Father.
The title tastes bitter for any man other than the one who raised me. I stare up at Calum, letting him read every bit of mistrust in my mind. This man was once like a father to me, and now that I’ve discovered he has been precisely that all along, hurt rams into me.
“This is more upsetting to you than I thought it would be,” he observes simply.
“So I’m right,” I breathe. Then a wave of anger rolls over me, smothering the fleeting triumph that accompanies unraveling a lifetime of lies. “You left me on a doorstep!” I throw my hands into the air. “I was a baby! And all so the king wouldn’t find out I wasn’t his child?”
Calum’s eyes grow wild. It is as though something has snapped within him. Like every solemn expression and kind word was an act he despised. And now that I know who he truly is, there is no use for deceit. “The king did think you were his child—and he didn’t want you.”
I stumble back a step, my lips parting slightly.
“After you killed Queen Iris,” he bites, “the king handed you off to a Silencer. That is when he discovered that an Ordinary—an Ordinary—killed one of the rarest Elites known to Ilya.”
The room spins around me as I comb through my memory. Recalling every book of history Father set before me, I finally find her power hiding in the corner of my mind. She was—
“A Soul.” Calum utters the words he’d read from my mind. “That’s right. The ability to sense another’s emotions and alter them, take them upon herself. And her power paired with mine—a Fatal’s?” He laughs, and it is a crazed sound. “You were supposed to be formidable. But you are nothing.”
He spits out the words, each one coated with years of rage. “You were an embarrassment to the king, one he told me to take care of. And he spent his life covering up the Ordinary he thought was his. But you were mine, and Iris died”—he runs a hand over his hair—“all for you to be nothing! A worthless Ordinary!”
The scar burns above my heart.
O.
The king thought I was his daughter.
Two Elites have never made an Ordinary. Yet, here I stand, powerless. The product of strength with none to show for it. And maybe, for the first time, that makes me extraordinary.
Tears blur my vision, anger stinging my eyes. I flex my fingers in the soft skirt of my dress, feeling the comforting outline of my dagger beneath the layers of fabric.
“So that is why you hate me?” I choke out. “Because the woman you loved died giving birth to me?”
“Because it should have been you,” he growls. “It should have been you that died that day, not the queen who bled out for an Ordinary.” His head shakes, and the wild look in his eyes has me stepping back. “Before you showed up at the castle and sat beside Edric during that first dinner, I thought you were dead. I may not have been able to kill you like the king had wished eighteen years ago, but I hoped you met your end in the slums.”
“But I didn’t,” I breathe. “And he still kept me alive.”
After that third Trial, standing in the pouring rain outside the Bowl, I asked the king why he hadn’t killed me sooner. That was right before his sword sliced open my forearm.
“Because I needed you alive.”
“He did,” Calum says in response to my memory. “I convinced him that the Resistance needed you to find the tunnel into the Bowl, and if the Trials didn’t kill you, then he could after.” He lifts a shaking finger at me. “But you have her eyes. He recognized you the moment you sat down at that table.”
I fight to keep my voice steady. “How did you know I would find the tunnel?”
His smile is cruelly sympathetic. I bare my teeth right back.
He is not going to tell me.
Every unanswered question begins to resurface until they are practically bubbling out of me. I spit one out, hoping he will deign to answer it. “I thought the queen died giving birth to Kitt?”
“The whole kingdom thought so.” His eyes gleam, boring into mine. “The king kept Iris locked away—safe from any threats. So much so that when she became pregnant with you, the kingdom knew nothing of the queen or her child. And after the shame you brought him upon your birth, he sealed the true records away and told the kingdom she had passed when Kitt was born.”
There is a long pause in which I try to swallow the sudden realization.
“And my father…” I choke on the words. “You told the king about him. You are the reason he is dead. Because you found out about the Resistance.”
“He was helping in the castle during fever season,” he says simply. “We passed in the hall, and I read his mind. Learned of his plans for a Resistance. But that was not what killed Adam in the end.”
