Chapter 36

36

Carts rumbled over Fortis's streets, their wheels bobbing over the cobblestone roads as merchants packed up their wares from today's market. Fortis might have been Bridger's birthplace, but it hadn't felt like home in decades.

Vega has her memories back. He could feel it down the bond, just like he'd always been able to. It wasn't the first time, and it might not be the last time she'd get them back, but for the first time in almost forty years, Bridger felt anxious knowing Vega would remember it all—worried how her remembering his betrayals would affect him .

This trip to Fortis was meant to be short— thank the gods. After he punished Grimes for his behavior, Bridger's mind hadn't felt like his own, like the one he'd conditioned to forget.

Before he could make it up the driveway and into the home, his mother filed down the front steps with two guards flanking her. "Darling." Katrin reached for Bridger when she was close enough. "You're home." She kissed the side of his cheeks with an exaggerated pop .

"Not for long," he answered

Katrin frowned. "What is it?"

"Why don't we head inside?" Bridger motioned to the house .

She looked him over, a glimmer in her dark eyes. She nodded and strode back to her home. Katrin's guards never left her side, putting themselves in between the commander and his mother as they approached her study, but Bridger's power blocked their access. They turned rapidly, ready to defend.

"You two are to stay outside the door," Bridger announced.

"We have been given orders to—" one of the guards started to chatter.

"Orders to keep my mother safe from danger, yes. I'm aware. I'm the one who gave the orders." The two men stepped out of Bridger's way as he crossed into the room. He turned around to face the men, speaking to them before shutting the door with a small gust of wind. "I assure you, Katrin isn't in as much danger as she could be."

His mother stood on the other side of the room. "Bridger." Her face scrunched with unease.

Bridger turned slowly to face the woman who'd raised him beside a father who never actually loved him. It had always been obvious to him. Lucius looked at having children as a job, a way to train the next generation of rulers. It was why he only had one. Bridger was nothing but an obligation to his realm.

"They can't hear us. I have a question for you."

"Son, are you okay?" Sometimes it seemed as if his mother cared—maybe losing her husband had forced her to sit back and see what she had left in her life. Her husband was dead, her family in Fraus saw her as a traitor for choosing to rule over a territory that wasn't hers, and her son kept her on the outside of his life.

"Fine," he insisted.

Bridger watched her lean against the front of her desk. Her black dress sat at the top of her black shoes, gold soles the only color on her. "You don't seem it. Are you sleeping?"

Again with the fucking sleeping thing. Bridger rolled his eyes. "Who has time for sleep?" he asked her, dismissing her question with another. "I'm not here to talk about my sleeping patterns, Mother. I want to know what happened the day Father was murdered—the day Marlena killed him." His dreams were consumed by Vega, but the few times his father made an appearance stuck with him, reminding him of all the things he'd forced himself to forget about the man.

Her face went pale, her spine rigid. "I've told you I don't want to talk about that." She straightened and moved to the other side of her desk, pretending to busy herself with the paperwork scattered around.

"I don't care about how he was killed. You and I both know he wasn't worth saving." They'd never talked about the way his father acted towards them, how he'd beat them when they didn't fall in line or how he belittled Katrin for not being the strongest of her line. His mom wasn't a saint, and she liked to wreak more havoc than help, but she didn't deserve the abuse.

"Bridger!" Katrin scolded, her eyes wide and mouth ajar.

Bridger hadn't moved from his spot across the room, his posture stone-like as he ignored her reaction. "He was dead. You could've saved me."

Katrin huffed but stayed quiet for a beat too long—to come up with her next excuse. "From what? Your destiny?" She continued to ruffle through the stacks of papers.

Bridger flicked his wrist, and a tiny gust of wind knocked them to the floor. "Look at me." He pleaded. This wasn't the Commander of Tolevarre talking—this was Katrin's son.

Katrin cleared her throat and forced herself to meet his gaze. "What is this all about?"

"You and the choices you made." Bridger's face fell. "You and the Ignises were going to make Meyer commander. You were going to let me stay with them, with Vega."

His mother's expression became unreadable. "Who told you that?"

