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Chapter 28
Elara
“What in the name of the Goddess were you thinking!” Batian’s hand was tight enough to bruise, his firm grip around my forearm only barely enough to keep me upright as he dragged me down the hall. I stumbled and lost my footing multiple times, not that he cared, he continued his charge forward, the Boy trailing behind us.
“I was thinking that I could show her how strong I was. Show her that I can fight, that I can stand up to her.” The words came out in a stutter as I tripped again.
“Stand up to her how exactly?” Batian was still roaring as he led me around yet another corner, taking me further from the arena and right back to my rooms. Where I was sure he was going to lock me in. Again.
At least my mother’s Catalyst hadn’t disclosed my favorite exit route that I knew of. He wasn’t locking me anywhere. It was probably the only reason I wasn’t fighting harder.
“Stand up to Mother, show her I’m not sick and weak. Show her she can’t hide me.” I tried to sound firm, confident, something that was hard to do when one is being dragged down a hall.
“She is not hiding you.”
“Really? Because it sure seems like that when she locks me in my room and won’t let anyone see me? Is that why she takes–”
“Can’t you see that we are protecting you!” He roared, pulling me around to face him when we were steps from my door. His voice rattled down the hall, his hand growing ominously warm and bright where he held me. “All we do is try to protect you and all you do is make it impossible for us to do so.”
“Protect me.” I gave a heartless laugh, Batian’s features somehow growing dark. “I don’t need protecting. I think I proved that.”
I may not have won the fight, but I fought, I got up when I was down. I worked hard. No ‘sickly princess’ could do that. Batian laughed, the cruel bark echoing harshly and I flinched.
“You proved you can be reckless. You proved that you are insane, just as so many whisper,” he snarled, leaning in close before pulling me the rest of the way down the hall to my door.
“I fought him, Batian. I stabbed him!” I stabbed his hand, but it still counted. “I dodged, I fought!” He saw, he of all people should have seen.
“If it was a real fight you would have died.” He practically kicked my door open to drag me inside. His voice rattled as he threw me in, leaving me to stumble and slide against the floor and right into the chaise, my fighting leathers creaking as loud as the lounge.
“You don’t know that!” I knew Batian erred more on the side of the weak, sickly princess, but the way he was talking was as though he thought me actually broken and useless. I had trained for years, I had fought hard.
But he didn’t see that.
“You are a Dri, Elara!” he roared, slamming the door behind us so it was only Batian and I in the room, the Boy locked outside. “You are weak and you cannot fight! I am tired of trying to protect you when all you do is work against that.”
If I thought I had been sliced open before, it was nothing compared to this, to this wide gaping hole that was leaving me bleeding and raw.
Batian called me a Dri.
He used that word, that vile word that clung to my soul like a poison, and once again sent all that heat to ice. I flinched, pushing myself to stand as I stared at the man who didn’t even have a trace of a smile on his face.
I always knew Batian sided with Mother on this, but to hear the words spat at me. To have him call me that word. To have him look at me with those eyes like ink that sliced through me.
He didn’t look like my brother at all, and he sure wasn’t acting like him.
Pushing the pain away, I stood up straighter letting all of that growing heat flood through me.
“I’m not a Dri,” I began, lifting my hands to show him, to let that magic explode from me as it had so nearly done in the arena. “I have–”
“You are nothing but a Dri, Elara. Your magic is dead, you are weak. You are a liability. It’s time you accepted that. Your magic dried up when your Catalyst died. You are a Dri, you will always be a Dri. It's time you stopped trying to be anything more than that.”
“But I–” Why did it feel as though my soul was bleeding? Every time he used that word it cut and hacked and left me feeling as though I was cowering in a corner, a scared little girl. Worthless. A Dri.
That’s all he saw me as.
Suddenly, it didn’t matter that I had magic thrumming under my skin, how much that heat was pressing against me.
“I don’t want to hear your excuses; I don’t want to hear all the reasons that you think you are above the measures we put in place to protect you. You say she hides you, that she locks you away, but perhaps if you acted like a princess… Perhaps if you acted like the mature, refined, woman you were supposed to be, we wouldn't have to. Perhaps then, anyone in the Realm would be willing to take your hand. Instead, you insist on acting like a petulant child and bring shame to the Realm.” Every word cut deeper, leaving large open gashes that bled over everything. How could he say any of this? This was not my brother. My brother who protected me, who cared about me, who stood between me and our mother to protect me.
