“The thing is, Cashaun’s fading. After a ritual, your old soul doesn’t leave right away. It’s a process—a harsh one. You’re trying to hold onto your old self, but it keeps slipping. I wish it would’ve picked me instead, so he wouldn’t be stuck in this sunken place twenty-four-seven,” Grim said.
“I’ll take care of him,” I promised.
“Shiddd, you better, or I’ll turn you into an ashtray myself. I’m keeping it real—it’s not gonna get any better,” he warned.
A cuff appeared in his hand and he snapped it around my neck. “I know where he’s at. I’ll be back,” he said. A portal opened behind him—an alleyway in the city, from what I could see. Grim stepped through and vanished.
“Eboeniaaaaaa!” Sin screamed again, his voice echoing from the dungeon. I was ready to go upstairs to be with Jinx and Blair, but Sin called out to me again. “Please. I need some water,” he said.
I walked down the hallway and descended the stone staircase, into the place that reminded me of hell. Sin was outof his rope, gripping the bars inside the dungeon and looking pitiful. His green eyes glowed when he saw me, scanning me from head to toe. “What happened to you?” he asked in terror.
“I killed Crane,” I said.
Sin pressed his head against the bars, his shoulders dropping, and I found it hard to feel sorry for him. “You’re just like my father now. A murderous, cold-hearted, sex-crazed piece of shit! He was like my brother!” Sin yelled.
I walked closer to the bars, only a few inches away from him. “I have never sexually taken advantage of anyone. So far, I have yet to kill someone who didn’t deserve it. I’m nothing like Hoax!”
“I know I helped create this thing you are. If I had only been there for you, you would have never turned your back on me,” Sin replied, his tone softening.
“I forgave you for being a coward a long time ago. I thanked the spirits in the sky for allowing me to see what type of husband you would’ve been. But what hurts me the most is you knew what happened to my mother and didn’t tell me. If you loathed your father as much as I did, you should have told me.”
Sin shook his head. “Dove told me everything while she was dying. After she was gone, I started investigating the truth for myself. Listen, I said some foul things and put my hands on you, but please understand that I’m trying so hard to be better,” he said, his eyes filling with tears.
“It’s too late anyway,” I shrugged.
Sin reached his hand between the bars and caressed my face. “Nothing will ever break us. We have a bond that goes deeper than the depths of an ocean, you just don’t see it yet. We canleave our flesh behind—together. Both of us will be free of War and Hoax,” he replied.
“I am free of Hoax, War is going to kill him.”
Sin chuckled, showing signs of derangement. “You’ll never be free, Eboenia. Our family history is tainted and have been since we come from the same womb,” Sin whispered.
“The fuck are you talking about!” I yelled at him and Sin laughed.
“You heard me,” he said.
“I think that concussion is wearing you out!”
“Don’t be dense. Dove can’t have any children because of her injury she sustained during the war with Hex13 a hundred years ago. While Dove was taking her last breaths, she told me that Dynasty is my mother. Hoax used your mother to breed with, even though she was in love with another warrior. He killed your father when she gave birth to us because you weren’t his. I don’t care that we’re twins, I still love you. Let’s leave this world together, so we can find each other again in a different life,” Sin replied.
I burst out laughing. “You’re crazy! You’re a sick piece of shit! My mother only gave birth to me!” I yelled.
“Ask yourself, why don’t most of you have any family members. Also ask yourself why Hoax’s army is four times larger than the actual people of Charmden. And why the male fairies are always getting torched by Hoax for no reason at all. While you were out hanging with your friends in the human world, I was discovering the truth about my father! I wanted to knowwhy he treated me the way he did and why Dove allowed it. I’m not crazy!” Sin cried while pounding his chest.
“What does the army have to do with anything!” I yelled back.
Sin’s eyes widened, desperate for me to understand. “You really don’t get it, do you? Hoax isn’t just some tyrant—he’s obsessed with making sure our elf ancestry survives, even if it means mixing it. Back in Divine Forest, ogres hunted elves nearly to extinction, snatching our women and killing our men. When only a group of male elves were rescued and brought to Charmden, Hoax realized pure elves wouldn’t last long. So he started getting rid of the male fairies and forcing elf blood into as many families as he could.”
I shook my head. “Everyone knows there are hybrids in Charmden, Sin. That’s not a secret.”
“But you don’t know how many of those hybrids are his. Hoax fathered most of them himself. He’s been using fairies to build an army that’s loyal to him, and to make sure his bloodline never dies out. That’s why families disappeared. That’s why the army is so big. It’s his twisted way of making sure nothing like Divine Forest ever happens again.”
He leaned closer. “So why is it so hard for you to believe your mother was one of the many Hoax took advantage of? If he did what he did to you right in front of me, what makes you think he didn’t do the same thing to your mother—or worse?”
“What makes you so special for Hoax to steal you from my mother and have Dove raise you as her own? You aren’t a warrior and you’re afraid of everything. Why is he only claiming you as his only born? Answer that liar!”
“Because of my special stones. The stones that I can create to open different realms. If anything happens to him, I’d be the only one to take the throne and lead the army, that’s why training was important. I can open realms that are extinct. A magic I inherited from our mother,” he whispered.
“You’ll say anything to get me to take my own life. If I didn’t want to marry you, what makes you think I’d spend a second with you in the afterlife? You have your father’s manipulating ways down pat, and I’m not falling for it!” I shouted, slamming my hands against the bars so hard I felt the bones crack, blood dripping from my fists.
