My father's death would have been preferable for all involved, leaving me to run the Regas family with him gone. Thalia would have remained protected. But with me banished from the city....
"We are not all to blame for the actions of one fool. Would you truly punish an entire bloodline for the sins of one?" I asked. My father turned his shocked expression toward me, but there was only one thought racing through my mind.
Protecting Thalia. No matter the cost.
"A rotten apple creates rotten seeds, and we cannot allow the disease of the Regas family to spread. You will leave the city immediately, and all contracts and business deals will be severed."
Thalia sobbed against her brother's grip as my father and what remained of his men were hauled to their feet. The man at my back tried to lift me, but I hunkered down and made my body as heavy as I possibly could.
I wouldn't leave her, not knowing that she'd have no one to defend her against Origen.
Thalia screamed out as her father's man drew a knife and pressed it to my throat. I swallowed against it, holding her eyes with mine and silently willing her to stay still. "Please no," she begged, shoving at her brother's arms until her father approached the two of them. “You can’t!” He took Thalia out of Jeno's grasp, twisting her arm behind her back until she cried out in pain.
"Get up, boy," Origen ordered. "We both know you're leaving the city one way or another."
"No," I spat, not daring to take my eyes off his. I might not have been big enough to truly fight for her, not compared to the men standing around and the sentries waiting to take me away from her.
But if nothing else, Thalia would know that I fought to stay with her. That I'd cared enough to protect her with my own life.
"Get him out of my sight," Theodore said, waving a hand. Another man came up to me as the original sheathed his knife, his fist colliding with my face and assaulting me with a wave of pain. Another followed immediately, the pain inside my skull thundering as the blows kept coming.
Unconsciousness crept in alongside the sound of Thalia's screams. With the final realization of just how gravely I'd failed her, black consumed me, drawing me to a place where nothing hurt.
Only my heart.
Part II
Twelve years later.
8
Thalia
My pencil scratched at the page carefully, methodically outlining the details of the narcissus flowers woven into Persephone's hair. Lifting my left hand up from the page, I studied the wisps of smoke floating around Hades' beautiful face. Touching the side of my palm to the page, I smudged the lines until I was happy with the way the shading blended together.
He was bathed in darkness, hidden in the shadows with only light eyes and the subtle features of his fierce snarl peeking down at the lightness of Persephone. With her white hair and fair skin, the lighting seemed to make her sparkle. I dropped my pencil to the page, heaving out a sigh as I leaned forward and draped myself over my desk.
In just a few minutes, I'd have to tuck the sketch away from prying eyes.
I leaned over the drawing, smiling down at it. A moment later, the cane sliced through the air, the sound always so similar to the memory of my father's axe. To the thudding of it striking the sand after severing my mother's head from her body.
I might not have seen it, but even after more than a decade, that sound was firmly trapped in my memories.
Pain exploded across my back, old scars rising to ache with the injury I'd suffered through far too many times to count. "You're slouching," Lydia reprimanded as I smoothed my back to ramrod straight instinctively. My stepmother moved through the room silently, leaning against the edge of my desk and pursing her lips at the stain of lead on my hand.
Her cane tapped against the scars on the back of my left-hand knuckles, the skin warming instantly under her attention. "Your father won't be pleased to see you've been disobeying him again," she tutted. With a frustrated shake of her head that shook her light hair from side to side, she heaved a sigh. It wasn't often that she caught me drawing, not when I did everything within my power to keep it a secret.
I knew the consequences should my father discover I wasted time on such a frivolous activity that a woman of my stature shouldn't partake in. But the day had been long. The wait had been exhausting.
The sun had set hours before, leaving me to wonder just how long it could take for such a choice to be made. "He called. He'll be home soon," Lydia said. I nodded, keeping my expression carefully blank.
Emotions were for the weak. Love was a lie. Perfection was demanded.
Emptiness was my closest companion, and I'd long since accepted its place in my life. There was only one person who mattered to me. One who I would do whatever it took to protect. Even allow myself to be forced into a loveless marriage that was to be determined by a trial by combat. A barbaric way to determine who would earn the right to marry the eldest Karras girl.
"Is Malva asleep yet?" I asked Lydia, turning my eyes to stare into the empty fireplace in the corner of my bedroom.
"She finally drifted off about an hour ago," she said, a hint of warmth creeping into her voice. Despite her willingness to show me cruelty according to my father's rules, Lydia loved my half-sister with all that remained of her cold, cruel heart.
I nodded, drawing in a deep breath before I shoved my chair out and strolled into my bathroom. I scrubbed my hands raw, furiously removing all traces of my sketching from my skin. "He expects you to be waiting in his office when he returns," Lydia said, clearing her throat before she ducked out of the bedroom. I heaved a sigh of relief once she was gone, turning my eyes up to look in the mirror as my wet hands clutched the edge of the counter.
In two months, I would be married. I didn't even know the name of the groom, only that he would be an heir to one of the other four remaining families. In the days, weeks, and years leading up to the spectacle that my father found so hilarious, not one of my potential husbands had bothered to get to know me.
They hadn't done more than give me a glance-over at parties and determine that I'd grown up well before moving about their business. I'd given them the saccharine smile that had been forced into my muscle memory, all the while wishing I could go back to being the runt of a child that nobody bothered with.
Scrawny had grown into lithe limbs and a too-thin body that was often painful to maintain. High cheekbones and wide upturned "amber" eyes made me look ethereal according to Lydia. An odd sort of beauty that required a second look to truly appreciate.
Because the first look was just odd and flawed, and I had the “type of beauty that took time to appreciate.”
Drying my hands with the towel, I stepped away from the vanity and made my way into my room. Tucking the drawing with the others in the alcove in my closet, I made my way out into the hallway. With calm, measured steps and a carefully straight back, I held my head high as I passed my father’s men, Leon and Peter. They’d been there the day my mother was murdered, and I hadn’t been able to look them in the eye after watching them restrain Calix so he couldn't get to me and take me with him.
I'd have gladly gone, and I'd waited for the day when he’d sneak back into the city to rescue me from what he had to know was a horrible life. A mother, dead and murdered. A father who wanted nothing more than to hurt me to spite both her and Calix.