I blink at him. “What are you talking about?”
That moment in the basement of my childhood home, surrounded by Resistance members, comes racing back. Calum had shown a shred of confusion when I assumed my father’s death was due to his association with the Resistance.
“No, Edric kept him alive to grow his Resistance,” Calum is saying. “He was content to use him until Adam discovered something he shouldn’t have. Something for the kings alone.”
“What are you talking about?” I urge again through gritted teeth.
Calum’s responding silence has a frustrated sound crawling up my throat.
“That is why you were asking about my father’s journals,” I pant. “You wanted to know if he wrote that secret something down.”
My head spins. I shove this new piece of confusing information beside the dozens still sprawled across my mind. But the truth of my father’s death didn’t seem to interfere with Edric Azer’s obsession with the Resistance.
I’m suddenly flung into another memory, one where I am bloody and broken and barely surviving against the king. His boot is crushing my chest as I stare up at him, rain pelting my stinging face. Mud squelches beneath my back. He watches me struggle to wriggle free.
“I’ve planned for this day a long time, waiting until I could rid myself of this Resistance.”
“He had,” Calum murmurs, seeing the vivid picture I’ve painted in my mind.
My gaze is distant, clouded with realization. “The king didn’t want to wipe out the Resistance when he first found out,” I mutter. “He wanted it to grow, wanted to gather all the Ordinaries in one place.” My gaze flicks to Calum’s while my mind wanders to that battle at the Bowl. “And you were his spy.”
Calum confirms with a pitiless nod of his head. “But your father needed to be taken care of before we had collected enough Ordinaries for the slaughter. So I took his place as the Resistance’s leader.”
Slaughter.
My stomach heaves.
The Pit was littered with bodies, and the memory of that bloody stretch of sand has my mouth drying. “It was all a ploy.” My chest heaves, anger swelling within it. “Everything. You don’t care about the Ordinaries. You never have. Not after one killed your lover.” I take another step back, bumping into the bedside table behind. “From that very first night in my home, you were playing me.”
“Your father would be proud.”
That is what Calum had said to me after I pledged myself to the Resistance’s cause. And proud he was, having finally caught me. A ghost of the woman he loved in the body of a worthless Ordinary he hated.
“And I am.” Calum laces those long fingers behind his back. “Very proud of the puppet you became for me.”
Get out of my head.
Disgust coats my voice. “What game are you playing now?”
I let him hold my gaze for a long moment. “We need to get you to your next wedding ceremony.”
“Why?” I retort. “Why would you want an Ordinary on the throne?”
“I have great plans for you, Paedyn.” He’s suddenly striding toward me. “I will ensure the Scholars write your name into every history book.”
That intuition begins a slow tug within me once again, and this time, I do not ignore it. These past several weeks play out in my mind, like a constant stream of memory. I think of the moments spent with Calum, yes, but more importantly, the ones without. He was always in the background, always whispering into someone’s ear.
I blink at the floor before beginning to spew my thoughts. “You told King Edric not to kill me when I showed up at the castle, and he didn’t. You told Kitt to marry me, and he did.” The veiled accusations fall from my lips in a rushed murmur. “He trusted you so easily. You convinced him to let me compete in these Trials, advised him to start training his troops. And he does it all.”
Calum’s eyes narrow, but he says nothing.
I almost laugh. “You say the Blooms grew your rose garden, and in that moment, I believed you. What you demand, others do. You had the entire Resistance eating out of your palm—my father included. You’re not just a Mind Reader, are you?” I take a slow step toward him. “You are a Dual. That is why you hate me so much. I still managed to be Ordinary, even when you aren’t just one Fatal—you’re two.”
Still, Calum says nothing.
Having figured it all out, I smile. “You’re a Mind Reader, and a Controller.”
When he lunges for me, I send an elbow arcing toward his temple. I’m surprised when he jumps back, swiftly avoiding the hit. My dress ripples around me as I dart forward to throw a right hook at his jaw.
