The Half King

31

“Never mind. Obviously, he gave it to you.” Father Padron stood ten paces away, holding Cole still in a magical grasp. No one else was with him. He must have responded to the alarm alone to hide his secrets from the other priests.

Secrets he would kill to protect.

Even so, Cerise didn’t run. Some irrational need for connection forced her to search his face for similarities to hers. She found them in the shape of his eyes—the left one ever so slightly higher than the right—and in the way his lips pulled a little more to one side than the other. She looked more like Mama, but her father had filled in the details.

“Now you know my shame,” he said with a bitter glare at the last ebony flames lingering above the ashes. “My blood burns black because I committed a sin so vile that twenty years of atonement can’t erase it. I broke my vow of abstinence, Cerise. The goddess won’t forgive me.”

She shook her head. He had it all wrong.

“She rejects all of my offerings,” he went on. “I gave her my blood and my pain. I prayed my throat raw. I converted the faithless and slaughtered heretics for her, and still it’s not enough.”

As Cerise pictured his lacerated back, she began to understand what had twisted him into the cold, cruel man he had become. He didn’t know that he was umbra sangi , that he had the blood of the goddess in addition to the priesthood. No one had ever told him that the goddess had meant for him to love so he could continue her bloodline. He had always believed that the act of love was forbidden to him, and so he thought he had sinned with Mama.

And he’d been punishing himself for it ever since.

Cerise couldn’t stop a flicker of sympathy from rising inside her. Despite everything he had done, she understood him better than anyone; the Order had used lies and fear to control her, to weaken her power, to make her think that something as natural as the tides was a sin. And how ironic that the same fear Father Padron had used against her—claiming that the act of love would dull her gift—had harmed him, too. He had believed the Order’s lie, and so his own guilt and shame had compounded for twenty years. He’d woven a cloak of scars over his back and carried its burden for half of his life. That made him no less of a monster, but one born from pain instead of evil. Perhaps something tender had survived beneath the scars—a part of him that she could touch.

Perhaps she could pull him back from the darkness.

“You’re wrong about the black flame,” she said. “It’s not a sign that the goddess rejected your offerings. It’s a sign that you’re different from other priests.”

He drew back, hitching his upper lip. “Do not presume to explain the signs to me , you Sightless infant. You know nothing.”

“I know it’s not a sin for you to love,” she said. “Or for me to love, or for anyone who desires it. The goddess is passionate. She made us in her image, to be like her.”

“Be careful, Cerise. You’re sliding dangerously close to apostasy.”

“Please listen to me,” she begged. “The flame burns black because you’re not an ordinary priest. You’re descended from Shiera. That’s why you’re so powerful and why you can do things that other priests can’t. You have the blood of the goddess in your veins.”

As soon as she mentioned the goddess by name, she knew she had pushed too far beyond the limits of his faith. She should have known he wouldn’t believe her. She hadn’t believed the truth, either, when Nero had first told it to her.

Father Padron’s gaze turned so hard and cold that she cringed under its weight. “Heretic,” he hissed, hurtling a jolt of energy at her. Before she could block the attack, her lips sealed shut. “I’ll hear no more from you.”

Cerise closed her eyes and imagined his enchantment melting away. She freed her voice and shouted, “You will listen! What you did all those years ago was no crime. You have to forgive yourself and stop projecting your”—two more enchantments whizzed at her, but she deflected them—“guilt onto everyone else.”

His jaw dropped. “How did you do that?”

“The goddess wants you to hear me.”

He seemed to have forgotten his enchantment over Cole, who had freed one leg and was trying to drag himself out of the prayer room. As Father Padron shook his head in bewilderment, he noticed the motion. With no more attention than a man would pay to a fly, he waved a hand, and in response, Cole’s neck snapped in half and his body crumpled to the floor.

Cerise covered her mouth.

“It was a cleaner death than he deserved,” Father Padron mused, nudging Cole with his shoe. “If you repent, I can spare you from this, Cerise.”

