Chapter 15

Chapter 15

A ndrian was sixteen, eating in the mess hall where he and the rest of the Marked took their meals, when a letter arrived from Antoris.

In ten years, it was the first letter from his previous life he’d ever received.

The moment he saw the familiar scrawling script of his father, his blood ran cold. Shadows raced through his veins as he tore open the seal and flipped open the pieces of parchment.

The words written there shattered his entire world, clothing it in loathsome darkness.

Andrian,

I write with sad news. Your mother took a terrible fall in the kitchens. Unfortunately, she did not survive. May Priam guide her soul.

Cordially,

Lord Julian Laurent

So short. So emotionless. So cold.

Andrian was left feeling … everything. His world narrowed, sharpened, focused on the only words that mattered.

Unfortunately, she did not survive.

His mother—that kind, gentle woman who’d taught him words in the tongue of her people, sharing with him a secret language that they held close, a secret between just them. The only person who’d made him feel less like an outcast, less like a stranger in that massive northern castle where his dark hair and violet-blue eyes set him apart more than made him feel like he was at home.

He knew her marriage to his father was one of convenience; the two had never shared any real bond. But to hear her passing described so dispassionately …

Andrian remembered her shuddering sobs when he was Marked. When he’d packed up his belongings and set out for Verith. He’d always thought she simply grieved the loss of her eldest son, the boy who looked the most like her people carrying a piece of her soul with him.

But now, he wondered if she had simply voiced her fears at being left alone in that cold castle with a man whose fires could never melt the layer of ice encasing his soul.

“Andrian? Are you alright?”

He blinked, his attention focusing on Trefor’s sea-green gaze. The boy wore a hesitant look upon his face, his expression open but worried.

Andrian didn’t want that. Didn’t want any of that.

There was one thing he needed. One thing that could distract him from the hatred and anger and loss swirling through him on a maelstrom of ice and shadow and blood.

He turned on his heel and shouldered his way from the mess hall, heading for the game park nestled behind the palace.

The dead oak tree did not deserve his savagery, but he didn’t care.

He didn’t deserve his mother’s death.

Or … perhaps he did.

But his mother certainly hadn’t.

Andrian swung again. The sharp edge of his two-handed broadsword burrowed deep in the bark, splintering the wood. With a low growl, he yanked it out and continued to swing.

The clearing was of his own design and was a haven he’d created. With the help of the other Marked, they’d dragged in logs to serve as dummies and targets and weapon racks of all kinds. They’d marked off a section of the grass for sparring and dug a pit, filling it with sand for hand-to-hand training. It was quiet, more secluded than the training rings at the barracks, and the perfect place for boys to go when they were learning how to become men.

It was also the perfect place for a boy who’d just lost the only source of love and affection he’d ever known.

He swung again. The tree shuddered, dropping a few more dull brown leaves. Ropes of shadows curled around his arms and legs, whipping and snapping in the air. A reflection of the fracturing, angry soul within.

His mother.

Not his mother.

Another swing of his sword.

He knew there were steps behind him. Knew that two others had joined him in that clearing. Someone cleared their throat.

“Andrian?”

Andrian’s sword embedded once again in the soft flesh of the tree. This time, he let it stay as his chest heaved, lungs desperate for air.

The breeze that brushed his face and the chill it brought, whispering softly against the moistness on his cheeks, shocked him.

He was crying. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d cried. The revelation made something inside him go numb, shuttering closed. His left his sword buried in the tree trunk, like a steel mockery of a limb. He wiped his face and turned.

Sebastian and Quentin stood warily at the edge of the clearing, watching with too many questions in their eyes. They were, perhaps, his closest friends—if he had such things. Sebastian was a natural leader, a strong supporter of everyone around him. It was impossible to not eventually call him a friend.

Quentin mostly just made for a fun drinking companion.

Andrian met their stares. If they had the gall to ask him what was wrong … he would tell them. But he wasn’t one for idle chit-chat and did not volunteer information without first being asked.

At least, not unless he had a very, very good reason.

Sebastian cleared his throat again. “Andrian,” he repeated. “Is … is everything okay?”

Andrian’s jaw clenched. He shoved his hand into his pocket, balling up the piece of parchment. He withdrew his hand and tossed it to the other boys with all the carelessness one might throw a piece of trash.

Quentin caught the note, flattening it out. Sebastian leaned over his shoulder and read it with him.

Andrian watched them with icy numbness. Slowly, they lifted their eyes back to his, shock and horror and despair written on their faces.

They were always so much better at wearing their emotions than he was. Everyone was.

“I think he did it.” Andrian spoke with all the cold darkness of the shadows that ran through his blood, the last gift of his mother he had left.

They both blinked in surprise. “Who did what?” Quentin’s voice was unusually subdued but curious.

“My father. I think he did it.” Andrian turned away to stare up at the peaks of the Attlehons towering above the valley of the game park. “He always despised her for sullying his bloodline. For creating me. Something more Leuxrithian than Onitan.”

“Andrian,” Sebastian said, insistent. Andrian glanced back. “You are just as much Onitan as the rest of us. And … we are here for you.” Sebastian looked at Quentin, who nodded. “All of us.”

Andrian cocked his head.

“Thank you.” But he didn’t mean it. He couldn’t mean anything anymore, not when he felt so empty inside. Hollow and worn.