Chapter 9

Tristan

Ellie thrusts a glassof something into my hands.

"Drink this," she says and I blink, pulling myself out of my dark thoughts. I'm sitting in an armchair in the den with no idea how I got here, Ellie's kind face hovering in front of mine. "It'll make you feel better."

It's eerily quiet out there now. No more booms and blasts of exploding magic. Does that mean it's over? Does that mean we won? Or did we lose?

"What is it?" I ask, my voice hella croaky. "A potion?"

"Alcohol," she says, smirking, "I broke into your dad's liquor cabinet."

I sniff the amber-colored liquid. Bourbon. "Fuck, Ellie. This is probably from his priceless collection."

Ellie shrugs, sinking into the armchair next to mine and holding a glass of her own up in the air. "To your mom," she says, before taking a large gulp.

I hesitate, then lift my glass too. "To mom," I say, peering into the liquid and then taking a long draw. The alcohol stings the back of my throat, but it's welcome, helping to pull me even further from the darkness I'd been falling into.

"Do you know what you're going to say to your dad?"

I drag my hand over my face. No. No, I don't. And I'm beginning to think I did the wrong thing waiting behind to talk to him when I should be out searching for Rhi.

My dad has never shown any affection to my mom, not that I remember anyway, but I have to believe he cared for her, even if it were just a little. It only seems right that I am the one to break the news to him, rather than letting him find her cold body. However, the idea of telling him his wife is dead, dead because of me, has the darkness threatening to steal me again.

"I'll find the words once he's here." And I'll make sure he's prepared to give her the funeral, the burial, she deserves. Even if I won't be around to attend – news, I won't be sharing.

I peer at my wrist watch. Where the hell is my father? And how much longer will he be? I want to be away, out searching for Rhi with the others.

"Are you going to tell him about Rhianna?" my cousin asks as if reading my thoughts. She's as aware as I am that he isn't going to like the news. It was one thing Azlan – his wayward nephew – bonding to an unregistered girl from the wastelands, but his only son? His heir?

It'll also spark his interest, arouse his suspicions. A girl with not one but two Kennedy mates. He already suspects there's something unusual about her. Now he'll be determined to find out what.

"No, I don't think that would be a very good idea. I'm going to break the news about mom and then I'm leaving. I need to help the others find Rhi."

Ellie swirls the liquid in her glass. "Why were you so mean to her, Tristan?"

"My mom?" I don't want to think about her. We moved her to the bedroom together, laying her out on her bed as if she'd just taken one too many of her pills, and once she'd slept them off, she'd be awake again. Back with us. "I tried to be a good son. I tried to protect her from him, like she tried to protect me."

"Tristan, I don't mean your mom," she says gently. "I mean Rhianna, your mate."

I fold over in my chair, scrubbing my hand in my filthy hair, the glass shaking in my other hand.

"You have no idea what it's like to come face to face with your fated mate, someone destiny wants to bind you with for eternity, and know nothing about them, nothing at all. Not even their voice, not even their name. It was … it was a shock."

"One most people would find incredible, Tristan," she says, with a little more firmness this time.

"Most people haven't had their life mapped out in front of them from the day they were born. Most people don't have expectations, the burden of their family, resting on their shoulders." I peek up at her through the curtain of my hair. "I knew from the moment I met her – Rhianna – that my life was going to change. And I guess I was …"

"Scared?"

I snort.

My cousin rolls her eyes. "Oh because no one in the Kennedy family ever gets scared. Or at least they'll never admit to it because that would be admitting weakness. And one thing this family has to remain at all times is strong." She slides her glass onto the coffee table. "Well, let me tell you something, Tristan. I was absolutely petrified just now, scared out of my mind that we were going to lose you!"

I can feel the corners of my eyes dampen with tears and I wipe them away with my fingers.

"But your mom, she sacrificed herself for you, and you know what that means now, don't you?"

"What?" I say.

"You have to do better. Better than you have done in the past. You have to be a better person, Tristan. For Rhianna, for Azlan, for the people in this family that matter, probably for this entire country."

"I'm not sure I can be." I'm not made that way. I was molded by a cruel man with only his purpose in mind.

As if reading my thoughts for a second time, my cousin says, "You're not your father, Tristan."

And as she says those words, we hear the front door slam back and we both know it's him, like he's arrived just so he can argue against that very damn point.

We look at each other, the color the liquor had brought to Ellie's cheeks draining away.

I down the remainder of mine, slam the glass down and stand to my feet. Ellie does the same and we climb the stairs back to the main entrance of the house together. My feet are heavy and loud on the wooden steps and I have the peculiar notion that I'm a condemned man, approaching the gallows, ready for his fate, for his doom. I shake the notion away, push the door open and find my father in the hallway, tugging off his leather gloves, his black cloak already discarded on the floor.

He spins around at the sound of the door, hands raised, ready to strike, then seeing it's only me and Ellie lowers his arms.

His shirt is torn at the shoulder, the skin underneath singed and there's a gash across his forehead, his usually slicked-back hair loose over his brow.

"So you're alive then?" he says, sounding neither pleased nor distressed by this news.

"Only just," I say.

"You're lucky to have made it out," he says, threading a finger through the rip in his shirt and touching the burned flesh below, healing it quickly. "I hear that the academy fared much worse than the capital."

"Is it over?" I ask him, searching his face for clues on the outcome of the attack.

"Yes, for now it is over. The forces from the West have retreated."

"So they were forces from the West?" I ask him, sensing Ellie quivering behind me. I'm not ready to deliver my bad news, not ready to face his rage just yet.

"Who else would they be?" He smiles.

"Where have you been?"

"Fighting. Where you should have been too, instead of cowering here at home with your mother."

The mention of her has my gaze dropping to the floor, an action my father reads as shame.

