Page 32 of One Bad Knight
“Lessons?” she asked.
A dark grin curled my lips. “Beatings, weeks without food, endless hours of physical training. Anything they could think of to train me into a better soldier. My master threw his all into schooling me. Of all my brothers, I believe I had the most cruel, sadistic master.”
Kat had felt the scars. The pity I saw on her face left a scar bigger than any of those on my body. I didn’t deserve pity. Kat should run me right through with a knife and never look back.
Again, that woman’s brown eyes appeared in my mind, right as her life was extinguished by my sword. Did her children wish to seek vengeance against me? Would I meet one of them in a couple years in a dark alleyway where they would slip a knife in my gut? Would I even bother to stop them?
“Where is this bastard now?” Kat asked, referring to my master. Her voice was tight, as her knuckles shifted where she gripped the wheel.
“Dead,” I said, flatly.
The voice of Master Wu spoke up in my mind.But you can never get rid of me, can you, lemon?
“Good.” Kat raised her chin. “Or I would have found him and laid some serious hurt on the guy. But if you all grew up together in this… Order of Luxis, why aren’t you buddy-buddy with the only other people who went through the same thing as you?”
She’d brought it back around to Calan.
“Calan was my superior in every way. He was the good son who always did what was asked of him and executed it with perfection and obedience. That is, until he met Emma. Then he revolted against our masters to save her. The world almost ended because of their love. A couple of times, actually.”
“That doesn’t answer my question,” Kat said in a careful tone.
A humorless laugh escaped me. “Because. For every challenge he overcame, I was punished for my failings. The more prodigious his accomplishments, the more powerful his magic, the more I was punished for not being like him. He was the good son, and I was the bad son. The stain of my existence only lent to the brightness of his light.”
“But that’s not his fault… is it?”
“He didn’t care. He was too busy being the perfect son to notice how it lent to my suffering.” It wasn’t until I finished that I realized I’d been yelling.
The echo of my words rang out like a physical buzz in the small car space. I expected Kat to recoil, to call me a monster, a selfish, stupid child.
Instead, she chewed on her bottom lip as if deep in thought, and then said, “So you don’t know why your powers don’t work as reliably as your brothers’?”
“It wasn’t until much later that we discovered our magic comes from a single unbreakable belief. The order had meant to make us believe our sole existence was to destroy the darkness to repent for our lost souls.”
“You don’t believe you were meant to repent?” she asked. “I’m not saying you ever truly needed to, but that is some serious cult-level brainwashing. And if you didn’t fall for their story, what is the belief that gives you the powers you have now? I mean, they aren’t reliable, but you still have them, right? So, you must have some idea of what fuels it.”
“If I knew that, don’t you think I would have figured it out and fixed the problem by now?” I snapped.
“Right,” she said, pulling up to the studio and throwing the car into park.
Then she turned toward me. “I know it’s none of my business, but blood or not, those guys are your family, and it seems like you could have a place with them, if you wanted.”
I leaned in, a snarl plastered on my lips so she wouldn’t misunderstand me. “I don’t want it. I meant what I said, I prefer to be alone.” I gestured to my tattoos. “They are sigils, so no one can track me with their magic. I’ve worked very hard to be alone.”
Kat’s tone turned icy. “Well, it’s a good thing I’m just business, then.”
“Isn’t it just?”
We sat there, locked in a stare. I couldn’t tell if we were fighting or in vehement agreement. All I knew was she made my blood boil. And that was dangerous. I practically jumped out of the car and rounded it to jerk her door open. Kat stepped out and gave me one more cool glare before grabbing her bag and leading the way to the coffee shop below the studio.
Kat stopped to grab another cappuccino, since hers had been ruined in the melee. As we ascended the stairs to the studio, a buzz of activity could be heard from inside. Kat shot me a look. I gently pushed my way past her. I grabbed the hilt of my sword, pulling it from my sheath, and opened the door to the studio, ready for whatever was on the other side.
But absolutely nothing could have prepared me for this.
The teachers and students were exclaiming in excitement over the pieces of art set on display.
“The use of color is absolutely masterful. Do you see the way she uses the warm colors of light that reach out to the boy, stuck in darkness?”
“The way his eyes peer out from the tree, how did she manage to capture such intensity? It’s positively memorizing.”