“Why?”
The truth tumbled from my lips before I could stop it. “The Imperium academy instructors said my magic was weak and that I wasn’t worth training. My mother’s own magic had seemingly fizzled out, and she’d been hoping to use mine to claw her way back up the Regal ladder. She left in the middle of the night and went back to Corios. She never returned.”
For the first time since I’d known him, a bit of sympathy softened Kyrion’s features. “Parents truly don’t realize the power they have to shape us, hurt us—even destroy us.”
That was by far the kindest thing he had said to me, but I got the impression it wasn’t only about me. His lips puckered in thought, and his eyes grew dark and distant, as though he was thinking about his own parents. Once again, I wondered why he had killed his father, especially since, from all accounts, Chauncey Caldaren had been one of the more honorable and decent Regals.
Kyrion shook off his thought, whatever it was, and strolled over to the next door, which featured eight-year-old me assembling my first blaster out of spare parts. It was a harmless memory, so I let him watch it, even as I glanced around again, still searching for something to hurt him with—or some way to wake myself up from this dream world that was rapidly morphing into a nightmare, thanks to his unwanted presence.
The memory ended with me accidentally shooting a hole in the classroom wall. Kyrion chuckled at the instructor’s outraged screams, then walked over to another door.
Through this opening, Conrad launched into his speech about how we just weren’t right for each other, and the rest of the sad scene quickly unspooled, along with Conrad showing up to work hanging on to Sabine Kent’s arm the next day.
My heart twisted, and I darted forward, grabbed the door, and slammed it shut. Kyrion being here was bad enough. He didn’t get to see my humiliation too.
He stared at the closed door, but he didn’t make any comment. I wasn’t sure what I would have done if he’d said something. Probably screamed and tried to punch his smug, arrogant face, even though I knew how pointless that would be. Even here, he could still easily defend himself and subdue—kill—me.
Kyrion strolled on and eventually wound up at the Door, the one seemingly filled with nothing but darkness. He studied the curls of black smoke snaking out of the opening. “What’s in there?”
“This is the first time I’ve ever opened that door, so I don’t know what, if anything, has ever been inside it.” A thought popped into my mind. “Perhaps that’s where you came from. The imagery certainly fits—darkness that will suck you in and swallow you whole.”
A wry smile curved the corner of his lips. “I’ve never heard my villainy described in such grandiose terms before. You, Vesper Quill, are quite the poet.”
Kyrion stretched out his hand, as though he was going to reach through the opening and touch the darkness waiting beyond. I grabbed his wrist and yanked his arm back.
“Stop that!” I snapped again. “I don’t want you poking around in my mindscape, in my brain, like a child with a new toy he is determined to break. I have no desire to spend the rest of my life as a drooling vegetable.”
“You’re the one who dragged me in here with your power, so don’t get upset if I want to learn everything I can about it,” he replied in a mild voice.
He was infuriating, so infuriating that I darted forward to shove him away, to try to get rid of him however I could. But of course, Kyrion easily avoided my lunge. To make matters worse, I tripped over my own feet, and the floor rushed up to meet my face—
Hands clamped around my body, jerking me to a stop. My brain sloshed around inside my skull, then settled back into place. I stared up at Kyrion, who was looming over me, with one hand under the small of my back and the other clamped around my right forearm, as though he had dipped me as part of some fancy Regal waltz. His fingers flexed and dug a little deeper into my back, and the heat of his hand soaked all the way through my thick coveralls.
“You seem to be inordinately fond of putting your hands on people without their permission,” I snarked.
He arched an eyebrow again. “As you wish.”
He dropped me. One second, Kyrion was holding me upright. The next, he had removed his hands and stepped back, his movements smooth and fluid. My ass hit the floor, and pain spiked up my back. Kyrion winced, as if he’d also felt the jarring impact. I hoped he had. Arrogant bastard.
“Just as I thought,” he said. “You have no self-defense skills whatsoever.”
I scrambled back onto my feet. “I didn’t need such skills until—”
“Until you stole valuable information from Kent Corp? Oh, yes. I heard your conversation with the mercenaries. It was most enlightening.”
I thought back, reviewing everything Hal had said. The mercenary hadn’t revealed much, but Kyrion was smart enough to read between the lines.
“What really caused the Velorum crash?” he asked. “And what does it have to do with the new ships House Kent is handing over to the Imperium during the spring ball?”
I crossed my arms over my chest. Let him figure out what Rowena Kent was up to himself. Perhaps he would even be on one of those doomed Imperium ships the day its navigation sensor malfunctioned and it crashed. The thought warmed my heart.
“Why are you smiling?” he asked.
“Just picturing your death.”
At my words, a door flung itself open, and an image appeared on the other side: Kyrion standing on the observation deck of an Imperium cruiser that was plummeting toward the ground.
I blinked, and the door abruptly slammed shut. I stared at the eye embedded in the stone, which stared right back at me.
“What . . . what was that?” I whispered.
“Your seer magic,” Kyrion drawled. “Although it’s hard to tell if that was just the death you are currently wishing for me or something that might actually happen in the future.”
“I don’t see the future,” I growled. “I told you before, I just see possibilities and how things work.”
He gave another one of those annoying shrugs. “I’m starting to think you are severely underestimating your power.”
“Better than overestimating it, like you do.”
“How do I overestimate my power?”
“Well, you weren’t able to kill me, for starters. I would think a mighty Arrow such as yourself wouldn’t have had so much trouble eliminating me.”
Kyrion stiffened. “I had just been severely wounded, and you took me by surprise. Those things happen, even to the best, most skilled warrior.”
More anger bubbled up inside me. He couldn’t even admit when he’d lost. Arrogant, insufferable jackass.
“Why are you here? Why don’t you just go away and leave me alone?” I flapped my hand at him.
Amusement crinkled his face. “I’m not a butterfly you can just shoo away anytime you like. The bond won’t let either one of us do that to the other, no matter how much we might want to.”
“You can believe whatever you want.” I stabbed a finger at myself. “But I prefer to put my faith in things I can see, hear, smell, taste, and touch. Not some magical, mystical connection we may or may not have.”