"Always a coward," he spits.

The accusation hits me square in the chest, has anger flaring in my veins. He can call me a lot of things. But not a coward.

"Unlike you," I hiss, raising my gaze to his. "So brave, so powerful." My father looks at me with amusement. "Yet here you are, already fled from the fighting, back to your impregnable home."

He shakes his head. "You really understand so little about politics and the ways in which this world operates. I had such high hopes for you, Tristan, and yet every day you disappoint me."

The anger inside me flares more viciously. Ellie's fingertips brush against my back as if she's trying to calm me. I swallow, swallow down all the rage, even though it scrapes at my throat like I'm swallowing a thousand knives.

"Mother is dead," I tell him.

I expect some kind of reaction. A flinch. A look of regret. A howl of pain. Something to tell me he cared about her, something to prove all my suspicions about his indifference are wrong. But all he does is nod and stride towards his study.

"Did you hear me," I say, more loudly this time, striding after him, "mother – your wife – is dead."

"I heard you the first time."

"And don't you even want to know how it happened?"

"Tristan, we are at war," he snaps, opening one of the tall wooden cupboards that nestle in the room's paneling and pulling objects from its inside. "The council has been destroyed, the academy attacked, our borders overrun. I don't have time–"

"She's dead!" I yell at him. "Gone!"

He freezes, then spins, his eyes cruel and angry. "And did you not hear me, boy! This is war. Not some silly dueling match. No more pretending. People die in wars. Many people already have and more will follow."

"She was your wife. Don't you care even a little bit?"

"What I care about is seizing this opportunity and making it ours. So instead of standing there and bawling like a little child, go clean yourself up. Our guests will be arriving any moment now."

I should go, turn around and walk away, pretend I'm doing as he says and walk straight out the door, taking my cousin with me.

But my insides are raw and painful, the hurt too great, and I cannot find the usual disinterest and boredom I use to mask my feelings. I can't tamper them down. I can't control them. It hurts too much. My mother gone. My mate missing. My heart ripped into shreds.

I race at him, pushing him hard on the shoulder. "Your wife. You're meant to care. You were meant to love her. To protect her." I push at him again and again, my magic slashing at his skin. "And all you ever did was cause her pain."

"Enough!" my father yells, slamming his own magic into me, so hard I'm thrown backward, skidding across the floor and crashing into the far wall.

Now I should leave. Now I should go. No good will come of this. No good at all. He never cared for her or me. And I can't make him care now.

But I'm too raw, all my emotions hurtling and colliding around my body, making my magic hot and dangerous. And I've had enough. Enough of his games, and his schemes, his cruelty and his punishments.

I blast magic across the room and into my evil, twisted father. A man I've never liked. A man I've always struggled to love.

My magic is low, but not as much as it should be, and I know that's because I have her magic in my veins now too, joined, fused, molded to mine. I have a piece of her power. A piece of her soul. A piece of her heart.

The impact smacks into my father, knocking him onto his knees. And now there's emotion on that blank face of his. Shock.

"You dare to strike at me?" he snarls, firing magic that sizzles and hisses my way. I block it with my own, lifting my arms to shield my face from its heat and when it fizzles and dies around me, I send another bolt at my father and another. Angry, raging magic so frantic, I barely see what he manages to block and what hits him. Then he strikes back at me, chains and ropes lashing at me, attempting to curl themselves around my arms and legs, my waist and my neck. I swipe them away, cutting through them with my magic.

I'm stronger than him. Better than him. And I'm no longer a slave to his will.

But I'm wrong. The injury has weakened me, so has this separation from my fated mate, and he is more conniving. He is more cunning. One of the ropes latches onto my neck and squeezes, squeezes tighter than it ever has, so that immediately the air is cut from my lungs and my brain. I gasp feebly for air, scrabbling at the ligature, dark blotches spreading across my vision.

"I understand you're upset," my father says, stalking towards me. "But there's no time for these juvenile outbursts. This is the opportunity we've been waiting for, Tristan, one that will see our family rise high above the rest. One that will see us wield more power than we've ever had before. So put your feeble mother out of your mind. Because now is the time to seize that opportunity."

"If she was feeble, it's only because you made her that way, reduced her to that," I scream, the words taking the last of my breath and then I blast through his rope, through his magic, pulverizing him into the bookcase behind him, the books tumbling from the shelves and his weapons crashing to the floor.

Before he can react, I'm up on my feet, blasting more magic his way as I back out of the room.

"I'm leaving."

"You can't leave!" my father roars from his study, blasting magic at me.

"Watch me," I snarl, turning to grab my cousin's hand and take her with me. But, as my body spins around and my eyes connect with hers, I freeze.

There's a knife, one of my father's weapons, hovering right in front of my cousin's throat, barely an inch from her flesh, ready to strike. Her entire body shakes and her eyes widen with horror.

"No, son," my father says, striding from his study. "It doesn't work like that. You don't get to leave this family. You can't turn your back on us."

"This has nothing to do with Ellie. Let her go."

"It's okay, Tristan," Ellie whispers, her voice shaking. "Go!"

I shake my head, desperately searching for a way that I can leave and bring her with me.

My father slams his hand on my shoulder, his fingers cold and tight.

"I don't think either of you understand what's happened tonight." He lets the knife inch closer towards Ellie's throat. "Our great republic nearly fell to the forces in the West. It was only through luck and pure determination that we evaded their attack and pushed them back beyond the borders. But things will have to change now. The chancellor has proved his incompetence. This country needs a new leader. A stronger, more ruthless one, one who can destroy our enemies and keep us all safe from harm."

"And let me guess," I hiss, "that leader is you."

My father laughs, that cruel, nasty sound that makes me shudder. "But of course."