Lexa
They’re no maids in the manor. Not a single servant to tend the halls. Beyond the formal gates out front, fae guards rest against the spiraling columns that mark the entrance, the garden sheltered by a tall, marble wall that wraps around the entire building. It reminds me of the manors in Moonrise and some of the nicer townhomes. Crescent Falls, ever modern, favors the larger, family style homes, like Misty’s place.
Silas doesn’t have a TV. I haven’t seen anyone with a phone, either. No video games. No computers. Just… books. Books Silas likes. Books about war and politics.
The sun isn’t nearly as warm today. I move through the house, exploring. I slept well last night, woke refreshed, and took a long, hot shower for the first time in weeks, scrubbing my skin raw, making use of Silas’s excessive collection of soaps and oils. But now I don’t know what to do with my time.
I haven’t seen Blake since yesterday morning. I know he went out last night because I peaked out a window and saw him speaking to the guards at the front gate before his shadowed form moved out of the haze of the lantern lights. Now, the sun is inching toward the horizon again, painting Silas’s expensive, cloud-soft carpet in milky crimson light. Another day gone. Another day closer to the next game.
The final game.
I’ve been wandering through the house to fill my time. It’s four levels, mostly open, but I still find myself turned around and slightly lost in the tighter corridors on either wing. The sun sets, and silver moonlight trickles through the windows when I find a familiar room, and the scent that hits me when I open the door stops me in my tracks.
I’ve been here before. This is Chessie’s room. The pink, tufted pillows and satin bedspread are disheveled, totally untouched since she climbed out of bed that last day. My heart lurches as I step inside and look around at the books scattered on every surface–love stories. Books Silas wouldn’t have kept in his library… but fetched for her. Vases full of wilted roses scent the air with a slight musk of decay, petals covering the corners of the room–wrinkled and graying. I don’t turn the light on. I don’t want to see her footprints still pressed in the pristine carpet. I don’t want to see pieces of her golden hair in the comb resting on the vanity.
But the care Silas took… is here. It’s everywhere. He was devoted to her comfort despite knowing she didn’t have a chance. I wonder what that felt like for him, seeing that beautiful girl so full of life and goodness. I wonder what it felt like for him to see that huge smile and glimmering eyes and then to have to send her to her death.
“It broke him.”
I whirl toward the voice behind me, toward the shadow darkening the doorway.
“She broke him. I didn’t think it was possible. Silas has always guarded his heart. I never thought he’d fall in love.” Kaleb is wearing trousers that fit him like a glove and a shirt meant for a high-ranking fae male–Silas’s clothes, I think. His hair is brushed back neatly, tied at the nape of his neck, and he’s clean shaven, making him look years younger than he actually is.
He moves deeper into the room, the creeping silver moonlight setting his eyes aflame in shades of amber and gold. He doesn’t look at me. His expression tightens as he scans the wilted petals lying dormant on the carpet. Then, he voices what I thought the moment I stepped foot in what I know is now a shrine to her memory. “He left it as it was the morning before the Beast Trial.”
My throat works, tightening around a lump threatening to strangle me. A suffocating sob dies there, trapped with nowhere to escape. “Why are you here?”
“Why do you think?”
“I need an actual answer from you, Kaleb. You’re so–so incredibly, infuriatingly, stubborn and set in your ways. I get it. I really do. We’re cut from the same cloth, aren’t we?” I pivot to face him but feel my body recoiling when he doesn’t look at me. “I’ve known men like you my entire life. Men from the tribes. Men who are born for leadership. Men who would die for our culture and traditions if it means keeping them alive. I didn’t realize it when you first called me Luna, but it’s only because, in your mind, being your mate… it’s not even for show. It wasn’t to give the Glade any kind of hope. It wasn’t because you wanted me to be by your side. It was just how things are done, how they were done before the tribes were taken from Eastonia.”
Kaleb grits his teeth, his jaw clenched.
“You never meant it. Not the way you… should have.”
He closes his eyes, sighing deeply. I watch the fabric of his freshly pressed shirt slide over the taut muscles beneath. “We don’t have a future together. We’ve established that.”
“Well, what if we did? What if there was a way out of this–for everyone? The resistance–”
“I’ve spent the entirety of nearly two days in Blake’s company,” he cuts in, opening his eyes to slits as he turns his body to mine. The distance between us feels like a gaping, yawning void full of petals–too soft, too beautiful to be there. Like none of this is real. Like I’ll wake up in my room back in Silverhide and this will have been a terrible dream. A nightmare.
“Oh, of course you have,” I snarl, my eyes dry despite the tightness in my throat. “What has he had you do, I wonder?”
“He’s right. Silas was right. The cracks in the empire are now fault lines, Lexa, waiting for a spark. The king is sitting on a wealth of stolen power. Power he’s leeched over the course of centuries, forcing other fae kingdoms to bend the knee to his will, and he might have been successful, lived on to rule another five hundred or more years had his snake, Hannibal, not returned empty-handed, breaking every promise the king made to his people. That’s why he held the games. That’s why he risked sending demons of shadow to sweep across the beach you were destined to be on. It’s a distraction to keep people satiated by blood, but it’s not working.”
