Page 9 of Eternal Ruin

It was that name that had made him betray her.

At her question, the house shuddered.

Visible cracks, like black vines, shot across the floors and walls. Kidan staggered back, eyes wide.

This emotion… she’d never felt it from him before. Rage, yes. But never something so cold, like crystalized fear.

Susenyos’s jaw tightened at the state of the house, and he spied the door.

“Later,” he said, voice rough.

He marched to the front door, rushing through the last few strides. Kidan stood there for a second before crossing the hall. She moved to the window by the coatrack, parting the curtains to see him brace against the outside gate, shoulders rising and falling.

The house was affecting him more strongly. She knew about being overwhelmed but this went beyond. Sometimes, Susenyos’s calculating mind didn’t seem entirely fixed on Samson but on Kidan too. As if she were a problem he hadn’t accounted for and was figuring out how to quickly solve.

4.

KIDAN

Kidan paced the living room, cocooned in plumes of red flames, waiting for June to come down. The more she thought of her sister upstairs, the hotter her skin burned. Even when Warde finally left, clinking past her, June remained sequestered with Samson.

It was the final straw.

Fuck this.

Kidan bounded upstairs toward Susenyos’s old room, blood pumping in her ears. She kicked the door open. Samson was shirtless on the bed, bullet holes ghastly and marring his skin. His left arm was in June’s hands, free from the metal glove and covered in what looked like leaves. Her sister had been smiling softly, like a war nurse tending to an injured soldier. It was only a second, but there was genuine joy in June’s eyes as she treated that monster.

Kidan rarely got sick but when she did, it was June who had made her soup. Sour, herbal, and a true crime to the taste buds but it always worked. June would press the backs of her fingers against Kidan’s forehead and say,I hate seeing you sick.

A lump formed in her throat, but she shoved it aside.

Kidan stormed to the bed and yanked June upright by the arm, ignoring her high-pitched squeak.

“Kidan!” June protested, finally finding her voice. “Let go!”

Kidan only dug her fingers deeper. Hard enough for it to hurt. June whimpered. The sound replaced the scent of scrolls with cheap cigars and concrete-choked air.Mama Anoet liked to grab their arms like this, her calloused fingers digging into their bone whenever they used too much water washing their hair, and drag them out of the shower. June would shake and whimper, her eyes wide.

And she was looking at Kidan with that same shivering fear.

Kidan’s tongue dried up, the urge to apologize rising like a tide.

I’m sorry, June. I didn’t mean to hurt you. I’m not like her. I just want to talk—

Samson half rose in the bed, pressing a hand to his injured stomach. The shadow in the night. The monster June had chosen over her.

All traces of guilt evaporated.

“Don’t you touch her, heiress,” he snarled, but his voice was strained, weak.

Kidan’s blood turned to ice. Without a word, Kidan dragged June to her bedroom, threw her inside, and locked the door, breathing heavily against it.

Dangerous anger was in her face, her very veins. When she turned, June was staring with saucer-wide eyes, clutching at her arm. For a moment, she resembled Ramyn Ajtaf, fragile and fated to die. Hers to protect. Kidan cleared her head, for once wishing to see things just as they were. Evil for evil. Good for good.

Kidan wasn’t Mama Anoet. June wasn’t Ramyn Ajtaf.

And she was ready to learn who her sister really was.

“Talk.Now.”