The Rise of Deragon (The Deragon Duology #2)

41

Pandora

W e sail through the night in silence, something I ought to be grateful for. Madman surely can sense how volatile everything is now, and there’s a thickness in the air that threatens to crawl beneath my skin and suffocate me. Each new thing to process cuts deeper than the last, to the point where I regret saving Venus’s words that ricochet off the walls of my mind for last.

“Too bad you’re not blessed. Our kind can visit any door, any time. The temple doors will always open for those with a divine touch.”

The brand’s poison should’ve plunged me into death the moment I forced my way into Apollo’s sanctuary. Were it not for getting swept up in seeing Madman again, I would’ve been able to take my uncanny survival for the clear sign it was—the proof that Marzipan had slipped away instead, and had chosen to bestow her gift of Many Tongues upon me.

The fact of the matter doesn’t let up in my dreams, either. If anything, her voice and her familiar words grow louder.

“I’m one person, Pandora, and sometimes, I get so exhausted. Trying to continue my family’s legacy.

“But after reading the way you bled your soul on paper, after becoming your friend . . . I feel as though the spark of hope I carry with me has caught fire. Mosacia needs a voice like yours.”

Fear, inadequacy, and leftover sorrow gnaws at my gut like a crippling sense of starvation. I nearly double over at the feel of it, but my eyes briefly catch something tall and looming sticking out from the fog. A heartbeat later, I straighten, watching as the thinning fog gives way to—

Holy Saints.

The Damocles water turns bluer the closer we get to the Sevensberg docks.

Figures. Uncle Jericho detested blue. Even in mixed colors, if blue dominated the resulting hue, he couldn’t bear the sight of it. The only exception were any instances where Venus or the other ladies in Broadcove would wear violet. Otherwise, to don blue was to threaten the king in his own home.

I wonder what Jericho would say if he knew where I was right now. Maybe he already knows—and if so, I hope it curdles his blood.

Sevensberg Palace, at least from the outside, remains a pinnacle of unmatched intensity, the photographs I’ve seen not doing justice to its physical majesty. Its iconic, seven spires protrude from the grand, metallic roof. A fountain in the centermost point of the property appears dried out, like the faraway sun sucked out all its contents, but the swirled tiling around its base remains magnificent.

It is, however, the only part of the Mosacian palace that remains untouched by the hand of war.

Drawing closer, I notice how the paint and stone along the front walls have chipped away, if not with time and disuse, then as a result of its initial conquering. The roof is marred with craters from where they’ve either caved in or have been broken through, and should Madman dare to lead me inside, I can only imagine the rubble waiting within.

The thought only makes my heart race further, and not in a way that has me feeling hopeful or explorative. Madman ties off the ship and kicks down the gangway so that he doesn’t have to lift me over the divide. He steps off first, ensuring that it won’t cave beneath our weight, and like every time we’ve taken a fateful step forward, Madman extends a gloved hand towards me.

Only this time, I hesitate to accept.

“Why have you brought me here? How are we even able to be here right now?”

His silence indicates that whatever his answer is, it should come with a precursor. A statement along the likes of, Promise me you won’t get upset, or This may be a lot to take in at once, but try and push through.

Then, he asks me, “Have I ever lied to you?”

“Not once.” My answer is so immediate, unwavering.

“You opened your Pandora’s Box.”

“I did.”

“Are you’re prepared to accept the consequences that come with that?”

“Yes, Madman.”

“And you trust that everything I’m going to tell you, show you . . . all that I’ve seen, is real?”

An invisible force gently shoves me closer to him, as if knowing he needs this proximity to fully accept my consent. Rather than simply say yes , I tell him, my eyes burning into his own beneath his mask, “My hope in finding you again kept me alive back there. There is nothing, nothing that you could bring into the light that will pry me away from you.”

Madman flinches at the declaration, his gaze narrowing in attempts to sift out any distrust. But he finds nothing, just like I knew he would.

“Okay,” he says, his voice dropping an octave. “But first . . . did you give yourself to Kit last night?”

The shame and embarrassment that engulfs me feels a lot like drowning.

“Oh gods,” he interjects. “I shouldn’t have asked, not like that—”

“Did he tell you that?”

Madman goes ghostly pale from what little of his skin I can see. “It was implied.”

I think his response only scratches the surface of whatever monstrosities Kit likely spewed about me, and I try not to dwell on it.

