The dark shadows under Hedeon’s blue eyes make them look large in his face, like he’s a small boy still, forced to compete against an opponent he knows he can’t beat, with the specter of torture always in front of him.
Now I see the scars crawling up the back of his neck, beneath the collar of his white dress shirt. I see the marks on his forearms where his sleeves are rolled up: round, shiny scars from cigarette burns. Long white cuts from the blade of a knife.
My mouth is too dry to speak.
When I look at Ares, his face is frozen in shock and horror, his tan all but bleached away.
“Kenneth Gray wanted Silas to be Heir,” Hedeon says, his eyes still fixed on his brother’s hulking form. “Silas was faster, stronger, more brutal. I was smarter, but it didn’t matter. The tests were never designed for intelligence. Margaret Gray . . . she favored me. Not in the way you would think, not with kindness. I think only to oppose her husband. She drove me on again and again and again, demanding that I win, ordering me to prove myself. Her punishments were worse than his. Because she was angry when I lost.”
I notice he calls his adoptive parents by their first names, never calling them “mother” or “father.”
Cara holds her hands pressed tight against her mouth. A tear leaks from the corner of her wide eyes, slipping down her cheek.
“You might think it would bring us together, having a mutual enemy,” Hedeon says, watching his hulking brother methodically bring food to his mouth. “Children are too young, too easily manipulated. We hated each other exactly as they wanted us to. We fought and clawed and tried to kill each other, just as they wanted. Because really, they only needed one son. The heir and the spare.”
Ares, Cara, and I are all transfixed by the horror of what we’re hearing. None of us seem able to speak.
I blurt out the only thing I can think to say:
“They picked you in the end?”
“No.” Hedeon shakes his head slowly, his dark blue eyes finally coming to land on my face. “I don’t think they did. The night our letters came from Kingmakers, Kenneth and Margaret were screaming at each other. You could hear it all over the house. And in the morning, they told me I was accepted to the Heirs division. But neither of them looked happy.”
I frown, confused.
“Hedeon,” Cara says, softly, laying her hand over the back of his hand.
Hedeon jumps as if he’s not used to being touched. But he doesn’t pull his hand away.
“I’m so sorry that happened to you,” she says, looking up into his face. Dampness sparkles in her lashes like tiny gems.
“I’m sorry, too,” Ares says, in a choked voice.
“It doesn’t matter,” Hedeon replies, the dark veil of anger sweeping back over his features. He takes his hand back from Cara, sitting up straight despite the broken ribs. His jaw is fixed, his teeth bared. “The people responsible will get what they deserve.”
He’s glaring at Silas once more.
But I get the feeling he’s not talking about his brother, or the Grays.
I turn my head, catching sight of Cat Romero at the far end of the table.
Dean Yenin has his arm around her shoulders, and Bram is muttering something to them both. Cat is sitting still, her keen dark eyes fixed upon our group. Though she’s so far away, I can’t help thinking that she was listening to every word Hedeon said.
Ares follows my gaze, likewise locking eyes with Cat, then quickly looking away.
“They’re an interesting couple,” I say.
Dean is tall, ferocious, and barely any more polite than Hedeon, while Cat is diminutive, soft-spoken, and much more friendly.
“Don’t be fooled,” Ares tells me. “Cat is clever. She’s no little kitten.”
“I would never think that,” I say to Ares. “Women are always more than they seem.”
10
Ares
I’m sick with guilt, hearing Hedeon’s recounting of how the Grays abused him.
I knew the story of his real parentage. But I never knew what had happened to him after he was dumped on the Grays’ doorstep.
Now I’m in a hell of a predicament.
I’m increasingly reluctant to keep hiding the information he needs. At the same time, his obvious intention to seek revenge on those who wronged him makes it all the more crucial that Hedeon learns nothing.
Hedeon’s revenge is in direct opposition to my own.
Even worse, Cat Romero heard the whole thing. I can tell from that glint in her eye that the wheels are turning in her head.
The more quiet Cat is, the more she’s thinking.
Never was someone put in a more appropriate division than when Cat was assigned to the Spies. Luther Hugo has no idea how inspired he was the day he signed those papers.
Cat is relentlessly curious and way too fucking good at putting together the pieces of a mystery that no one else would even notice.
I already know she’s suspicious of me, and Miss Robin too. My mother said she knew Cat would be trouble for us the moment she saw her hiding in the library stacks, spying on Rocco Prince.
Everyone is my enemy because I can trust no one.
I can’t risk it.
There’s too much riding on this last year at school.
I can barely focus on my classes. My grades are slipping, not that it matters. The studying was always just an excuse to see my mom, and a useful distraction from the pressure of my situation.
It’s not working anymore.
Every day feels like another cement block laid on my shoulders. I don’t know how much more I can take.
I’m not my mother, and I’m not my father, either. They’re both brilliant, ruthless, and highly skilled. They taught me and trained me, but deep down, I don’t know if I have the strength to take my father’s place, to do what he would do if he were here.
I’m walking down to the village every few days to see if there’s a letter from Freya. She’s on the outside, working with my uncle Dominik. Her job is to make everything seem normal. To help the real Ares keep the dispensaries running, to speak as my mother when calling our allies, even to occasionally post old pictures of me on social media, with sunglasses and tan on the deck of a yacht, as if I’m still engaged in the carefree leisure I enjoyed as a teen.
I can tell the pressure is wearing on Freya, too.
I have our mother here with me, while Freya has only been able to see her over the summers.
I came to school, albeit under another name, while Freya has had to put her life on hold. She has a brilliant head for numbers. She could have come to Kingmakers as an Accountant this year or accepted her scholarship to study Economics at Cambridge.
Instead, she’s been working and waiting, trapped in this awful limbo that holds us all imprisoned like insects in amber.
As distracted as I’ve been, there’s no way to skate through Combat class today. In our first two years, we focused on hand-to-hand combat before moving on to weapons training. This year, we’re learning to fight with a knife.
“Anything can be a weapon,” Professor Howell says, striding across the mats with his usual restless energy, as if his legs are spring-loaded. “You can kill a man with a belt, a fry pan, or even a pen, if that’s what you have around you.”