Defy (29 page)

backed away from Damian. He lifted an eyebrow, his eyes piercing.

But I couldn’t explain it to him — not then. I couldn’t tell him

that I didn’t want Rylan to see Damian holding me in his arms. I’d

admitted to him — and myself — that I loved him. But things

weren’t that simple.

There was a knock at the door and then it opened and Eljin

walked in. Rylan’s eyes opened and he slowly sat up in bed, his hair

sticking out on one side.

“Sun’s up,” Eljin said. “Let’s go. It’s going to be a long day for

you.” He looked right at me and I nodded.

I was afraid he was right.

232

 thirty-three 

A
fter hours and hours of nonstop sword fighting and

hand-to-hand combat, I was hot, sweaty, sore, and exhausted.

I still hadn’t gotten any answers to my questions, and I still hadn’t managed to get one blow past Eljin’s magical shield. He’d told

me that to succeed in beating a sorcerer in a fight, I had to be faster than his ability to draw up the shield, or strong enough to push

through it. After an entire day of his blocking every single attempt, I didn’t see how either option was possible.

Damian and Rylan had watched for part of the day, and then

decided to start sparring as well. I found myself distracted, watch-

ing them fight, and Eljin landed a hard blow to my ribs, knocking

the air out of me.

“Distractions often prove fatal. A good lesson to learn in a

practice room,” he said, his expression mocking above his mask.

I hated that mask. I hated
him
. I was better than this. I didn’t make fatal mistakes. And no one defeated me. With a fresh surge

of fury, I f lew at him once more. I attacked so hard and fast that

he couldn’t keep up with me. I felt him preparing to draw up a

shield, and my anger increased. I wasn’t going to let him do that

again. Not this time. I faked left and felt the surge of magic. With

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a lightning-fast move, I f licked my sword up to the right instead,

grazing his cheek, and yanked the mask right off his face.

At first, it didn’t dawn on me what I’d done, because all I

could do was stare at his mutilated face. But then the heavy silence

in the room was broken by a shout of excitement.

“She did it!” Rylan whooped. “You got past his shield!”

Damian gave me a nod of approval, smiling grimly, as Eljin

reached out and grabbed the black scrap of fabric from the end of

my wooden sword. If it had been a real blade, I would have cut off

his ear.

“I think that’s enough for today,” he said angrily as he put the

mask back in place, hiding the scars that lined his jaw and twisted

his mouth into a grotesque mockery of lips. He tossed his sword to

the ground and stormed away. “You all stay here.”

The echo of the door slamming shut behind him was the only

sound for a long moment.

“What happened to him?” I finally asked, unable to enjoy my

victory with the memory of his scars in my mind.

Damian sighed as he walked over to the wall to set down his

own sword. “General Tinso and his wife were from Blevon, but he

was stationed at a border village when Eljin was a child. When my

father declared war on Blevon, he announced it by raiding the

border villages. General Tinso was on duty on the other side of

theirs when it was attacked.

“General Tinso’s wife — Lisbet’s sister — was also a sorceress,

and she tried to protect her son. But she wasn’t strong enough to

hold off so many soldiers at once. After they killed her, they tried

to capture Eljin. He fought back, but he wasn’t trained yet — he

was too young and couldn’t block all of them. What you saw on his

234

face is just part of the scars he got that day. General Tinso and his men were eventually able to fight back and force the Antion army

to retreat, but it was too late for Eljin’s mother. At least Eljin was able to keep them from killing him, too.”

“Why didn’t Lisbet heal him?” I stared at Damian, my stom-

ach churning. Because of me, they’d both had to reveal their

painful pasts in fewer than two days. I was really on a roll.

“She couldn’t; she was at the palace in Antion.”

“The palace? Why?”

“She was my mother’s lady-in-waiting. She came with my

mother when she married Hector.”

“And Jax?” I hardly dared ask. I knew, even before he answered

me. I didn’t know why I hadn’t put it together before now — the

reason Jax’s blue eyes looked familiar. They were the same as

Damian’s.

A dark shadow crossed his face. “He’s my half brother. My

father’s bastard son. Lisbet should have left after my mother was

killed, but she stayed. She hid for years, trying to watch out for my brother and me. Iker found her when I was eleven and took her

straight to the king. My father raped Lisbet and had her thrown

out with orders to kill her if she showed her face again.”

A wave of nausea rolled over me, threatening to make my

stomach heave. Was there no end to King Hector’s atrocities? He

was bloodthirsty and a rapist, a man who had forced our nation

into a war that had lasted most of my life — and for what? What

did he hope to gain?

“Even after that Lisbet didn’t dare leave us boys at the mercy

of the king. She was determined to stay and help, even though

she’d have been killed if she was caught. Victor and I helped her

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hide in the abandoned wing of the palace and she began to take

bloodroot to hide her presence from Iker. The only other person

who knew was Cook, and she’d never tell because Lisbet healed

her daughter years ago.”

“That room you took me to . . .” I trailed off, remembering

the dark hallway and the fear I’d felt, the sense of being watched.

Damian nodded. “I was going to see Lisbet. My father has

been growing steadily more suspicious of me, which is partly of

why he assigned my guard to be with me at all times. And he was

having me followed, on top of that.” He sighed and shoved his

hand through his hair. “I had to assume that all of you were loyal

to him, not me, especially since I always acted like such a brat, to

def lect suspicion that I could possibly be plotting to overthrow

him. But by then I’d begun to hope that maybe I could trust you.

And Lisbet had sent me a message that I needed to come see her

right away. Since I’d been ordered to have a guard with me at all

times, I took a risk and picked you.”

“The boy that came through the secret passage — that was

Jax, wasn’t it?”

“Yes.” Damian’s expression was inscrutable. “It was a test, to

see if you were truly loyal to me.”

