Page 90 of The Blood Rites

“No. I didn’t.”

He laces his fingers, leaning forward to place his elbows on his knees. “I spent the entire trial searching for you, you know. Nyxen and Vaelis tried to keep me away from the centre, but I wouldn't listen.”

He glances up. Something unreadable flickers across his face before he smothers it. “I thought maybe I’d—”

He stops, shaking his head. “Doesn’t matter.”

“What?” I ask, keeping my voice calm and even. “What did you think?”

He sits back. “It doesn't matter,” he repeats, but I make out the lie this time.

I try a different tack. “Did you plan to kill me? Make good on your threat?”

He snorts, sidestepping the question. “I have a duty to fulfil.”

It seems everyone has some noble duty but me.

“My father has expectations. I can’t afford distractions.”

He says the word father like it tastes rotten.

I lean in, curiosity trumping fear. “Is that what I am? A distraction.”

Kael smirks. “You are—something.”

“And what of your father’s expectations?” I probe, feeling brave.

Kael’s eyes still, flat as death. “I’m expected to win. My father is the Shadow Crown, and he raised me to be the same.”

His fingers tighten together. “It’s either win and earn the Crown or die and prove him right.”

“He sent you here?”

He shakes his head, bitterness filling his eyes. “There are no choices when it comes to my father. It’s an illusion. Even when you think you’re making one of your own, you’re really just picking which part of yourself to cut off.”

He rubs at his knuckles, like he’s trying to scrub away a memory. “The first time I killed someone, I was eight years old. My father calls it a rite of passage. To learn death. He watched me do it.”

I flinch, involuntarily.

“I failed, if you must know.”

The ghost of a smile twitches on his lips.

I wish it hadn’t.

“I didn't do it properly and the boy bled out for hours. My father left us there, locked in a cell. He said if I wanted to get out, I had to finish it.”

He meets my gaze, and there is nothing but shadow in his eyes.

“And I did.”

Something like panic flutters behind his eyes, as if he doesn't know why he said all of that out loud.

“None of that is your fault,” I say.

“It doesn’t matter,” he says for a third time, but this time, the words are gentle, almost tired.

We sit in silence. I feel the wriggling itch to fill it with something, but I resist. Instead, I let myself look at him properly—not at the mask he wears for everyone else, but at the person underneath. He is beautiful, in the way that a blade might be considered beautiful: all sharp edges and danger.