Roran’s and Rilen’s swords disappeared. Master Dorian broke his stance and moved the nearest headless body.

Roran joined him while Rilen offered me a hand to help me stand. I waved it off.

“It’s better if I sit for now.”

“Take her back to the horses,” Master Dorian commanded. “She does not need to be here for this.”

“For what?” I barked the words, suddenly leaping to my feet. “They’re dead. They’re already dead. They don’t have heads! Why did you kill them?”

Rilen pulled me into his side. “They had to be, Kimber. You had to see what was going on.”

“That doesn’t explain why you killed them.”

We started walking out of the clearing. “This group that Roran and I have uncovered in the past three days was far more dangerous than anything else. They want to make sure that the mountain falls before it’s ready and before you’re ready.”

“Elex…”

“He’s how we found it. He’s been a part of it for a long time. The machine he has at the university is a legit device and works, but he’s been using it to keep you from gaining power.”

Tugging me away from the gory scene, Rilen led me down the path we’d arrived on. “Come. Don’t think too hard. We’ll explain everything.”

We walked into the woods, but I didn’t make it far before stumbling to the leaves on the side of the path and heaving my guts out.

“Did you bring me here just to show me they were going to die?”

“Nothing of the sort,” he said, holding my hair as I puked copiously. “We brought you because we doubted you’d believe us if we told you about Elex’s betrayal.”

I scrubbed my lips with the back of my hand, trying to get rid of the taste of bile. “There had to be another way.”

“Kimber, ilati, you’re loyal. Almost to a fault. You’ve known Elex for nearly your entire life and us for less than a year. There was no convincing you otherwise but to hear it from his own lips.”

I didn’t say anything. I walked back to the horses, tucked into Rilen’s side.

How could Elex do this? Had he been plotting this all along? No one knew I was the Breaker until I found the cave that day.

…the day Elex first really started to show affection for me as more than a friend.

“Gods…” I whispered, the bile rising in my throat again. “He played me like a cheap harp, plucking my strings as he wished.”

Rilen said nothing as we approached the horses.

I pulled him to a stop. “Did you know?”

He glanced at me confused. “Know what?”

“Know that Elex was betraying me?”

“Not until these past few days,” he admitted. “We trusted him because you did. Roran and I thought he was just being difficult and perhaps not understanding what the consequence of this was.”

I studied the handsome, genteel twin. “You followed him.”

He inclined his head. “We followed him. Dorian ordered us to after the incident on the roof.”

“Did he ever really go to the university?”

“Repeatedly,” Rilen nodded. “The machine is real, legitimate. It can warn us of tremors. But he wasn’t there the entire time. The rest of the time he was gone, he was hiding here or in two other encampments.”

“What are you going to do about these…malcontents? It’s so clear that S’Kir is not the utopia we pretend it to be.”

“We, in the temple, know there is no utopia. No one is ever perfectly happy with everything that goes on. If this was, someone would find some way to ruin that. There is not a single creature who responds well to perfection.”

Rilen offered me the reins of my horse after untying them. “We have no king, no president, no emperor because the temple guides through the magic we hear and see. That magic demands we have dissenting groups. Not dangerous ones, but ones that challenge our boundaries and keep us on our toes. Stagnation is death.”

“So we allow the rebels?” I pulled myself up into the saddle.

“Rebels, no… malcontents, yes.”

I pointed over my shoulder. “So those were rebels.”

“They didn’t want to listen to the magic, so yes. Rebels.”

“And the ones who tried to kidnap me?”

“Malcontents. Challengers. Good for S’Kir.” He legged up onto his horse. “Good for us, too.”

“What about the rest of these rebels?”

Rilen chewed on his lip. “They’ll be dealt with.”

“Beheaded?”

Rilen gripped the reins of the horse. “That’s not for me to decide.”

With a flick of his wrist, his mount took off following the low light he’d created to lead us out of the woods.

I followed, not nearly as fast or as enthusiastic as his horse.

I looked down at the beautiful sword clanging against my leg. It had never been sullied by blood. A thousand years. No one in the Raven family had pulled it to make use of it. Symbolic, dangerous, cold…and clean.

Now, at the temple, if I were charged with bringing down and silencing dangerous rebels, it would taste blood.

Its first taste could very well be that of Elex’s.