It's true… Not that Bridger thought Meyer would lie to him, but he held out hope—hope that he'd been wrong .

He felt smaller than ever. "It doesn't matter who told me. It matters that I know." Bridger felt like a teenage boy again, telling his parents that he was in love with Vega and not Marlena—the wrong sister. The sister who hadn't promised them endless power.

"You were never meant to be with Vega, Bridger." Katrin's voice didn't waver.

"I don't think you truly believe that." His words shocked her. "I think you were afraid of what it would mean for you if you didn't side with Father."

"How dare you!" she fumed, her lip curling at the edge.

He saw tears, real tears in her eyes. Bridger had never seen her shed a single tear in his entire life. She cried for a man who'd never truly loved her but wouldn't cry for the son who lost everything he cared about.

"When Marlena killed him, why didn't you leave? Why would you stay and assist her in my capture? Assist her in my torture until I broke?" Bridger's teeth were gritted.

"I…" She couldn't find the words. "I owed it to your father to make sure you followed in his legacy. In your bloodline's legacy." Her words were the script she'd created, the one she'd been repeating for decades.

"I don't believe you." He'd come all this way to hear his mom say what he knew to be true, what she had never admitted to anyone before—he had to hear her say it.

"What do you want me to say, Bridger?" Katrin's voice was rising. He'd gotten under her skin.

"Tell me how afraid you were to die. Tell me that you were so afraid of dying like your husband that you would rather your only son be tied up, beaten for years, years , Mother… and tortured until he was no longer himself. Say it."

"No, that's not—" she stuttered.

"Liar," Bridger growled, the room rumbling with his growing anger.

The guards pounded on the door the instant they felt Bridger's powers spike.

"Fine!" She stomped her foot down and traveled across the room, disappearing to only reappear directly in front of Bridger. "I was afraid to die, yes, and I knew that I could save myself by turning you in. All I needed to survive was to bring you home where you belonged!"

Bridger chuckled, no humor detected. "There it is." He backed up, having come there to hear those words. "You knew that all you had to do was allow your son's life to be ruined to save yourself."

Her face was red. "Your life was never ruined. You just fell off track for a bit."

"I loved her!" he howled. "I have done unspeakable things to a person who has wanted nothing more than to keep her people safe!"

The same thing he'd been trying to do with the men and women in his army—keeping them safe from the world outside of his control. If they didn't answer to him, they'd answer to Marlena.

And he might blur the lines between good and evil, but he'd never be Marlena. Never be Marlena. Never be Marlena.

"You were destined to rule. Lucius and I knew the power you'd possess… and then you gained more, becoming stronger than we ever could have hoped." She kept trying to reel him back in. "I wasn't going to let you give that up for a girl who was destined to die."

Bridger gaped at her. "I became stronger because Vega was able to summon Remus. I didn't become who I am because of you or my piece of shit father… I am this way because of her, because of her tenacity and determination to kill her sister."

"Oh, please?—"

He cut her off. "You've never loved me."

"Bridger, you're my son." A tear fell finally, but Bridger saw right through the act.

"I was nothing but a pawn to keep you in a life of luxury. You sold my soul to the devil for power. Power I didn't want—you wanted it."

"I did what I had to do because I love you."

"You've never loved anyone more than you love yourself. Fraus-born, through and through."

The knocking on the door got louder, but his shield was still up, and the men outside the room couldn't hear what was happening inside—only silence and the rumble of the house around them. They'd never be able to break through the hold Bridger held on the door, trapping himself and Katrin inside until he was ready to let go.

His mother took a step toward him. "You wouldn't understand why I've?—"

On instinct, he took his dagger out and pressed it against his mother's neck—for the second time in his life, he held a blade to her throat. "If you tell a soul about our conversation, I'll make sure you're the next one destined to die."

That was a promise he planned to keep this time.

Bridger was done here. He let down the shield, and the guards came in with their weapons drawn. Bridger unsheathed his own bonded sword and decapitated them both with one fell swoop.

"Bridger!"

His mother kept calling his name as he stormed through her home, but he wouldn't look back.

He couldn't look back.