“I thought it was you,” I say, my voice breaking. But I choose not to hide from him. “I don’t know how he got your mask, but I was so convinced that I got carried away—”

“You don’t need to say anything else,” he cuts in pleadingly. “It doesn’t matter—”

“ Look at me,” I grit out. And in a surge of courage, I grip him by the clasp of his coat and pull him impossibly closer. “I let him kiss me, yes. Touch me, too . . . but I stopped him.”

I know that somewhere beneath his calm exterior, he’s beaming. “Why?”

“Intuition.”

Madman grins at that, the softer kind as opposed to something sensual. He doesn’t pry for any specifics, and before long, I’m allowing myself these last moments knowing him before the mask comes off.

“Is it unfair to say that I might just miss you like this?”

Madman shakes his head, eyes downcast and gloomier than I’ve ever witnessed. “Your love wounds me like nothing else in this world. How dare I deserve you? How dare I accept your devotion when I’ve hidden the most fundamental parts of myself from you?”

My heart threatens to shut off completely, to drop from beneath my ribs and fly right out of my ass. It’s not the only piece within me that breaks. It’s my bones, too. The strongest parts of me turn to rubble from the sheer force of his will insisting on being unlovable. I feel like screaming my lungs out, crying until my eyes dry up forever, kicking through every single window of Sevensberg Palace and shattering glass.

“Pandora,” Madman murmurs, sensing my internal distress.

There’s an air to his voice just then that fascinates me as deeply as it terrifies me. A quality that he’s never carried in full, but one that I’ve been taught to uphold my whole life—to hold my ground and assert my dominance in society.

Suddenly, Sevensberg Palace doesn’t feel like some looming, dreadful surprise that I don’t have the in on.

It feels like facing my deepest, darkest fears.

“Say it, then.”

Madman knows what I mean, but still has the nerve to whisper, “Say what?”

“Your name.”

No hidden identities. No monikers. His real, birth name.

Every time I’ve tried to get Madman to tell me his name—first, middle, last, whatever he’d be willing to give me—he’s refused. Denied me even a letter.

But now, it seems he wants to make amends, because before he forms the truth in his mouth, he unfastens the mask from the front of his face, shedding it completely.

Kit truly had played an evil trick on me—because for a brief moment, Madman does bear Kit’s face.

I blink, however, and I start to see what truly sets these two men apart.

The man who stands before me has hair slightly darker, a raven’s feathers as opposed to Kit’s coffee tone. Slight, but still distinguishable. His nose is stern, and his jaw cuts at a sharper angle towards his ears than Kit’s does. Undeniably, though, his cold eyes shroud me in shivers just as they had that fateful night I let him lure me through the trick door. His eyes are real. He is real. Every emotion and affection I developed for him was real . . . but so were all the things I established with Kit.

Brothers, I realize. Twins .

“You’re the only one,” Madman sighs painfully, his eyes tearing up in a manner that matches my own. “The only one to ever come close to calling me by my true name. And I intended it to be that way. You’re all that ever mattered to me after I lost this place,” he finishes, eyes dazed as they drink in the palace once more.

No.

No, no, no . . .

Madman was never an insult like I first believed it was. It was a part of him—the real him.

Madden Seagrave.

The last son of Victor and Harriet Seagrave, who the world believed had died long ago.

“I—” my sentence fragments the moment I start it. I reach for my throat, wanting some sort of voice to come out, but it’s stifled beneath the increasing weight of everything else his revelation has me uncovering.

What this means about Kit—

No, not Kit. Kellan .

Their sister, Anna. Princess Annabelle . She’d survived, too.

Saints, their existences . . . they are the mercy Venus loathes herself for showing long ago.

And I see, now, why Venus and Jericho never searched for me after I disappeared. They saw my empathy, my mercy , and were reminded not of Mother’s goodness, but of their regret. Their failure in fully wiping out a rival bloodline. It wouldn’t matter if I found my way back there and told them how I’d been passed a blessing.

Nothing would deter them from the resentment they’ve built towards the Seagraves and all those who associate with them.

“I need a minute,” I get out.

Madden nods like he expected nothing less. “Pick any room in the palace. I won’t bother you.”

I turn from Madden’s true face and head for the massive front doors. My organs start to shut down from the pressure that builds up inside of me. My steps are heavy as I trudge towards the massive entrance, and each one further emphasizes the same, horrible understanding from before: I won’t survive the pain that’s prepared to swallow me whole.