“I promise I am,” I tell him. I try to reach down to my leg and wipe off the blood dribbling from the jagged gashes in my arms, but all I manage to do is tear a rip in my pants from one of the spikes.
“You need to learn,” he tells me, walking forward. His eyes skim over the way some of my spikes are longer than others, the messiness of my sliced skin. “You can’t be controlled by your magic or fall to foolish emotions,” he spits out. “You’re my son, and you will learn to make me proud.”
Or else.
That’s the unspoken threat.
My head falls. “Yes, Father.”
His chin jerks up. “Get him inside.”
My mother wastes no time in hurrying forward. Her soft hand takes hold of my upper arm not riddled with spikes, and we start the long walk back to the estate.
We’re quiet all the way there, but my head is loud with my father’s words.
You will learn to make me proud.
Because I don’t make him proud. I just disappoint him, again and again, and he’s going to hate me forever.
My eyes burn, but I keep sniffing, trying not to cry. I’ve been doing it way too much lately. But I just keep hearing my father’s words in my head. I’ve always wanted him to stop being disappointed in me, and I thought once I started to show signs of magic, he would. But that’s not true at all.
Once I get back to my room, I’m quiet as I bathe and then quiet still after I dress for bed. My mother comes back in with food and some supplies to clean my sore, torn skin, and I don’t say anything through that either, even though the stuff she pours on it stings. At least the spikes went away again, so I don’t have to sleep with them.
When the last of the blood has been wiped away, my mother places her hands on my cheeks, forcing me to look at her.
“I want you to listen to me, Slade, and I want you to remember this, alright?”
My head nods slowly.
Her eyes are fierce and full of love. “You are my son, and you already make me proud. Every day.”
It feels like I’m going to bawl like a baby, but I swallow hard.
“But I’m weak. My magic only comes out when I’m feeling emotions, and Father says that’s wrong.”
“You are not weak,” she says firmly. When I start to argue, she goes on. “You don’t have to be cruel to be strong. You don’t have to be mean to seem brave. You don’t have to look down on others in order to stand tall. Having emotions does not mean you’re weak. It means you’re smart enough to let yourself feel.”
When my stinging eyes get too much to sniff away, her thumbs wipe along my cheeks. “I don’t want to be like him,” I whisper, and even though we’re shut away in my room, I still look to the door, afraid that he somehow will have heard me. “I don’t want to break or rot or hurt things. I want to be good.”
My mother’s face turns sad. “You are good, Slade. Every single day, I am proud of you. And it’s not because of these spikes on your arms or the magic in your veins. It’s not for the blood you are born from or the status you will one day have.” She drops a hand and places it on my chest, right over my racing heart. “I am proud of you for this. Not for what you can do, but for who I know you will be.”
“Who will I be?”
She leans forward and kisses my forehead, combing my damp hair away from my face. “You will be completely yourself. And you will be proud.”
CHAPTER 8
SLADE
I’m not sure how or when I fell asleep. All I know is, the front door bangs open again and my head jerks up, my neck cricking instantly from where it was lying back on the sofa. Ryatt apparently fell asleep here too, though I have no idea when he came back. He lurches up from the chair he was slouched in just as I jump to my feet, pulse hammering from the rude awakening.
Wind howls through the cave, and I realize it’s gone dark again, either because I slept longer than I realized or the storm has completely overrun the sun. I pause when I see a mop of yellow hair. “Judd?”
“Miss me?” He shakes his head like a wet dog, sending water droplets flying around in the entryway.
I let out a sigh and drag a hand down my face. “Does no one actually listen to my orders?”
Ryatt gives me a scowl and then stalks into the kitchen.
“Not when your orders are stupid,” Judd answers jovially.
I need to punch something. I really do.
But then he moves aside just as a slight man clad in a long coat with red bands stitched around his biceps walks in and closes the door behind him.
Hojat.
Relief floods into me, and my eyes widen, flashing back to Judd. “You went all the way to the army to get Hojat and bring him here?”
“Yep.”
Surprise, gratitude, irritation that I didn’t think of it—all of those things knock around inside my skull.
“You’re welcome,” Judd says, flashing me a smile as he pulls off a satchel from his shoulder and sets it on the ground.
“Thank you.” Having Hojat here to check over Auren is already loosening some of the panic fisted around my gut.
Both of them come into the living room, and then Judd helps our army mender out of his soaking wet cloak, while Hojat checks his own bag that’s slung around his shoulder. I can hear vials tinkling together as he rummages around. “Good, everything in this stayed dry.”
“Your other bag wasn’t so fortunate, I’m afraid,” Judd tells him, motioning toward the satchel that’s now not much more than a puddle by the front door.
“That’s alright, Captain Judd,” Hojat says as he shakes off some of the water from his brown hair.
A tired Lu appears from down the corridor and takes in the scene. “Took you long enough,” she says through a yawn.
“You know I hate flying,” Judd replies as he strips off his cloak and hangs it on the peg, beside the fire where the rest of our cloaks are already hanging. “Plus, we went right through the damn storm. That rain turned to sleet, and that sleet turned to hail. Ever been pummeled by hail while you’re trying to stay on a frozen saddle with a mender who hates heights?” he asks as he yanks off his boots.
“Not recently, no.”
He gives another hair shake. “Well, it’s hard.”
Hojat frowns. “It was my first time on a timberwing, Captain Judd,” he says, shuddering slightly as he too takes off his wet boots. “And your flying...it is not the best.”
Lu snorts. Ryatt walks back in with a pair of steaming tin cups. He hands them to Judd and Hojat, who take them gratefully, gulping the broth down.
My patience has gone paper thin, this banter tearing right through it. “Does anyone want to explain why you’re not all back with the army like I told you to be?”
The four of them look at me like I’m a kid throwing a tantrum. They give me this look a lot.
“Calm down,” Judd says as he comes over to clap a cold hand on my back. “Os is with the army, and they’ve already moved out on his command. He’s got everything in order. Besides, Lu and I agreed that you’d need Hojat. For Digby and for...” He trails off, glancing down at where Auren is still lying on the sofa. “She still hasn’t woken up?”
I give a terse shake of my head.
“Excuse me, Captain Lu,” Hojat murmurs before scuttling around her to stand in front of Auren. He looks down at her, the left side of his burned face creased with concern. “Captain Judd said we cannot touch her skin during daylight, yes?”
“Correct,” I tell him. Aside from my Wrath, Hojat is someone I trust implicitly. He knows quite a lot of secrets, and now that he’s here, I’m so fucking relieved, because he can help Auren where I’m failing. “But she never gold-touched the cushions or Lu’s leggings. I don’t know if that’s a good or a bad thing. She could just be too drained.”
Hojat hums thoughtfully. “Well, it’s night now. May I?”
With a nod, I move away so he can begin to carefully look her over. He starts by feeling the temperature on her forehead, holding his fingers in front of her lips to count her breaths, checking her extremities, and then pressing his ear against her heartbeat.
“Well?”