The lie slid so smoothly from his lips that she almost believed him. “Did you do this to Mother Strout, too?” she asked, and as she pictured the late emissary’s black-and-white journal, she finally realized why Mother Strout had hidden the ritual for breaking the curse. She had known the priests were a threat, and she had wanted to delay their freedom from bondage to the king for as long as she could. “Did she find out the truth about you and Cole?”

Father Padron didn’t say yes , but he didn’t deny it.

That was answer enough. He had murdered a Seer—a devoted lady of the temple, revered by all who had known her, and the former emissary to two kings. Father Padron’s crimes went beyond the unlawful torture and killing of laymen. Not even sisters of Shiera’s Order were safe from this man.

Cerise retreated a pace toward the altar. She still wore the Petros Blade on her back. She didn’t want to use it, but unless she could find a way to make him listen, she might have to.

She knew she wouldn’t reach him by contradicting his beliefs; he would only accuse her of heresy. She had to find a different approach. But before she had a chance to try, Nina came sprinting so quickly into the prayer room that her veil molded to her face.

Nina threw herself in front of Cerise and shouted, “Stay away from her!”

Tensing, Cerise prepared to defend her sister, but Nina didn’t need her help. Father Padron rocked back on his heels as if Nina had physically struck him. Then Nina threw back her veil, and he cried out in anguish, shielding his eyes like a creature of the night shrinking away from the sun.

What was happening?

All Cerise could do was volley her gaze back and forth between her sister and Father Padron for some sign as to what had brought him to his knees. She couldn’t figure it out. Nina’s heaving chest and trembling hands said she was just as terrified of him as he was of her.

Why were they so afraid of each other?

As Nina stood over him, Father Padron peeked at her from between his fingers. His glances were tentative at first, brief glimpses that turned longer and bolder until he lowered both hands and straightened to full height. A smile unfurled across his mouth, a grin so full of venom that it raised chills on the back of Cerise’s neck.

“It doesn’t work anymore,” he told Nina, who cradled her rounded belly while inching backward. “Your power over me is dead.” He spoke as if they knew each other, which didn’t make sense. Until he raised a triumphant chin and added, “You won’t seduce me again.”

The full force of realization struck Cerise with a blow that knocked her breathless. She collapsed in front of the altar, barely noticing when her knees gave out. The truth was too big to make room for her senses. She had been wrong, so very wrong. It wasn’t Mama who had caught Father Padron’s eye in Solon all those years ago.

It was Nina.

The floor seemed to tilt. Cerise gripped the tiles, but it was in vain. Her whole axis had shifted, and now she didn’t know which way was up. Mama was her grandmother. And Father was her grandfather, which meant she was a Solon after all.

And her sister…

She raised her gaze to Nina’s belly. That was where she would find her sibling. She peered at Nina’s face just long enough to see a hundred apologies written in the lines around her mouth. My mother . Cerise couldn’t reconcile it with the truth. Her brain refused to allow it. Nina shook her head in a reminder that Father Padron hadn’t made the connection. He still didn’t know that he had a child.

“You might as well hear the rest,” he said, his narrowed eyes fixed on Nina. “This is the reason for my sin. She used sorcery to seduce me.”

“No,” Nina whispered. “That’s not what happened.”

“Don’t deny it,” he snapped. “No one else has ever tempted me. Even when I met you, I was unimpressed by your face. But you kept coming back, bringing me sweet cakes and smiling and watching me with those eyes, making it harder to turn away until the sight of you consumed me. You invaded my every thought. How do you explain that if not by sorcery?”

“Love,” Cerise said, scrambling up from the floor. “It makes the Solon allure stronger. That’s why her face entranced you—because you loved her. But you don’t feel that way anymore, so the allure doesn’t work.” Cerise took another step forward, approaching him as though he were a wounded animal. She hadn’t expected him to listen to her, but when he furrowed his brow in consideration, she saw her chance and kept going. “It didn’t happen overnight, did it? The first time you met her, you thought she was beautiful but nothing more. Then, as you got to know her, she became more and more striking until you couldn’t bear it.”