 

*  *  *

 

Roran and Tymon stood in front of the apartment door, arms folded.

I hissed, and grumped, and folded my arms as well. “I’m deliriously tired, you two. Please, just let me in to sleep.”

Tymon shook his head. “No. These are no longer your apartments. You’re being moved.”

“Everything I own is in there.”

Lunella stepped out of the rooms and smiled at me.

The smile had too much pity in it. I snarled and whirled away from the three of them. I stomped down the hall to the stairs. I didn’t know if I was going up or down yet, but I was going.

Lunella leapt in front of me.

“I’m sorry.” She grabbed my forearm and pulled me to a stop. “Please, Kimber. I was grabbing your most important things while Rilen and Sona set up the move. I shouldn’t have…”

“Don’t ever lend me pity,” I snapped. Softening in the next second, I could feel the tears in my eyes. “Just, please. My nightgown and a bed. That’s all I ask at this point.”

Guiding me back with her hand still on my arm, Tymon was holding out a bag. “Mistress Kimber, my lady assures me this is full of your most critical pieces of personal items. As soon as Rilen and Sona are back, we’ll have all of your personal effects moved.”

“Why are we moving me? I need some stability right now since I feel like I’m losing my mind and climbing out of my skin.”

“This is where Elex knows you live,” Tymon said. “And we can’t allow him near you again, just in case he knows that we have discovered his betrayal.”

“Where am I moving?”

“You will be sharing the hall with Master Dorian,” Roran said. “The apartments next to his.”

I tried to hide my disappointment, but I was too tired. It was all over my face, and all three of them saw it.

“Fine. I need a bath and sleep.” I took the bag and headed down the hall to another set of stairs.

“Kimber, we have to figure out—”

I spun and stared at them. “We’ll figure out who gets to fuck me later, okay? I don’t feel like having that discussion right now in the hallway.”

No one moved.

I marched down the hall, away from everyone.

If they were moving me, I needed alone time. I needed a bath, and I needed sleep. I didn’t care if the sun was coming up. I had been up all night, been betrayed, and watched four men beheaded.

That was enough be-ing for the day.

Pushing the door open on my new apartments, one of the housemaids—Roisin—was just scurrying out of the bedroom.

“Your grace, hello. I have the bed all made up, and the bath was just drawn.” She smiled. “May I help you with anything else? Your bag, perhaps?”

“No, Roisin, thank you. You’ve exactly covered the bases I needed. If you could put in a request for a late lunch with the kitchen, you can have the morning.”

She curtsied with a smile and hurried out.

Tossing the bag on the chair in the bedroom, I headed straight for the bath and stripped out of the filthy riding clothes I’d been in for too long.

I almost wanted to dive headfirst into the milky white bathwater that had rose petals floating on it. Instead, I lowered myself into the deep, claw-footed tub, and sank down until the water was at my chin.

I couldn’t feel the tears on my face for the warm bathwater.

None of this was how I had imagined life.

I wasn’t even sure what I wanted anymore.

The betrayal of a man I thought—no, I did love, was killing me.

I had known him since I was a child. I had always been around him. How could I have not known his true feelings?

It meant that his whole existence in my life was a lie.

He had never approved of me being an acolyte or teaching at the temple. All of his support and encouragement were pretty lies.

I was nothing to him except a means to an end and a place to dump his cum when he felt like it.

And withhold it when he needed to.

I sank deeper into the bath. I let the water cover everything but my nose and mouth. I could hear nothing but my own breathing in the water.

Without the sounds of the outside world, I could work on controlling my breathing and my runaway thoughts.

The gentle scent of roses drifted through the air and to my mind. They were comforting. Sweet. They reminded me of my mother’s garden in our little backyard.

The air would smell of flowers always. The spring was the most fragrant, with the scent changing every week or so. By early summer, though, the shifting fragrances were gone, and only one lovely scent remained.

Summer roses.

My parents were nearly six hundred when they decided to have a child. They were unsure and had kept putting it off.

Immortality had its advantages.

I smiled. No, I had not been as lucky as some in S’Kir to be hundreds of years old and still have their parents. But the years I did have them had been amazing.

Best of all, I had roses to remind me of them.

Reality was going to intrude soon, but I floated there in the silence with my breath and the scent of roses as long as I could.

Eventually, the water cooled, and I went to bed.