Again, he evades me.
I sink onto the balls of my feet, blood pounding in my ears.
Jab.
Right hook.
Cross.
Nothing.
Nothing is hitting him.
I let out a frustrated cry that he finds humorous. “Don’t hurt yourself, Paedyn. I know your every move.”
Of course he does.
Get. Out. Of. My. Head.
Calum chuckles again while dodging the next fist I send flying toward his face. My blood boils, staining my cheeks with heat. But my mind is clear, and I know he reads the thought that pounds through it.
There is no way in hell I am leaving this room with him.
He reads my only plan, blue eyes locked on mine and lips twitching into a smile.
I pause.
Maybe inside my head is exactly where he should be.
I take a slow step toward him.
You’re the failure. Not me.
Calum feigns boredom.
“Not only were you unable to kill an Ordinary baby, but you left me on Adam Gray’s doorstep so you could keep an eye on your daughter.” His eyes narrow as I advance slowly. “I’m right, aren’t I? A part of you wanted to watch me grow up. Every meeting, every conversation with my father, you were learning about me.”
I jab a finger toward the pile of books beside the bed. “You brought those to the house when I was a child, didn’t you? Even wrote my name in the covers. Because you cared for me—”
“Enough,” Calum drawls.
All your power, and you couldn’t even make an Elite.
“Pathetic.” I spit the word aloud, watching it hit him like a blow.
You blame me for Iris’s death, because you couldn’t do anything to save her.
One foot in front of the other.
I bet you couldn’t even hold her hand, couldn’t even say goodbye, with the king there.
My thoughts are sharp, cutting through the cool facade he wears with ease.
“Stop it,” he mumbles.
She was never yours, Calum.
Rage has his body trembling. “Stop.”
But I am. I will forever be your greatest failure.
I’m close enough now to see the tears glossing his gaze.
Do I look like her, Father? Do I haunt you?
Calum’s hands clamp atop his ears. “Enough!”
Look. At. Me.
His eyes squeeze shut, and that is when I strike.
My palms meet plush carpet as I drop to the floor, sweeping my leg out. I hear the sound of tearing fabric before Calum topples to the floor, having lost his balance. Fumbling with the dress’s draping layers, I find my dagger beneath and pull it from the sheath.
My chest heaves. Hovering over him, I bring the tip of my blade to his neck. He stares up at me—betrayer, liar, killer of Ordinaries.
Father.
That is the most damning title of them all. And I don’t even know the half of what he’s done.
A thin line of blood stains the dagger’s point.
Do it. Kill him.
“That’s right,” he whispers beneath me. “Do it.”
I bare my teeth.
He has used every person I care about.
“Are you going to kill me or not, Daughter?”
A low growl spills from my throat, driven by hurt and hate. My body trembles.
And then I yank the blade away.
His smile is cold. “You’re so weak—”
The swirling handle of my dagger—my real father’s dagger—connects with Calum’s temple, cutting off his words.
He lies there, unconscious beside a kneeling bride.
Sweat sticks to my brow, and I swipe at it numbly. The weapon slips from my hand to thud softly against the carpet. My legs shake as I pull them beneath me and force myself off the floor. Fabric flows down my legs, unfurling to my feet in a waterfall of white. I look down to find a large tear slithering up the side of my leg, splitting the lace and exposing a sliver of my skin.
Dazed, I stumble toward the door, head spinning.
I need to tell Kitt.
Throwing the door open, I glance one last time at the scene I’m fleeing.
Notes litter the bed, an open book beside them. The smell of roses grows bitter, life and death, past and present, all mingling in the air. A decaying flower atop a jewelry box, a fresh bouquet decorating the floor. A photograph of a stranger who is suddenly so much more. Calum is sprawled beside the evidence of his treachery—a man who was once my friend, turned Father who is now dead to me.
I step out into the hall and don’t look back again.
