Now that she finally had the chance to talk with him, she should have apologized about everything she had done wrong. How she had hurt him. How she didn’t have a choice to choose freedom. How she wished things were different.
But instead of all those thoughts bubbling in her mind, only rage remained.
Biyu jerked upright, unable to stop herself. “You should have helped me.”
“Excuse me?” Nikator twisted around to glance at her over his shoulder. There was a hard set to his mouth and his eyes narrowed like he hadn’t heard her properly.
She clenched and unclenched her hands. She had the urge to hurl something at him. She couldn’t think straight, but she knew she was a mess. “You’re angry at me for betraying you. I understand that, but you saw what I went through! You knew I was imprisoned. That I had no choice! And now you’re angry at me for making a move? Did you want me to sit there and just listen to what everyone has been telling me? For me to be obedient to His Majesty and never do anything for myself? You would have fought back too! You can’t fault me for wanting more out of my life than being a pawn! If you care—if you cared about me—” Her voice cracked and her throat tightened with a strangled sob. She could barely get the words out fast enough. “If you cared about me, you would have found a way to help me escape! You wouldn’t have allowed me to rot in that place.”
“You didn’t have to betray the emperor and start a coup for that! You could have escaped like any normal person!” He pushed himself into a sitting position, the shadows of the night engulfing the sharpness of his eyes. “You had other choices thatdidn’t involve hurting the ones I love, princess. You didn’t have to hurt anyone for you to be free.”
“I didn’t—” Her eyebrows pulled together. “I didn’t hurt anyone?—”
“How many mages do you think died because of your failed coup?”
She flinched. The rush of memories—the corpses, the screaming, and the mages fighting—made her avert her gaze.
“You put Vita, Minos, myself—so many of us in harm’s way with this coup. What if any of them had gotten hurt?” he continued stiffly. “Not to mention you planned on killing His Majesty. Do you not realize he is family to me?”
She had heard that the Peccata were close to Drakkon Muyang, and that he had raised them as his personal warriors, but that was about it. She swallowed down the nervous laugh bubbling within her. “He’s not your family, Nikator. He raised you to be a monster.”
Nikator went very unnaturally still. “What did you say?”
“You … He …” Biyu found it hard to speak with the way he was staring at her—likeshewas the monster. The air around him became sinister and she could feel his rage through the bond, making her grimace at the intensity of it. “He’s a cruel monster, Nikator, and he wanted you to be the same. He wanted all of you to become his blades. He didn’t … love you.”
“What do you know about my childhood, about my relationship with Muyang, or about Muyang himself?” He hissed the words out like a curse.
Biyu’s lips parted but no sound came.
“You don’t knowanything,” he continued with a growl. “I understand he killed your father, but let’s be real here, princess. Your father was a cruel, horrible man and he deserved to die. You should be happy he killed him! Do you even know what yourfather did to Muyang growing up? Do you even know why your sister hates you?”
Biyu’s lips quivered. “What does my sister have to do with this?”
“Think hard, princess. Why does your sister hate you?”
“Because … because I—because I was a lower rank than her.”
“Is that really what you think?”
An uncomfortable moment passed and Biyu could only gape at him. She had no idea why Liqin might have hated her. She always thought it was because Liqin thought she was a higher status than Biyu, as a favored princess, and because Liqin’s mother was favored by their father. Her sister had never been kind to any of their siblings.
“Your fatherlovedLiqin, and he mostly ignored you.” Nikator leaned closer, his words growing harsher. The fire waned, the forest growing quiet. “Do you really think it’s a good thing for a man like your father tolovesomeone? Do you ever wonder that she was jealous that he ignored you?”
A numbing sensation spread through her chest, needling its way inside her heart. “What are you talking about?”
“Your father raped your sister ever since she was a young girl. That’s the kind of man he was.”
Nothing he would have said could have prepared her for those words. She reeled back, limbs trembling and her breathing coming shallowly. She didn’t want to believe it—she didn’t want it to be true—but she couldn’t shake the feeling that he was telling the truth. Father had always been cruel and cold, but she had thought … she had thought that this his wickedness only extended to those who weren’t in his favor. How could he do something like that to his own daughter?
An uncontrollable rage, grief, and guilt wallowed within her like a yawning chasm. How had she not realized something had been plaguing Liqin for all these years? They were sisters, andyet they knew nothing about each other. But she should have noticed the signs—all that anger Liqin carried, the disdain for everyone, the bitterness. Biyu wished she could do somethingnow.
“I—I had no idea,” she whispered, tears welling.
“Muyang didn’t raise me to be a monster, princess. You keep throwing that word around, but you don’t even know enough about monsters to be talking like that.” He cracked his knuckles and raked a hand through his blood-colored hair. “He’s many things, but he’s not evil. Not like your father. Your father was a fucked up man who thought he could have whatever the hell he wanted. He got what was coming to him. Muyang is nothing like that bastard. He didn’t raise me to be cruel. He didn’t raise me to be selfish. He didn’t raise me to be a heartless killer.”
Her head began to swim and throb, feeling heavier than ever. It was suddenly hard to breathe. Father was an evil man; she’d secretly known that, but hearing it out loud brought it to reality. She pushed past those feelings, her voice coming out small. “But—but he kept me imprisoned, Nikator. Do you think that because my father was evil, that my siblings and I deserved to be prisoners all these years?”
A gentle breeze tousled his hair and crickets sounded in the distance. Nikator stared at her and she couldn’t read his expression. Finally, he said, “No, I don’t think you deserved that.”
