CHAPTER 10

SLADE

"So this is where you always run off to."

The sound of my father's voice makes my shoulders stiffen. For a second, I think about refusing to turn around, but that would only piss him off, which I actively try to prevent. I'm in a constant state of controlling my own reactions while also attempting to regulate his so that he doesn't lash out.

I'm surprised my feet aren't scarred from all the times I've had to walk on pins and needles around him.

I turn away from the table where the newly hatched marewings chirp in their nest. Above us, the fully grown birds are notched into their enclosures, awaiting missives to deliver.

My father's right—this is where I run off to when I want to get away from him. Not that I'd tell him that. Now that he's found my spot, I'm fuming that I will have to give it up. I like coming in here, to sit with these birds. Not only are they incredible navigators and highly intelligent, but they're calming.

I wouldn't be surprised if my father has all the staff remove every missive marewing from our stable yard, just to spite me. He's that much of a prick.

If I ever show even the smallest hint of liking something or become defensive of something, he tears it apart as punishment or uses it against me. So because of that, I try not to show him that I like much of anything. Which means I just sort of…exist. Other than my mother and brother, there's nothing in my life that I like, because I can't afford to.

This was a stupid slip on my part. I've been coming here too often.

One of the marewings jumps down, her four wings fluffing out in tandem as she prods her horse-like snout against the little hatchlings before I feel her nudge the back of my arm, hoping for a scratch.

I don't move.

My father's black eyes flick down. He's quiet for a moment, and I grow tense as I wait for him to speak. "They will always have an affinity to you."

I frown, not understanding.

He walks forward, his polished boots scraping over the floor. Our missive coop is already a small building, but with him in it, the wooden walls feel like they're closing in. He stops in front of me, and I can see the other birds pop their heads out of their teardrop-shaped nests to get a look at him, a few making soft chuffs.

If they knew his true nature, they'd fly right out of this coop and never return.

Unable to stop myself, I flinch when he reaches out his hand right next to me. He notices, of course, but says nothing. Instead, I watch as he strokes a finger over the marewing's neck. She lets out a soft snickering noise, fluffing up her iridescent blue plumage.

"Winged creatures will feel a kinship toward you," he says as he continues to pet her. "They will sense innately that you are their authority. They will want to defer to you. Strive to please you."

I say nothing, but I wonder if he's mixing up the birds with how he wants me to behave with him. My nerves tighten, like string being wrapped around splintering wood. The thin strand pulls tighter, continuing to coil, just waiting for the snap.

He finally stops stroking the bird, and she trills before turning around to the cheeping hatchlings and settling herself over their little gray bodies to warm them. My father turns to me, and I'm forced to look him in the eyes. His are so dark it's like his character has bled through.

"Do you know why?"

"No, sir."

He glances down at the spikes that are poking out of my arms, and I feel myself twitch. He's always forcing me to bring them in and out, over and over again. He makes me do it while I'm training with my magic, to make sure they don't erupt uncontrollably.

I can't even count the number of times he's punished me for slipping and letting them rip free during a particularly difficult training session. But even if I do manage to keep them under, then he forces me to bring them out after I've already worked myself to exhaustion. If I can't, I get punished anyway.

I can't win. Not with him.

"Winged creatures will feel a kinship because of what you are. Of what we are. This," he says, moving his finger to press against the side of my spike, "is a symbol of that. We are Culls. But more than that, we are the dragon-wielders of old."

His eyes sweep up to glance at the light gray scales that stain my cheeks. He reaches up and tugs away the red cloth that he always wears tucked into his collar, revealing the tiny grouping of scales that litter his collarbone. They're darker than mine, but smaller, and the cluster is only about as long as his finger. I wonder if that's why he hides it. Because they aren't big or bold enough to boast.

In his eyes, if something isn't good enough to boast, it isn't good enough to have.

Which is how he treats my little brother. Ryatt's only nine years old, but because he hasn't manifested magic at a ridiculously young age like I did, our father either snubs him or sneers at him.

Every time I see Ryatt hold back tears, it makes me want to kill my father. But my little brother still believes in good. He is good. No matter how many times Father pushes him aside.

I know Ryatt despairs because of it, but I still secretly pray to the goddesses that it doesn't change. Because it's better for him to be ignored. It's safer. I don't want Father to do to Ryatt what he's done to me.

My father presses a thumb to my scales. "This is power, boy," he says before dropping his hand. "Every bird knows what lives in your blood. They can sense the dragon in you."

