Page 99 of Blackheart

There were dozens of letters drawn out before the teenage boy looked ready to retire from the library.

“Thank you, Clarke. I need to see Lord Elliot now for help with my dream. She might nap soon… I need to send her this memory quickly. She’s bad at ‘b’.”

“She’ll get it. Sometimes it takes time.”

My eyes shot open, hand grasping at my chest. “You knew!” I heaved. “Youbothknew about me, and you left me there!”

“I was a child.”

My eyes burned with tears. “So was I.”

He must have sent fewer dreams as we got older, as most nights I only dreamt of darkness. It must have been nice for him to have some lord teach him how to control whatever was causing the dreams. He certainly never sent me that information.

Whether or not he spoke the truth, I was not fit to help rule a kingdom, or to beknownby anyone, especially a ruler.

That was all he was. This show of him pretending to care was painful, as if I would be stupid enough to believe it. If he knew everything about me, then he knew how badly I’d hurt insidefor years, wanting to know my family. He and Clarke had each other, but they never had me.

I pointed my finger like a weapon. “Youare no brother of mine. You left me to rot, and I hate you for it.”

I waited for him to yell or hurt me, as men do when a woman dares to face them with a painful truth. Maybe he would simply walk away and not bother with a last word.

Xavian’s features narrowed. “You cannot hate me, because we are the same. Bound in blood and mind, whether you acknowledge it or not.”

I laughed, the thunder rolling along with me.

“Then you are wrong to believe you understand me. I hate myself more than people like you could fathom, and it has been that way for many years!” I screamed. “I wonder every day if the reasons I cannot love myself are the same reasons that no one else can love me! So hate me too, if you wish, for not helping you. It won’t even scratch the surface!”

It was the truest thing I had ever said, and the hardest to admit. My legs felt like pudding, and my head spun. My own darkness ate at me, feeding on the pain.

His eyes softened.

“It will torment me for the rest of my life that I did not send for you sooner. Our family's actions haunt me. Our separation at birth has plagued me, Elora, and there is nothing you can ever say to me, good or bad, that will remove the stain. Hate me if you must, but I refuse to let you succumb to this drought in your mind as long as I have the hands to carry water to you. You are my sister.”

I stared at the ground, focusing on the rain pelting into puddles in a poor attempt to hold back tears.

Xavian sighed. “Don’t make me do this alone. We’re the only family we have left.”

The famed warrior and Keeper of Castivian, Xavian Steele, stood before me, but all he sounded like now was a brother who had failed his sister and was terrified to do the same to his kingdom.

“You have Clarke,” I croaked. They had grown up together. They were a true family.

His throat bobbed. “No, I don’t.”

My stomach knotted. I didn’t want to ask.

“He’s dead, Elora, and word will travel fast.”

I did not expect to care, but as I lifted my head to the sky, it cried with me.

Eyes closed, throat tight, poison rolling down my face.

Xavian and I were the last of the Lyonaire bloodline, aside from little Clayvarie, if she ever woke again.

Queen Delaina would now rule Drakington, and Fate only knew what she had planned for the people living in the Waywards. Time had run out.

“Enough of this mourning. There are things that have to be done athome.” All evidence of Xavian’s sorrow was gone, and returned was the face of an unyielding ruler.

“Are you going to drag me through the streets?” The effects of the tea hit again as the sky twirled like mud in a bucket of water.