Page 314 of Split or Swallow

She turned her head, resting her cheek on the back of his neck and wrapping her arms around his torso. They sat like that for a long time, until finally, Leo spoke:

“They’re traditional,” he answered. “My father has them too. His father gave them to him, and so on.”

Four raised scars, perfectly identical. She thought of the statue in the maze: King Maximus III. Leo was the fourth.

Father and son.

“But why?”

Leo’s shoulders rose, then fell.

“Why does my family do any of the idiotic things we do? It’s like any other ceremony. The Passing of the Crown, the Cutting—it’s all the same. Yet another opportunity to mark the progression of power. My family has always been this way.”

The Cutting. More tradition.

Tem thought of that time at the Horseman—how Gabriel had asked about Leo’s golden teeth. Leo had answered: The men in my family get them when we turn eighteen, among other gifts.

Some gifts.

She thought then of the freckles on her hands—a gift from her own father, but not one that had made her bleed. Leo bore the marks of his family in the same way she did, but his were administered with a blade. She imagined Leo doing this to his own son someday—cutting into his skin and leaving a scar. She couldn’t picture it.

Tem relinquished her grip on his back, crawling around so she was facing him.

“Are you going to do it to your child?” she whispered.

Leo twirled one of her curls around his finger.

“I would prefer that my son not hate me, Tem.”

It took her a good long moment to understand what he was saying.

“You…hate your father?”

“Trust me,” he smiled sadly. “The feeling is mutual.”

He said it so bluntly that Tem felt a sudden rush of sympathy for Leo. She couldn’t imagine what it was like for him to grow up in this castle with a father who hated him. Maximus’s contempt for her was scathing. No doubt it was tenfold for his own son.

A healed wound still bears a scar.

She took his face in her hands and looked him straight in the eye.

“Maximus was wrong for doing this to you.”

Leo shrugged.

“It’s all he knows.”

“That doesn’t make it right.”

The prince had no rebuttal for that. Instead he kissed her, and she let him.

When they pulled apart, Leo whispered:

“I know you won’t end things with Caspen.”

Tem nestled herself more securely into his arms.

“How do you know that?”