I don't dare roll my eyes. He's been obsessed with my scales and spikes since they first erupted. But just like his own pitiful cluster, nothing's ever come from it. That magic died a long time ago.

As if he's followed my train of thought, his expression darkens with anger, and I brace myself.

"And yet…" he goes on, his voice dropping down an octave. "After five generations of Cull blood, someone in our line finally manifests both scales and spikes, but you still cannot call forth a dragon."

He flicks at one of the spikes on my spine, making me flinch. I hate outwardly reacting, but my heart is pounding so hard that I can't help it.

"The Cull line has given you dragon-blessed blood," he seethes. "You could be king of the skies, where all winged creatures would bow to you, and yet you can't even manifest an incorporeal splintered form!"

With every word, his voice gets louder, sharper, and my adrenaline pumps. My bones ache already as if they anticipate him breaking each and every one of them.

It wouldn't be the first time.

He lashes out, hand wrapping around the back of my neck, yanking my head to angle up toward the perched birds. "This is why you haven't risen to be a king," he spits at my face before shoving me away. "Because you are wasting time flocking with the peasants!"

At the snap of his finger, the shed ceiling splits, and an outcry of distress shoots from the throats of the birds. They immediately bolt, flying out of their enclosures in a panic, running into walls, a couple smacking into my head as they try to escape.

My father drops them one by one with his magic. Necks snapped, they land in piles, feathers bursting up, screeches filling the air.

The hatchlings' cries pierce my ears, and the mother starts to flap her wings, baring blunt teeth at my father in vicious protectiveness. He doesn't kill her, but breaks her wing instead, snapping it and making her cry out so horribly that panic pounds in my ears.

The hatchlings scream.

"Stop!" I shout, spinning in a circle, distress eating through my heart. He's tearing off chunks of it and tossing them onto the floor in bloody heaps.

My father steps up to me, halting my movement as he grips me by the collar. "You will erase this weakness of caring, do you understand me? You are a Cull—we cull the weak. Including what we find in ourselves." He removes his hand to shove me toward the table. "Rot them."

I blink, head whipping from the hatchlings and back to him. I can't think—not with the way the mother bird is screaming in pain. Not with how loud my hate pounds through my veins. "What?"

"You heard me," he says darkly.

"I don't—"

"Rot them, or I break them. Bit by bit. And it will be slow."

I suck in a breath, his threat culminating into shards that seem to stab all over. There is nothing that oozes out more than my hate for him.

When I hesitate, he lifts his hand to go through with his threat, and I instantly react.

Rot spews out of me, lines traveling through the grains of the wooden table and engulfing their small bodies. Every single one of them drops, withering like scorched plants, shriveling up and collapsing in on themselves.

The mother's cries crescendo, screaming at me for what I've done, until I silence her too. Wishing I could silence the pounding of my heart. It feels like someone's taken a hammer to it, cracked it open and forced me to bleed.

Forced me to hurt.

The shed has gone completely silent. The only sound is my hard breathing as I stare down at the needless death.

After a second, I lift my head and look him in the eyes, letting him see the hate in mine.

He stares back at me with cold emptiness. "Good," he says, pointing at my gaze. "That is what it is to be a Cull."

My father turns and walks out then, leaving me behind in the destruction.

Leaving me behind in self-loathing.

When his footsteps fade away, I turn back, eyes blurred as I look at the seven hatchlings scattered on the table.

What would my mother think if she saw this? If she saw what I did?

Shame fills me.

If this is what the past Culls did in order to manifest a dragon and become king of the skies, then maybe that's why the goddesses took that ability away so many generations ago.

My father thinks he's so superior, thinks that cruelty is the way to power, but he's wrong. Cruelty isn't what drives me.

It's hate.

Hate for him…and love for my mother and brother.

If he thinks he can rid me of caring for them, of caring for anything, he has never been more wrong.

Because the one thing I will never allow is for me to turn into him. No matter how many times he breaks me, I won't do it.

Wiping a hand across my eyes, I take a breath. Then I lift a determined hand and drag my touch over the lifeless birds.

And I pull the rot away.

One by one, the hatchlings' bodies return to normal, as if time turned backward. The rot leaves them, and their little hearts start pounding wildly in their chests, throats opening to utter small cries.

I pick up the mother marewing, ripping off a piece of my sleeve to set and bind her wing before I pull the rot back from her too. Then I gather them all, shaking and terrified, and take them outside into the crisp air to sneak them into the woods.

Because my father's wrong. I'm not a Cull, and I never want to be.

I'm my mother's son.

I'm a Ravinger.