His silence told her she was right.

“I know the feeling because I love her, too,” she went on. “Nina doesn’t want to hurt anyone. If she did, she would use her face as a weapon instead of hiding it behind a veil.” Cerise pulled her necklace from beneath her dress and showed him the battered pendant that had been protecting her since her arrival at the palace. Now she understood where it had come from and why Father Padron had looked so drained each time it had saved her life. He had tied it to his own energy. “You gave this to her, didn’t you? You made a ring, and then you linked your power to it to protect her. You wanted to keep her safe because you loved her. The goddess wouldn’t fault you for that.”

For two long heartbeats, she held her breath and watched him digest her words, weighing them against the certainty he had clung to for his entire life. She knew firsthand the fear of letting go, like falling backward with no safe place to land. His eyes gave her hope. There was an open window inside them, barely wide enough to admit a breeze of doubt.

But in the end, the window slammed shut, and just like that, she lost him.

“You didn’t fool me about the black flame, and you won’t fool me about her , either.” He turned a glare on Nina that could melt iron. “She will confess to seducing me, and then I will deliver her punishment.”

Cerise glanced at Cole’s body, bruised and bloodied from the torture chamber wall. She had witnessed Father Padron’s idea of justice, and she wouldn’t allow him to punish an insect, let alone her sister. Or her mother. Whatever Nina was to her didn’t matter, because nothing had changed. She loved Nina more than life, more than any purpose or doctrine or prophecy, and infinitely more than the man who had fathered her.

Without hesitating, Cerise unsheathed the Petros Blade and lunged at him. But with a flick of his wrist, Father Padron sent the blade flying across the room. She attacked him again, this time with a burst of energy that knocked him backward twenty paces. He struck the floor and skidded until he hit the rear wall. When he righted himself, he was too stunned to retaliate. He inhaled through his mouth, no doubt tasting her residual energy and questioning how it was possible for a woman to wield magic.

She saw no reason not to tell him.

“I’m not a heretic or a sorceress,” she said and lifted her chin. “But I am my father’s daughter.”

He blinked once, twice, three times before he pieced together the truth. It gave her a perverse sense of satisfaction to watch the color drain from his face. He had kept so many secrets from her, but just this once, when it really mattered, he was the last to know.

“Impossible,” he murmured, even as he scanned her face exactly the way she had searched his only moments earlier.

“I’m not pleased about it, either,” she told him.

“Impossible,” he repeated. “It’s a lie. It has to be. I never lay with another woman. If you were my child, you would be a firstborn. You would bear your mother’s curse.”

Nina spoke in a trembling voice. “She was a twin. The first baby was born sleeping.” She looked to Cerise. “You were the second.”

“Impossible,” Father Padron murmured again.

Cerise repeated something Daerick had told her once, when she had used her faith like a blindfold to block out what frightened her. “It’s not faith to ignore common sense. It’s foolishness.”

In the span of half a breath, his face hardened with rage. Nina shouted a warning that came too late. His energy struck Cerise in the chest before she could brace herself, but instead of knocking her backward, the charge lingered on her ribcage, buzzing like a swarm of bees. An odd pressure moved across her skin, as if the magic was trying to penetrate her. Because it was. With a gasp, she looked to Father Padron. He was trying to stop her heart. That shouldn’t have surprised her, but it did. He knew that she was his daughter, and still, he despised her.

Heat bloomed from the pendant resting against her dress. In one final act of protection, it dispersed the static and cracked in half. As the metal pieces clinked to the floor, they drained a surge of magic from their power source, and Father Padron slouched against the wall, weakened by the force of his own attack.

Cerise didn’t give him a chance to recover. He was beyond saving. The only way to protect herself and the people she loved was to kill him—now, while he was weak. She stretched out her arms and imagined her energy closing around his chest, crushing his heart, like he had tried to do to her. Energy flowed from her in torrents, gushing out faster than she could control it. She wasn’t prepared for how quickly her energy drained. Soon her hands trembled and sweat beaded on her upper lip. She tried to give more, but he blocked her magic and used the wall to push himself to his feet.

