Lucian

11 Years Ago

Leiana hasn’t said a word. We’re already approaching the outskirts of the kingdom, into the woods beyond the Great Sea. I don’t know why she’s brought me this far from the palace grounds, but I know that look on her face all too well.

     She’s going to hurt me.

     I brace myself with each step I take, further into the woods, farther from the sea.

     Then I see it—see him. Bao. My best friend, my wolf, the last morsel I have left of my father. The only living thing that loves me unconditionally. Who’s been with me, and knows me in any worthy capacity.

     I glance up at Leiana, towering over me. Her face remains unchanged—still as stone, possibly angry. The face of a sculpture.

     “You told Lilac you aren’t her biological brother,” Leiana says, and I take a step back.

     But as I stumble over a rock, she catches my wrist with mighty force, her nails digging into my skin. A godly force. Something that could only be achieved by someone with tenfold my power.

     “I’ve corrected your mistake.”

     Her grip is so fierce, it feels like my shoulder is being pulled from its socket.

     “I’m sorry,” I stutter. I’m not looking at her, though. I’m staring at Bao. “It won’t happen ever again, I swear it.”

     For the first time in days, Leiana smiles. “Oh darling, I know it won’t.” Her relentless grip gives me up, and she looks to Bao. “I’m here to make sure of it.”

     My body freezes—all of my organs. I meet her gaze, then I look at my wolf. 

     “What are we doing here?” I finally ask the question that’s been pounding inside me, like the frantic heart of an animal who’s been backed into a corner.

     Leiana twists, her eyes locking on mine. “You’re going to kill him.”

     Kill him? I pray to Sulva that this is a tactic—a lie meant to elicit pain—but Leiana’s expression is relentless.

     I collapse to my knees and look up at the woman who already towers over me. I cry. I can’t bring myself to stop.

     “Anything else,” I sob, reaching for her legs. Trying to hug her. “Anything else, please.”

     With a flick of her fingers, shadows capture me, dragging me across the ground. When they’ve finished, I have trouble standing. Instead, I slump against a tree, my head pounding.

     Bao runs to me, leaving footprints in the snow, and whimpers as he licks the tears from my face. I hold him fiercely, burying my fingers in the layers of his white and gray fur.

     “Please,” I gasp, pulling Bao to my chest protectively. Covering him with my form. “Anyone else.”

     “That,” Leiana says slowly, “is exactly why this makes the best punishment.”

     I force myself to my feet, and Bao stands in front of me, his head high. My protector, my fiercest, oldest friend. I attempt to push him behind me, for his safety, but Bao doesn’t move.

     He continues to growl at Leiana, and it frightens me all the more.

     “I won’t,” I struggle to say, shaking my head and failing to meet her eyes. “I won’t do it.”

     Leiana smiles as if this is a simple challenge and not a matter of life or death. One by one, her fingers rise, one hand pointed at me and the other at Bao. Suddenly, all at once, she pulls me out of me. As if she is sucking my very essence—my soul, my mind—from my body.

     I’ve seen her do this to others—and I’ve seen every one of them die.

     I clutch my chest as if I can physically hold myself together, as if I can keep whatever it is she’s tearing from me inside. I choke, my lungs collapsing, refusing to keep the air in my body.

     It is the most excruciating thing in my life, beyond anything I thought possible. Beyond what any human should endure. And as much as I don’t want to concede to her, I plead. I beg. I grovel.

     “Leiana, please.”

     My knees hit the frozen ground, but even the chill of the snow is distant. Every fiber of my being fights to hold onto this world, to not give in, but Leiana’s power is incessant.
     If this is how I die, I want to see how Leiana explains it away. How she justifies it to Lilac. I could haunt her, I could. I could stand beside her, always, reminding her of what she’s done—killing her nephew and foster son.

     Then my gaze flickers to Bao, lying on the ground. Tendrils of white energy seep from his eyes, his snout, and even his ears, swirling through the air like snow swept by the wind. He whimpers and he chokes, each sound broken and shuddering. When his pale blue eyes glance up at me, sagging with pain, I know this is just as agonizing for him as it is for me.

     I don’t want him to feel this.

     When I look back up and meet Leiana’s gaze, I offer her the faintest of nods.

     I surrender.

     She stops taking my life from me, but it doesn’t return. I feel weak, tired, lifeless. I hope Bao doesn’t feel this, too. But the only way I can make sure of that is by doing what she asks.

     By killing him.

     Because I have no control over my life anymore. I am not a person. I am Leiana’s puppet.

     This is what she’s been teaching me, with every trip to the dungeon. But I have to fight—I have to try.

     Leiana steps forward, lifting my chin. Her touch is cold and her grip is as soft as her approving smile. Gently, she rubs her thumb against my cheek, but her nail scrapes my skin.

     As she does, cold steel presses to my throat. I look down at the glimmering silver, reflecting the falling snow. Then, I raise my hand to hers, and she settles the hilt into my palm.

     I look back, at Bao, barely breathing. I look at Leiana, handing me the knife.

     And I sink it into her ribs, the highest place on her body I can reach.

     I run to Bao and try to scoop him into my arms, but he’s heavy. Far too heavy to carry. I only make it a few steps before we both fall, collapsing on hard, unforgiving rock.

     Leiana, with the knife still in her ribs, stalks closer behind us. For a moment, I wish Bao was already dead. I wish there was nothing more she could do.

     I hold my boy and I scratch behind his ears.

     “Run,” I plead with him. “Please, Bao, get up!”

     He pushes his head into my armpit, whimpering.

     “You have to get up!”

     But I notice his legs—limp and trembling as he cries into me. From his back leg… a bone protrudes.

     Leiana rips the knife from her body with a grunt, then throws it at my feet. Looking down at me, she raises an eyebrow. A soft smile splays at her lips, as if my fight is amusing to her.

     But nothing more than that, because she thinks there’s nothing more I could do to win.

     “Please,” I whisper to Bao.

     “You kill him,” Leiana says, her tone sharp. “Or I kill you both.”

     Something inside of me snaps, and I pull every shadow I can summon around me, in front of her. I try to strangle her, or at the very least, subdue her. But before my shadows can attack, she ceases control.

     The darkness rushes at me, picking up the knife and placing it in my hands. Then, the shadows wrap around my fingers, like strings of a puppet, forcing them to move under Leiana’s control.

     She shoves the knife against Bao’s chest, then the shadows slowly dissipate, like smoke in cold air.

     Forcing me to make the final blow.

     But Bao’s not scared of me, not even of the knife I have to his chest. His pale blue eyes meet mine, filled with a trust that not even this blade can break. His tail gives the faintest wag, and even with his broken legs, his wet nose nuzzles against my wrist—as if to comfort me in his death.

     I don’t deserve his love. I’m not even worthy of loving him. Because I am taking the coward’s way out.

     I can’t do it. I won’t do it. And just as I’m sure of what I’m going to do, the white energy begins to pull from his broken body again.

     Bao cries a sharp, shattered sound. The worst of them all so far.

     And I’ve never been so deeply out of options. So far out of control. At a complete loss of will.

     I look past Bao, at the white trees surrounding us, as I drive the knife through his chest.

     And I don’t look at his lifeless body when I stand. I can’t bear to. Not even as Leiana grips me, dragging me back to the castle.

     I tremble with every step, the blood of my Bao coating my hand.

     The blood of my old life. The blood of my family. The blood that represents what I have become.

     Someone else’s pawn.

     If only I were a little bigger, a little older, a little taller. Then, I would have been able to ram that knife through her heart.