“Now do you see why we had to fake an abduction to get him

away from the palace?” General Tinso asked from the doorway,

startling us. “We have to stop Hector’s reign of tyranny. We have

to put Damian on the throne. But there was no way to do it with

him stuck in the palace, being guarded day and night, with Hector’s

pawn constantly on his tail.”

So many missing pieces were beginning to fall into place, my

head was spinning.

236

“I told you I’d answer your questions when the time was

right,” Damian said, looking straight into my eyes. Just the force

of his gaze was enough to make my legs feel weak. I wasn’t sure if

that was a good thing or not.

Rylan had remained silent the whole time, listening, until

now. “But you decided to trust Alex and me for some reason.”

“I once overheard her tell someone that it didn’t matter if she

liked me or not, her duty was to protect me and she always kept her

word. That was when I started to hope I could trust her. When she

was assigned to guard my door, I knew it was providence. And I

even hoped that if she got to know the real me, she’d come to like

me someday.”

I f lushed with embarrassment. “I’m sorry you heard that,” I said.

“Don’t be. I didn’t like that version of myself, either.” He

turned back to Rylan. “Alex’s ability to fight gave me new hope.

With my father’s guard dog always nearby, no one, not even a sor-

cerer, could get close enough to kill the king.”

“Do you mean Iker?” I asked. I’d barely thought about him

since we’d left the palace. Honestly, I’d rarely thought about

him when we were
in
the palace unless he was in the room. “He’s creepy, but how could
he
stop a sorcerer?”

Damian and General Tinso glanced at each other before

Damian looked at me, his expression grim. “Iker isn’t just an advi-

sor to my father. He’s his bodyguard. I would have killed the king

myself long ago if I’d stood a chance of getting close to him with-

out Iker stopping me first — and I think they know it. Why do

you think my rooms are on the opposite side of the palace from

his? Why do you think I was forced to spend so much time there —

basically imprisoned in my own room?”

237

I shook my head, almost feeling the urge to laugh. They were

all afraid of trying to kill King Hector because of
Iker
? “Are we talking about the same person?”

“Alexa.” The seriousness of Damian’s voice made the smile

slide from my face. “Iker is a black sorcerer.”

“A . . . a
what
?” My heart dropped. “But Iker is from Dansii, not Blevon. And — and your father
hates
sorcery. He has sorcerers killed!”

Rylan looked as shocked as I felt when I glanced at him.

“No, he only hates sorcerers who fight
against
him. He spread lies about sorcerers so that our people would be terrified of them

and support his decree that all sorcerers be killed in Antion, ensur-

ing that no one will ever be able to challenge him or stop him.”

“And not all sorcerers are from Blevon,” General Tinso added.

“That was one of the lies Hector told his people to build more

animosity toward our kingdom.”

I stared at them in shock.

“It’s true,” Damian agreed grimly. “Iker was a gift from

Hector’s brother, the king of Dansii, to protect my father. No one

can get past Iker and he never leaves my father’s side.”

“What makes a black sorcerer so much worse than other

types?” Rylan asked as I tried to wrap my mind around all the lies

we’d been told by our king. I’d hated him before, but as I contin-

ued to learn just how evil he was, there wasn’t a word strong

enough for the utter abhorrence that burned through me.

“It’s a sorcerer who uses the forces of the underworld to

increase his power. He draws on the strength of demons by mak-

ing blood sacrifices to them. Because of it, he is even able to create and wield an unnatural fire. It makes him unbeatable, but in so

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doing, he forfeits his soul.” General Tinso looked at me as he said

this, for some reason. I shivered. The sun had gone down while

we talked, leaving the room in shadow. I remembered suddenly

the scent of burned blood, the stains on Iker’s knife, the oppres-

sive heat and unnatural darkness in his chambers. So that’s what

he’d been doing. Making an offering to the demons that fueled his

power. I’d known something was wrong that night.

“All sorcerers are able to sense the power of sorcery in others,”

General Tinso continued, breaking into my troubled memories.

“So if another sorcerer gets near Eljin, he can
sense
it?” Rylan asked.

“Yes. If that person comes within a few feet of him, Eljin can

tell whether he is a sorcerer,” General Tinso confirmed.

“So I’m not a sorcerer, then?” I blurted out and then immedi-

ately snapped my mouth shut.

“What?” Rylan turned to me, his eyes wide. “You think you’re

a sorcerer now?”

“No.” General Tinso smiled grimly, answering my question.

I tried not to f lush in embarrassment. I’d been worried about

it ever since he said I was “gifted” — especially since no one would tell me what that meant.

“Has no one answered your question yet?”

I shook my head, not daring to look at Damian or Rylan.

“My suspicion is that your
father
was a sorcerer, and a powerful one at that. Most likely one of the rare sorcerers whose gift

was the ability to fight. And I believe he passed that on to you.

You’re not a true sorcerer, but you carry some of his power within

you. It enhances your ability to fight. It’s why you can sense magic

around you. Average humans, without an ounce of sorcery in

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them, wouldn’t have been able to feel the use of magic during a

fight.”

I stared at General Tinso. “My
father
? There’s no way. I would have known. He would have told me if he were a
sorcerer
!”

“My dear girl, do you honestly think so? In a nation where

being a sorcerer is akin to a death sentence?”

My mouth opened to continue to protest, but nothing came

out. What if he was right? I thought again of how much I loved

watching Papa practice — how he’d been so fast, so beautiful.

How I’d longed to be like him. I thought of the hours and hours

we’d spent relentlessly sparring, how he was always pushing me,

driving me to be better. Faster. Stronger. But I’d never felt him use magic against me. I shook my head, my mind spinning.

“But . . . if he was a sorcerer, why did he die? Why didn’t he