shoots up my arm and pools in my shoulder as he wipes the Lifeblood from the corner of his mouth.
“Look at you, giving in to your emotions the way Myriad suggests,” he taunts. “Doesn’t it feel good?”
“Felt good,” I yell. “Now I’m stuck with a broken hand.” And guilt! I always complained about Vans’s hair-trigger temper, and today I acted just like him. Guilt is the worst, as much an enemy as fear!
Killian is gentle as he latches on to my wrist, studies my throbbing hand. “The bones aren’t broken, just bruised.”
I draw my arm to my side, my anger far from appeased. “Are you going to be killed if I choose Troika?”
He sighs. “No. But the fact that you belong in Myriad hasn’t changed. It’s meant to be.”
Meant to be. Meant to be.
The words reverberate through my mind, and I go still. For years, my mother told me, We make things happen. Then one day she came home and announced, I was wrong. If it’s meant to happen, it will happen. If it’s not, it won’t.
She changed her mind, because Myriad changed their stance. Truth evolves, they like to say.
Even my dad agreed. We learn as we grow.
While that’s certainly true, shouldn’t spiritual laws be rooted in a firm, uncompromising foundation?
Next, I remember what Archer once said to me. Believing in Myriad’s idea of fate allows people to shift blame for every travesty, every disaster and every decision to an outside force. It means that, no matter what choice I make, what is meant to be will happen, which ultimately means my choices are inconsequential.
So...no, I don’t believe in fate. No outside force is pulling my strings. I might have been born with a purpose, a divine destiny, but my decisions—even my indecisions—are mine. My actions—and lack of action—are mine. Because, at the end of the day, the consequences are mine alone to bear.
Deacon was right. I had the answer all along. I just didn’t want to see it, because I didn’t want to have to make the choice I was supposedly fighting to make.
But okay. All right. I’m learning, and I’m strengthening. I’m also changing. What should never change? The truth. Truth should remain the same, always and forever, a steady base at my feet; otherwise it was once a lie—once a lie, always a lie—and I have nothing concrete to stand on, only sinking sand or gossamer silk that tears at the first sign of pressure.
That’s another point in Troika’s favor. They never change what they believe. What’s right for one is right for all.
And Myriad’s tiered packages? The ones I once praised? One life should not be more valuable than another.
Surprise! I like Troika.
I reel. I reel hard. I’ve struggled to get to this point for so long, and now I’m here, and it’s wonderful but...even in the midst of my revelation, I’m still not ready to pull the trigger and make covenant. Do I really want to war with the people of Myriad?
There’s a thump outside the tent. What the—
Killian shoves me behind him, again blocking me from possible attack. The entrance swishes to the side and Archer and Deacon stride inside.
Well. Though I feel as if I’ve been beaten up inside, I leap forward to stand between the longtime adversaries. “I’m fine, Archer. I don’t need a rescue.”
“That’s not why I’m here.”
Killian’s hands tighten into fists. “You shouldn’t be here at all.”
Archer steps toward him, and Killian steps toward him. Deacon grabs hold of Archer, and I flatten my palm against Killian’s chest to shove him back.
“Everyone...just...stay calm.”
The anger drains from Archer as he focuses on me fully. “There’s been a new development. Your mother... I’m sorry, love—”
“Love?” Killian demands.
“But she’s sick,” Archer finishes.
“Sick?” I press my hands against my stomach. “What’s wrong with her?”
A moment passes before he admits, “Baiser de la mort.”
No, no, no, no, no. “Someone poisoned her? Who? How?”
“I don’t know.”
My heart explodes inside my chest again and again, an endless bomb capable of unfathomable destruction. My mom is sick. She’s...she’s dying. I shouldn’t care. The woman paid good money to lock me away, to have torture after torture heaped upon me. In a year, she visited me a total of three times, her work more important than her only child. Only toward the end did she seem to remember my existence.
And yet I still remember the woman who wiped away my tears anytime I skinned my knee as a child, the woman who braided my hair, hugged me close