She startles at the sound of my voice.
“I didn’t cut those scars into my arm. My father did. So I wouldn’t forget my quest. It was the most painful thing I’ve ever had to endure. And I’ve endured a lot.…”
“Oh,” she says. The tension in her relaxes ever so slightly.
Another half hour passes.
“So what did you do?” she asks. “To piss your dad off so much? I got the gist a few weeks ago that you’re kind of on the outs with him.”
“That’s putting it lightly. My father disowned me.” I’m not sure I want to talk about it, but Daphne shifts in her seat, turning her body toward me. Maybe talking is the best thing for getting her to open up to me again. “I cried,” I say. “When my mother died, I cried.”
“What? Your father disowned you over that?”
“No. It’s what I did after he punished me for crying.…” I realize I need to back up the story more for her to understand. “I have a twin brother. His name is Rowan. But you have to understand that twins are very rare in my world. The first two sons of the Underrealm were created by our god, Hades. They were the first twins—the eldest of whom became the father of our race, while the younger twin became the progenitor of our greatest enemies, the Skylords.
“Because of this, firstborn sons are treated with great respect—made Lords and trained as warriors and Champions—while younger sons are deemed Lesser, and treated with suspicion and disdain.”
“Like your cousin Garrick?” Daphne asks. “You called him Lesser.”
I nod, but don’t tell her that Garrick is actually my half brother and not my cousin. “When my mother learned from the healers that she was carrying twins, she was overcome with dismay that one of her sons would be forced to live as a Lesser. So when Rowan and I were born, she allowed no one to be present with her. That way, no one other than she would know which one of her children was the eldest. Before she would allow my father to see us, she made him swear an unbreakable oath that neither of her children would ever be cast out of the ranks of the Underlords.”
“Smart,” Daphne says.
I sigh. “Some say that my mother granted us the greatest favor of our lifetimes—but unfortunately, her actions caused Rowan and me to become rivals from the moment we drew our first breaths. Everyone speculated as to which one of us was the true Lord, and which one of us was undeserving of our status. Everything we did was considered to be a competition. In the beginning, I was my father’s favorite. I was bigger and stronger than Rowan and resembled my father with my dark hair and olive skin, while Rowan was slighter and fairer like our mother.
“But as we grew older, it became apparent that Rowan had inherited more of my father’s cunning and cold temperament, while I was called nursling well past my second year because—as I am told—I clung to my mother’s skirts and screamed when my father tried to pit me in fights with the other boys my age. That is when the Court started to whisper that perhaps I was too human for my own good—that I had inherited too many of my mother’s human traits. My father’s favor had already started to shift toward Rowan before my mother’s death.”
I pause, changing lanes so I can pass a slow van and pick up speed. “Rowan is the one the Court wanted to send here, not me.” I shiver at the idea of that sociopath sitting here with Daphne instead of me. What tactics would he have used to coerce her into agreeing to be his Boon? The thought of her saying yes to him … “Be happy he isn’t here.”
“Noted,” she says, like she’s realizing there could be worse things than being stuck in this car with me.
“It wasn’t until my mother’s death that I fully realized my father’s disdain for me. For her … When she collapsed, I sent a serving boy—Garrick—to fetch my father. My father took so long to come, and when he finally arrived with a couple of members of the Court … it was like he didn’t care at all.
“I begged him to help her. I yelled at him to do something. To save her. We have these places called healing chambers, and I thought if he brought her there, she would get better. But he wouldn’t listen to me.
“One of his servants grabbed me and pulled me away from my mother’s body. I screamed and kicked, trying to escape. And then I started to cry.…”