Page 2 of A Cruel Kindness

He chuckled through my answering grumble, rising to head to the far end of the baths towards a stack of files. While he picked up the documents containing my new sentence, I hauled myself out of the pool and threw on a towel.

In the exposed air, the pulsing in my Mark got worse, like all the blood in my body was pooling in the swirling lines of my tattoo.

Dread pooled low in my stomach.

The combination of the Emperor’s summons and this … unsettled feeling from a Mark bestowed on me by a faceless deity was the worst sort of combination.

The most powerful of the humans and the gods working together to deliver bad news on a shining silver platter.

The Emperor, at least the one in power now, was an old friend. Our world, Virterra, or simply Vir to most, was ruled by the Emperor, but not in the typical sense of a royal lineage, as legend told exists on other worlds.

Or on one, very particular world in question.

On Vir, seven families were considered Royals, with the Emperor rotating between the ruling Houses every seven years—for symmetry, obviously. That system was intended to balance the power, but in my opinion, it only created a system that threw our planet into a constant state of whiplash.

But no one asked for my opinion. Not since my own Royal title became meaningless the moment the Mark was burned into my back.

“He can fuck off,” I bit out, unable to stop the rage that burned through my limbs at the thought of our current ruler. The very same one who threw me into the middle of a war to further his own agenda.

Peter laughed, the sound booming off the slick marble walls of the bath like gunshots. That marble was perhaps the only remaining part of the original glory of this temple, once used to honor, now destroyed and used for parts and proximity to the one thing keeping our world from being invaded. “I’m sure you’ll have the opportunity to relay the message soon,” he said, extending the file in his hand to me.

I didn’t have time to think about his odd response, because my hand was buzzing with energy, reaching toward the file on it’s own accord. The throbbing in my back got even worse, extending past the confines of my Mark to push into my arms, my legs, my stomach.

I snatched my hand back, flipping my palm over to inspect it as if I was expected to find bleeding cuts all over it.

“Soren,” Peter said, his voice serious as he said my name. I looked up, still flexing my hand to try to dispel the feeling. Peter was standing taller than normal, his tactical gear rigid on his strong, steady body. “They found your paranima.”

My heart stopped dead in its tracks, and then promptly fell right through my stomach and out my ass.

No. There was no way.

“Stop fucking with me,” I gritted out, absolutely refusing to entertain that idea. “You aren’t that funny.”

“I know,” Peter said, nodding solemnly. He ran his hands together, pushing into his dark brown skin with his fingertips. A nervous tick, I realized, seeing as I’d never seen him nervous before. Not once. “I’m not joking. I don’t even know how to.”

“No.” I shook my head as I said it to make sure he understood me. I didn’t have a fucking paranima. That was just ridiculous. Even if my hand had…

“Yes.”

“No.”

Peter stepped toward me, waving the file in my face. “You really don’t have a choice. Clearly you’ve spent too long in the baths and melted your brain. That’s a Soul Match. This isn’t something in the seventies or eighties you can ignore because there’s enough of your Mark that’s different. This was one hundred percent compatibility. You know what that means.”

I did, unfortunately. Our Marks weren’t just a random tattoo, they ran far deeper. Down to your soul.

It was magic gifted by the Goddess, the deity of the planet on the other side of this war.

Paranimas were rare. Extremely rare.

As in, only one other pair was currently on active duty, and their relationship was about as stable as a gushing wound.

“Take the file,” Peter barked, shoving it towards me. I hesitated, something I didn’t think I’d ever done before, just enough for him to notice. “Get it over with. There’s no way out of this.”

“Literally,” I quipped, my tone drier than the desert you had to traverse to get to this hellhole. If they were right, and they’d found my paranima, the only way out was death. Even with the dread coursing through my veins, my hand reached toward the crisp file in Peter’s grip, my limbs moving without my control.

I clamped down on my body, hard. I tensed every muscle, wrangling it back into submission. The last thing I needed was to have the … symptoms of this fucking torture start to creep in and make me turn into a mad man.

A jolt ran up my arm when my fingers ran over the soft paper, the callouses on my hands scraping over it.