The Young Elites

“Are you ready for tomorrow?” I whisper.

Enzo hesitates. It’s so unlike him to have this aura of fear. It sends an ache through my chest, and I rise from the chair to move closer to him. Dante was wrong. I must mean something to him. He must care.

Enzo watches me drawing near. He doesn’t move away. When I come to sit beside him, some of his tension seems to ease, and his expression softens, letting me in. “Teren’s father taught me how to fight.” He says it in a matter-of-fact way. “I am good. But Teren is better.”

I think back to how the two confronted each other before—first at my burning, and then at the Spring Moons. Each time, their clashes lasted for mere seconds. What will happen tomorrow morning, when they face each other in a fight to the death?

“Has he always hated us so much?” I murmur.

Enzo gives me a wry smile. “No. Not always.”

I wait for a moment, and soon Enzo begins talking again. He unveils the story of them as children, sparring together, and as I listen, the world around me fades until I feel as if I were standing in the palace courtyard from years ago, looking on as a young prince and a Lead Inquisitor’s son faced each other on a sunny afternoon. They were very young; Enzo was eight, Teren nine, both of them still unmarked. The blood fever had not yet hit Estenzia. Teren’s eyes were a deeper blue back then, but lit with the same intensity. Beside them, the old Lead Inquisitor looked on and called out instructions as the boys dueled. He was careful not to criticize the crown prince, but his words landed harshly on his own son, hardening him. Enzo shouted at the man sometimes, defending Teren’s skills. Teren would bow to Enzo after every match, complimenting him.

As I listen, I picture the difference between the two boys. Enzo himself must have still fought like a young boy, but Teren . . . his intensity sounded unlike a child’s, even frightening.

“He struck as if to kill,” Enzo says. “I liked training with him, because he was so much better than me. But he was not cruel. He was just a boy.”

Enzo pauses, and the scene fades. “Years later, the fever swept through,” he continues. “We both emerged marked. Teren’s father died. After, I would wander into the courtyard and Teren would no longer be there, eager for afternoon sparring sessions. Instead, he spent his days muttering in the temples, mourning his father, building his self-loathing, taking in the Inquisition’s doctrine that malfettos were cursed demons. I don’t think he hated us, not yet, because neither of us knew yet about our powers. But I saw the shift in him, and so did my sister.” His jaw tightens. “Ever since he became Lead Inquisitor, he’s hunted Elites, as well as those who help Elites.”

Something in the way he says it sparks a memory. It takes all my strength to ask. “Daphne?” I say hesitantly.

Enzo looks up at me. A hint of something familiar dances in his eyes—and I wish I didn’t know what it meant. The pain that comes from him, an emotion of darkness and anger and guilt and grief, glitters in the air as countless threads of energy.

“Her name was Daphne Chouryana,” he says. “Tamouran girl, as you can tell. She was an apprentice at a local apothecary.”

His words pick away at my heart, piece by piece, reminding me that the things he loved about me might not have been me at all. He must have seen her in my face, in the olive of my skin. He must have seen her every time he looked at me.

“She would sneak illegal herbs and powders from the apothecary to help malfettos hide their markings,” he goes on. “Dyes that temporarily changed hair color, creams that temporarily erased dark markings on skin. She was a friend to us. When we first discovered Dante, still wounded from battle, she nursed him back to health.”

“You loved her,” I say gently, sad for his loss and bitter for mine.

Enzo doesn’t acknowledge this directly. He doesn’t need to. “A malfetto prince is still a prince. I couldn’t marry her. She wasn’t from a noble family. It didn’t matter, in the end.”

I don’t want to ask the details of what happened to her. Instead, I bow my head in respect. “I’m sorry.”

Enzo nods back, accepting my condolence. “So it may go for all of us. We must move forward.” He seems weary, and I wonder whether it has to do with thoughts of Daphne or grief over Teren. Perhaps both.

In the silence that follows, he leans toward me until we are separated only by inches. The glow in his eyes beckons me. There is a heaviness about them, a dark depth that I might never understand. He touches my chin. His heat flows through me again, and I realize how much I’ve missed it right as he bends toward me.

“I know who you are,” Enzo whispers, as if he can sense the thought in my head. Do you care for me only because of Daphne?

No. He knows me. He cares for me because of who I am. The thought floods me with exhilarating speed, awakening all of my senses. His kisses are gentle this time, one after another, patient and exploring. His hands brush against mine, running up my arms, drawing me in. Nothing separates us except the thin fabric of my nightgown and his linen shirt, and when he pulls me into his embrace, his heat sparks against my skin. My alignment to passion roars, sending my energy hurtling through me, desperate to weave its dark threads into Enzo’s own, ensnaring him. It makes me dizzy, the same way I felt the night in the alley, the night I am forcing myself not to remember. It is out of control. I can’t stop it.

He pulls away. Then he leans his head against mine and sighs. “Stay,” he whispers. And I know that the aura of fear around him is fear of tomorrow, of what might happen to all of us, that perhaps he cannot save Raffaele’s life, he cannot win against Teren, that in the morning he may step out of this place and never return. He is afraid, and it leaves him vulnerable tonight. I try to forget my own fears by putting my hands on his face, then running them down to clasp his neck.