs help,” the boy said meekly.
“She needs to get up on her own. Nobody can help her. Only then will she get stronger.”
The other kids watched as the girl let out another whimper. Her hand was starting to swell, but she pressed it against the ground as she tried pushing herself up again. She gritted her teeth. Her arms shook. I clenched my fists, breath stuck in my throat, until at last she pushed herself to sitting and gingerly got to her feet.
Lukas nodded. “Good. Don’t forget what I said again.”
“I won’t, sir,” the girl said meekly.
Lukas looked right at me, like he knew I’d been watching the entire time. He took his time standing from where he knelt and pushing the little boy back to his friends. I watched him place a hand on the little girl’s head and whisper something in her ear. Then he stalked over to me, the children scattering around him like kicked aside leaves.
“Have you come to beg?” he said.
It took me a moment to pull my eyes away from the children flocking back to their parents—a few of them continuing to tussle—and focus on his searing stare.
“Hardly,” I said. I crossed my arms in a pose of nonchalance, like I had something I couldn’t wait to share with him. “Do you know where I went this morning?”
“I don’t play games, girl. If you’re here to waste my time, then I’ll do what I promised Onora and rip off your mouth.”
I took a steadying breath. “Onora took me down below the tombs. She had me try to control lava.”
“She’s simply testing out her new toy.”
“She’s getting ready to use me for something. Something…” I thought back to the cavern with the fleshy orb. The thing that almost had a heartbeat. I forced a shrug. “Just thought you should know. I don’t know what you’re planning, but she’s planning something too, and it doesn’t involve you being in charge.”
Lukas peered at me for a time, long enough for goosebumps to rise on my arms, long enough to know that he was searching my face, perhaps even smelling whether or not I was lying to him. At last he grinned and I got an up close and personal look at those sharp incisors that’d tried to tear me open before. The ones that, knowing my luck, would probably try to do so again.
“Clever. Very clever. Trying to set us up against each other. A good idea, but you’re too stupid to pull it off. You can try all you want, but I only trust myself. Onora…” the name rolled off his tongue like a piece of meat he hadn’t yet finished devouring. “She’s just the means to an end for me.”
“As you are to her,” I said.
“Good. That’s the best kind of relationship,” Lukas said. “We both want something, and we’ll both do whatever we have to, and use whoever we have to, in order to get it.”
I couldn’t help letting my jaw slack just a little. “Do either of you trust each other at all? That’s no way to live.”
“Wrong.” Lukas stalked closer. Maybe it was the ever-dimming light of the false sun overhead, but I swore his yellow eyes glowed brighter. “It’s the only way to live. These children you pity—and I know you do; I could smell your pathetic sympathy for them even before I saw you—if they are weak, they will die. From the very beginning they must learn to trust no one but themselves. This,” he tapped the side of his skull, “and this,” one of his bulging biceps, “their smarts and their strength, those are what will let them survive. Not the kindness and mercy of others.”
I bit back a scathing retort. There was no point in arguing with him. The violent way he touted his ideology was proof this was a stance he’d lived by for probably his entire life.
I glanced at the little girl Lukas had reprimanded as she cradled her hand. Her mother held it gently as they walked away, examining it with a tenderness only a parent could. Some of the other parents were looking right at me, mistrust in their eyes.
“Who are these people?” I said.
“They’re outsiders,” Lukas said. “Lepers of sorts. Some believe that paranormals are safer together. Easier, in some ways, to stay hidden. But just because some want to be together doesn’t mean other paranormals want them.”
“You’re saying the Conclave turned them away?”
“Among others. That’s what they are, rejects of their own kind. Ostracized and forgotten.”
“That’s terrible,” I said, truly meaning it.
Lukas laughed, a deep rumbling in his throat. “I knew you were too tenderhearted for what needed to be done. This—” He swept a hand out to the people still making their way back to the tombs for the encroaching night. “This is the way things are. No unity. No ‘for the good of all.’ Just us against them.”
I wasn’t going to pretend I knew everything about the paranormal world, the politics of it or the prejudice, but that seemed broken. And if paranormals like Lukas of all people were the ones seeing it then there was something truly broken.
“My parents lived in a place like this out west,” Lukas said. He didn’t seem to be speaking to me, but just out loud to anyone who was nearby. His scowl was still there, but in his eyes…
Was it possible for a horrible killer, a terrible person, to look so sad? I didn’t want to believe it; didn’t want to see what I know I did: true pain and misery.
“It was a terrible place. We were all outcasts of some kind, cut off from the local groups of paranormals that would have made it safer for us to survive. Disease killed off more of us than the frequent attacks from other paranormals did. By the time I was ten, I’d buried nearly all my friends. The surviving ones left and I never saw them again.”
He spit on the ground. A corner of his lip pulled up in furious scorn. “I’ll never forgive my parents for not fighting to get out of that place.”
“I’m sure they tried the best—”
“They were weak!” Lukas snarled. “Weak in an unforgivable way. I swore I’d never be like them. It took me a long time—too long—to figure that out. When I did, I left them to rot and found my own way, becoming stronger than they, than anyone, could ever imagine. That’s why I’m going to be ruler and you’re not.”
He sneered at me, his expression so full of disdain and loathing that I found myself taking a half step back, sure, for a moment, that he was about to throw himself at me for the kill. “You were raised sheltered from everything, including the nature of what you were. The Order might believe a ruler is born, but I know they’re forged. Forged in their own success, not isolated from the realities of the world.”
“I can learn,” I argued. “I can learn about the world and try to make it better.”
“No, you can’t. Some things can’t be taught. They can only be experienced, and you’re far past the time for that.”
“You’re just bitter. That’s no better than me being ignorant. All you’re going to do is use the throne to take out your anger on—”
“I am the product of my upbringing,” Lukas said. “And I am exactly what our world needs. No more factions, no more of the forgotten. Just one group of paranormals united beneath a strong, clawed fist.”
I wanted to say something that would change his mind. Perhaps even, I don’t know, convince him to stop. But what did I expect would happen? That a few poorly picked words would erase the years of obvious resentment he carried? That he’d magically snap to his senses, curl up on the ground, and proclaim that he’d been wrong the whole time?
I was learning more and more that in no reality did the world work like that. So I stayed quiet. I hated to admit it, but he was right. I’d known, even before the trial, I wasn’t ready for the responsibility of the throne. Not now, and maybe not ever. What did I, a sheltered girl who’d only recently endured true pain and heartbreak, have to offer people who had endured it their entire lives?
And then, as though summoned from my thoughts, came Rasesh’s voice, it is that belief of your unworthiness that makes a ruler great.
“I can learn,” I repeated. “And I will. I’m sorry for what happened to you, I really am. But you’re only going to make things worse.”
“I’m going to make things as they’re supposed to be,” Lukas said. “I’m making my way to the forger and becoming king, and you’ll stay here with Onora.” He started walking away. “Hopefully she won’t kill you too soon.”