As he stood, she collapsed.

The room spun around her. She had enough strength to conjure a shield before his next attack, but she struggled to hold it through a haze of dizziness and nausea. She heard running footsteps and glanced up to find Nina on the other side of the sanctuary, picking up the Petros Blade.

Nina charged Father Padron with a battle cry that echoed through the high ceilings. She only made it a few steps before he cast her aside, and she fell to the floor with a grunt of pain, gripping her distended belly.

Cerise launched to her feet, and in doing so, she dropped her shield. Father Padron took advantage of the slip and cast a ring of fire around her. The flames closed in so quickly that they singed her skirts before she could shield herself again. He held the inferno in place. Through the shield, she caught glimpses of his face as the flames flickered and danced. He wore an arrogant smile that tightened her stomach. It was the look of someone who knew he had won.

“Let’s end this, Cerise,” he said. “I have an offer for you.” He parted the flames wide enough to give her a view of Nina, who now clutched her throat as if choked by an invisible fist. “Give yourself up. Confess your sins of heresy and sorcery. Accept your punishment, and I’ll let her live. Fight me, and she’ll die where she stands.”

Cerise pressed both palms to the shield wall and locked eyes with Nina. The answer came at once. Yes . A thousand times yes. She knew the cost, and she would pay it. To trade her life for Nina’s and the baby’s was a bargain. But when she opened her mouth to speak, no sound came out. She tried again to shout, Yes! but her lips wouldn’t so much as form the word.

The king’s command to preserve her life—it wouldn’t let her surrender. She knew full well that Father Padron would kill her if she gave herself up to him, and so she was physically unable to do it.

She shoved a trembling hand through her hair, pins tearing at her scalp. She had to find a way around the compulsion. Closing her eyes, she willed the shield to lower, but she couldn’t control her own magic. It flowed from her in a steady stream to feed the protective barrier. A sob rose from her throat. When she opened her eyes, Nina’s face had turned red.

“I can’t let down my shield!” Cerise shouted. “The king’s compulsion won’t let me.”

Padron scoffed. “I don’t believe you.”

“It’s true!” she said. “He ordered me to preserve my life by any means. I’m a priestess. I’m bound to obey him as much as—”

“You dare call yourself a priestess?” Padron hissed. “I don’t know what manner of abomination you are, but you won’t live to darken another day. Either surrender now and save your mother, or resist and join her in hell. Make your choice.”

Nina shook her head and mouthed no . She didn’t want Cerise to give up her life. But that choice didn’t belong to Nina or to the king. It belonged to Cerise, and she didn’t want to live in a world without Nina in it.

“I swear I’m telling the truth,” Cerise promised. “Just let her breathe! She’s with child. If you kill her, the baby will die, too.”

Father Padron lifted a shoulder. “One fewer heretic to root out later.”

With panic screaming along her nerves, Cerise searched for the Petros Blade. As soon as she found it, she used her energy to send it flying through the air toward Padron’s chest. But her power was divided, weakened by holding the shield, and he easily knocked the blade aside with a teasing tsk, tsk, tsk .

“You’re wasting time, Cerise,” he said, nodding at Nina. “And she doesn’t have much left.”

Nina sank to the floor, her eyes bulging and watering. Fear shone in her gaze, but she pressed a hand over her heart and mouthed, I love you .

“No!” Cerise pounded her fists against the shield that had become her cage. Her mind raced for another solution. She thought of Nero and called out to him mentally, but she knew he couldn’t possibly reach her in time. She had just begun to focus on Daerick when he ran into the sanctuary, followed by General Petros. As their eyes widened to take in the scene, she pointed at Father Padron and shouted, “Kill him!”

