I glance at his makeshift bed, which is ridiculously neat, the linen sheets crisp and freshly ironed. But his hair is tangled, and there are creases on his face from where he’s lain against the pillow. He’s more undone than I’ve ever seen him.
I sit down next to him, close but not quite touching. I can feel the warmth, left behind from while he slept.
He stares pensively out into the room. “When I turned thirteen, my parents threw an enormous party. All their friends from other estates, from as far as Anglria, brought their children. I danced all night, trying to work up the courage to kiss Linden Hawke before he went home.”
I give him a little shove. “Who knew you had such a wild youth?”
He laughs softly, embarrassed. “Elan told me I had to choose whoever had the prettiest brother, then we’d all live together in a tree house in the garden.”
“That might have been a little chilly in winter.”
They’re bittersweet, these memories. Rowan and I exchange a small smile, and he continues.
“We made ourselves sick drinking spiced wine. Elan stole my cake from the kitchen table. We ate half of it together. Florence was furious, but Mother just laughed. She iced it again and told everyone it was supposed to be shaped like a moon.”
Arien and I never celebrate our birthdays; we don’t even know when they are. Each new year as the world turns, we just add another year of our own. When Rowan danced and Elan plotted their future house among the trees, I was eleven. I scrubbed floors and chopped kindling. I made up stories and sat, watchful, beside Arien in the dark.
I picture Rowan surrounded by his family. Loved and happy. I can see it so clearly: the now-empty house full of light and voices, lanterns strung along the drive, candles that shimmer over a crescent of freshly iced cake.
I know how it ended, but still, it fills me with a cold flare of envy. “It sounds wonderful.”
His smile fades. “At the end of the night, my father put his arm around my shoulders. He told me I was a man now. And then…” Rowan presses his hands to his mouth for a moment. When he goes on, his voice is muffled inside his palms. “Thewhole room went dark, like someone had blown out all the lights. The Lord Under, he came back for me.You’ve had your childhood, he said,the rest of your life is mine. That was hisanything. He let me live; then he returned to claim me. It was the only other time I’ve seen him, aside from when I was saved. And that first time, he was kind. But this time…”
Rowan’s fingers clench over the space he can’t fill with words. But I’ve seen that same darkness.This will hurt.The Lord Under can be kind, but he can also be so terribly cruel. I shiver and pull the quilts higher around me.
“He meant to take me to the world Below, but I… I refused.” His eyes shutter closed, and he shakes his head. He’s not frightened by this memory, I realize. He’s ashamed. “I don’t know what I expected. Maybe that he would argue, that he would ask me to bargain again. But he only laughed. Then he went away.”
Rowan tries to steady his words. This was what I wanted, wasn’t it? The whole story. The truth. I could stop him now. Put out my hand and whisperenough. But I have to hear him tell it. I’m terrible and greedy and afraid. Ineedto know what happened to him.
“My father was dead the next morning.” He looks at me for a heartbeat, then turns away, going on quickly, like he’s afraid if he stops, he won’t be able to speak again. “They found him in the water. All of the guests left, terrified. That’s when the rumors started about the estate. How something dark had come into the house, and then my father had drowned in the cursed, black lake. Only I knew it was myfault. The Lord Under took my father’s life because I refused to give up mine.”
“Oh, Rowan.” I shift closer to him. He goes still at my touch but doesn’t move to widen the distance between us. “You didn’t tell anyone?”
“No. My mother, after it all happened, she was changed. It was like she didn’t know who she was without my father. How could I tell her that he was dead because of me? And so I tried to forget.”
I think of how I kept my own secrets locked up so tightly. How I’d tried so desperately to pretend that Arien’s dark magic was only dreams, because it was easier than facing the truth. “I understand.”
“I was the lord now. I had to do all the things my father once did. I went to the village. I collected the tithe. I made observance at the altar you saw.” He sighs heavily. “I didn’t know the Lord Under would come back, but then my mother heard a voice at night, in her room.”
“He spoke to her.” I recall the whispers I heard in the dark. How the Lord Under drew me out through the halls.Follow.
“She thought it was a nightmare. She’d had so many of those since my father died. But the next day, I found her at the lake. Drowned. And the darkness that had been in the water had spread onto the shore beneath her. In the village, everyone said I had killed her. That I had killed them both.”
“If he had the power to take their lives, then why didn’t he just claim you, instead?” My stomach sinks as I understand the reason. “He took them to punish you.”
Rowan nods. Even after what happened with Arien today, it still shocks me to realize the depths of the Lord Under’s ruthlessness.
“And then Elan began to hear the same voice. The Lord Under meant to take him, too. I’d promised himanything, after all. Once I knew what was happening, I was desperate. I had to find a way to protect Elan, to keep him safe. I’d heard stories of people who used an offering of blood to call on the Lord Under. So I tried to summon him.”
“What did you do?”
“I went to our altar in the parlor. I lit the candles. I cut my hands and let my blood fall on the floor. But he never came. I stayed with Elan in his room every night, and tried to hear the voice, but only Elan could hear it. He told me it wanted him to go to the lake. SoIwent there. I went to the place where my parents had been found, the same place they had foundme, all that time ago. I cut my arms this time and bled into the ground. When that didn’t work, I…”
He raises his hand to his throat and traces his fingers across the scars.
“You cut—You tried to—” I fall silent, struck cold by the horror of what he did.
“Yes, I meant to end my life.” He looks at me, his face shocked, as though he didn’t mean to speak so plainly. “I didn’t want to die and leave Elan alone. But I knew if the Lord Under didn’t take me, then Elan would be lost.” He shakes his head. “But when my blood touched the Corruption, it changed. It was like it woke up. It started to spread. It was hungry. I could feelit, what it wanted, and I knew it would spread to the house, to claim Elan. I had to stop it. I put my hands into the earth, like I was at observance, and the darkness went insidemeinstead. Afterward, I was like this.” He motions to the darkness around his scars, the poison beneath his skin. “And when Elan told me the voice had gone quiet, I thought I’d saved him.”