My jaw works, teeth clenched tight. “I don’t care about any of that.”
He eyes me skeptically, shifting his weight from foot to foot as he inspects my tight expression. “Your cousin came here to prevent a war on your own soil and found a war already brewing within. He found Silas easily enough. Silas is the king’s nephew. I’m not sure if you know that.”
I didn’t. I don’t voice my shock. I barely feel it. I’m not sure shock is something I can feel anymore.
“Blake has power the fae feel they were robbed of long ago. He was willing to help sow the seeds of rebellion deeper than they’ve ever been planted before in exchange for Hannibal’s head, and we are giving that to him, even if he destroys the city to do it.”
“You realize what he is, right? What he can do?”
“I’m aware. What I need to know is what you can do because there’s something you’ve been lying about, isn’t there?”
My stomach coils, but I remain standing, my feet firmly planted. “You’re lying to me as well.”
“This isn’t about me.” “Don’t,” I rush out, turning for the door. I can’t have this conversation here in a room that smells like Chessie, a room that reminds me how I failed her so badly.
The moonlit corridor beyond the bedroom opens wide, my footsteps echoing, but I don’t get far before the shadows tremble, threatening to pull me in. I imagine the beasts of mist and death from the beach, the talons and jaws full of line, black teeth. I shudder, and then he’s behind me, his hands gripping my upper arms.
“I have officially joined the resistance,” he says under his breath. “Chastan has been tasked with gathering the men of the Glade, readying them for whatever battle comes. The end of the Trials will mark the beginning of the war.”
I resist the urge to lean into his warmth, but I don’t tear out of his touch. My body and mind tangle over my desire to run but also stay.
“And you’ll send me home with Blake when it begins?” I ask bitterly.
“Of course–”
“Do you–do you care?” The words vibrate, feeling foreign on my tongue as even more unfamiliar, conflicted feelings ricochet through my system. I feel suddenly like I’m standing in front of Austin again on that bluff, watching in horror and confusion while he spilled his heart to me and I felt… nothing.
Now, I feel everything. Everything hurtful and desperate with no way to voice it. I turn out of his touch to face him, and that gaping void spreads again, threatening to suck me under if I don’t just… say what I need to tell him.
“I care about your wellbeing,” he guts out, like it’s painful, like they’re not the words he wants to say. Not even close.
“Then reject me because this is hurting me more than the games ever could,” I cry out, motioning to the space between us, like the world is actively opening up, swallowing us whole.
“I will not reject you,” he says with heartbreaking calm, which makes my vision turn blood red.
“Why not? What’s stopping you? My feelings–whatever I feel is obviously s-s-stronger–” I gasp out a breath, my lungs screaming for fresh air. I want to run. I need to shift. I want to be anywhere but here. I want to be alone, not faced with the damning consequences of finding my mate and… wanting him. Kaleb stares at me, moonlight reflecting in his eyes, making them glow. “I don’t do this,” I rasp, motioning between us. “I don’t have–have boyfriends or crushes. I’ve never–even Austin.” My voice cracks painfully on his name. “We had fun. I wanted him for sex–that was all–and now I’m flooded by guilt over the fact that he died, and I feel nothing, but the thought of you–of you being hurt in any way kills me, Kaleb. I can’t leave you behind.”
“You have to.”
“I won’t leave.”
“I will force you to.”
“Why are you doing this to me?”
He steps into the void, and it disappears, replaced by carpet. A simple trick of my mind–a defense mechanism.
“You are killing me, Lexa. From the moment I saw you in chains, you’ve stripped away any defenses I’ve had. You’ve burned me raw,” he says, his voice low and grating. “I’ve never had to question my future until you were in it. I never had to ache over someone until I spent weeks pacing my room above yours, wondering what you were seeing in your dreams. I cannot keep you here. I cannot leave my pack behind to suffer if it means keeping you. I cannot allow you to stay and fall into the wrong hands.”
“I am capable of protecting myself–”
“You’ve always been so overconfident. You’re going to get yourself killed.”
“I would rather die than feel like this another second,” I shout, but his steely expression doesn’t shift. “Reject me. I’m giving you the opportunity to do it yourself, to free yourself of the burden–”
“I will not.”
“WHY?”
He shakes his head. I wish I could see inside, catch a glimpse of his thoughts. I’ve never been one to quietly rage. Kaleb is trained in that skill.
“Fine,” I choke out, my hands curled so tightly into fists I feel my nails pinching my skin. “I’ll do it.”
He tenses.
“I–I–” I choke back a sob as my world collapses inward. Useless. I’ve never trained for this. I was never prepared for this while being prepared for literally everything else.
I can’t do it.
Why can’t I do it?
I whirl, sprinting into the shadows, following a familiar staircase down to the second floor of the house. I trip on the carpet runner, my legs like jelly, folding like a newborn fawn. My face hits the marble tiles coating the second floor landing with a devastating crunch, and then the tears begin, rolling down my cheeks uncontrollably. I clamber to my hands and knees but jerk to awareness when an arm loops around my waist and hauls me into the air. Kaleb kicks the door to the room I slept in last night open, nearly breaking it from its hinges, and sets me down.
I lunge.