The general moved with lightning grace, drawing a dagger to take aim. He had no way of sensing the energy that Father Padron fired at him, and Cerise wasn’t strong enough to block it. The dagger exploded in the general’s hand, and the force of the blow knocked him to the floor so violently it rendered him unconscious.

Daerick covered his head. “They’re coming!”

The priests.

“Don’t let them in!” Cerise yelled. She pulled the scroll from her pocket, stared at it to form a mental image of its markings, and then sent the image to Daerick with her mind. Translate this , she told him. She prayed that the information in the scroll would help her break the curse. It was the only way to free herself from the king’s compulsion and trade her life for Nina’s.

As Daerick nodded and ran out of sight, Cerise knelt on the floor to peer between the flames at Nina, who lay on her side, peering back with tears in her bloodshot eyes. There was a new calm in her gaze—the peace that came from a dimming light. Cerise slapped the tile and screamed at Nina to hold on. Then she summoned the image of her last ally in the castle and prayed that she would answer.

Delora , she called. Let Blue out of my suite and come to the sanctuary. Kill Father Padron if you can. Do it now!

“This is your last chance, Cerise.” Father Padron knelt down to taunt her, a smile curving the face she had once thought so handsome. “Your mother’s soul won’t stay with us for much—”

Cerise had enough energy to cast a blow through the shield and break his nose, which she did with pleasure.

While he stumbled back and cupped blood in his hand, she heard Daerick shout, “The priests!”

“I know!” Cerise said. “Don’t let them in!”

“No, that’s the missing element!” he yelled. “It wasn’t just the Mortaras who planned the Great Betrayal. It was the priests. The priests didn’t want to serve the people. They wanted to rule the people. They wanted power, and so their curse was bondage.”

Cerise scanned the floor for the Petros Blade. Using every last drop of her energy, she summoned the blade to her outstretched hand. It slid across the tile and through the ring of fire. The hilt burned her palm when she picked it up, but she ignored the pain. She stood tall, meeting Father Padron’s gaze as she slid the blade across her forearm.

“Shiera’s priests colluded with house Mortara,” she said as her blood flowed into the blade, “to usurp her holy authority and rule in her place. For their treachery, they were cursed to serve the whims of others. The priests are still undeserving, but this priestess is repentant.”

The blade glowed with the light of ten suns, forcing her to shut her eyes.

The compulsion blinked out.

She had done it. She’d broken the curses.

Now she was free from her bond of service to the king, and she didn’t need her eyes to drop her shield and slash at her father. She felt the connection with his robes and slashed out again, forcing him back. She was stronger now, in control of her magic. She extinguished the flames and slashed at him once more. When he cried out and stumbled to the floor, she took a moment to squint through the smoke and find Nina.

Cerise felt her arms go limp. She was too late.

Nina lay in exactly the same position as before: one slim hand resting near her heart and the other tucked lovingly beneath her womb. Her eyes were half open and sightless, her red lips parted as if she had fallen asleep. But she wasn’t asleep, and all of the magic in the world couldn’t change that.

Or could it?

Cerise sheathed the blade, ran to Nina, and skidded to her knees. Placing a hand on Nina’s chest, she channeled her energy inside it, willing Nina’s heart to beat. Nothing happened. She tried again, and again, and then again, even leaning down to blow air into Nina’s lungs.

Nina didn’t stir.

Cerise sank back, staring at her useless hands.

All this power, and for what?

For what?

All this power, and she couldn’t save Nina.

In the moment before the pain came, it struck her how graceful Nina looked in death. Even with the curse broken, she could still stare at Nina for hours and never get her fill.

Then the grief hit.

It started as a pinprick of pain at the base of her throat and spread in both directions—up into her face, where it pressed her eyes and squeezed her temples, and down into her chest, where it stretched her ribs until she feared they might crack. Something inside her shifted and broke. Instinctively, she knew she would never be whole again. Part of her life had ended. The sweetest part. The time of love and light and laughter was over. Now she existed in the dark, with nothing but emptiness all around.

She hadn’t simply lost a mother or a sister. She had lost the sun and every star in the sky.