Imperial (Insight #8)(39)
“Fears that told you that you are in the wrong place.”
“No. I fight evil. That is my place.”
“Have we not spoken these words already? Neither am I.”
He moved his head from side to side. After taking in a deep breath, inhaling my scent once more, he spoke. “Say, ‘LOVE.’”
I cringed.
“You know I cannot.”
“I know that you are evil,” he stated with audacity.
I had to find a way to explain this to him. I tried to remember how it was explained to me, but the sovereign that took that liberty, Xavier, was not someone I wanted to bring into this conversation, especially since I could see that king surrounding the girl Silas adored.
“Listen to me,” I said firmly. “I died defending our line. My First. My death was a cruel ploy, and in that ploy my essence was released to be claimed by less worthy sovereigns. You are the only one that fell with the reign of Witnesses. The others are entangled within a deep web that very well could bring extinction to our kind. I cannot feel or say the word you speak for a sacred reason, and it is not for the sake of being evil. It is for the sake of preventing it. Our race rises above the majority and consumes emotions humans cannot hold within, for if they do they create evil.”
“They do not create anything evil. Escorts do. Those rotting souls I was fighting just now do.”
“Some do. Some kings have lost their path and crossed a line that never should have been crossed. I know that. But your line has not. The line that carries the scent of mint has not.” I stepped forward, holding my stare with him. “Your actions, your misplaced devotion, will ensure that the last pure Escorts will fall. That you will fall.”
“I’m not one of you.”
“What did you see when I said your name?”
He looked away, as if it were too much to remember. “Agony.”
“A lie.”
“A truth.” His glare returned to me. “I will admit to you that I have never felt whole or in the right place, that I have known forevermore that I have slipped through the cracks and remained unclaimed, but I will be damned that if after all this time an Escort dares to claim me—dares to tell me that I have no right to be on the course I have chosen.”
That armor around his soul was still hiding his past from me, but his words and thoughts were revealing his reasoning.
Wrath consumed me as I saw them. Vade was wrong: Silas wasn’t claimed by a Witness, he was saved by them. The cycle of life landed him in the vastest, yet youngest dimension, into near savage times. Xavier had found him in human form and placed him head to head with Vade’s Fated Escort.
Mother Nature took charge and death came, but Silas was risen, saved. The girl in question pulled him up into the life he leads now.
I was in debt to that girl because I knew that if she had not saved Silas, there would be no line of mine for Vade to have found and brought under his care. The loss of a Fated Escort was nearly as painful as the loss of a First. It seems my fellow king had attempted and failed more than once to end me and Vade, and with each new attempt they wove a web around our lines, skillfully causing us to aim the barrel of the gun at our own hearts.
“Xavier,” I seethed as my wrath rippled the energy seal we were in. I held out my arm, knowing that Rasp would be looking for any reason to come in here. He could not see me, but he would sense the command to halt.
Disgust consumed that beautiful visage of Silas. “That is my evil. A king you serve with.”
“Served. A king that brought my death. If you want vengeance for him, seek it for that reason.”
“I seek it for more than that.”
“A girl that has compassion but does not find a rush with you.”
“She did at one time.”
“That would be a fever, son. Fleeting and powerful, but not everlasting.”
“You have no idea how long it lasted.”
“I have watched the cycle of life more times than I could recall to you. That time was not nearly enough for you to have this unrest.”
“My life—the girl I love—has nothing to do with you.”
“It has everything to do with me. You must stop your fight against the boy she adores.”
“Why? So he can kill her? So I in turn die? Therefore taking away the last defense against evil?”
“The only way for you to die would be to harm him. When you strike that line, you strike ours.” That was the simplest way to explain this to him.
Silas moved his head from side to side with a disdainful glare. “Because you love that king, because his wishes are more important to you than whoever has the foul misfortune of having you lead them.”
I almost slapped him, but I held back. “You think I would place you in harm’s way?”
“Obviously,” he said as he held out his arms to point out how evil The Realm was now.
“I thought that with my death, all under my care were released to live out lives of bliss. If I had known otherwise, I would have found a different way.”
“Ah, the plot thickens. Not only will you uphold the king you love over those under you, but you do not think your actions through.”
A bolt of my energy landed him square on his bottom and held him there.
His stare was only a few feet below me now, so I leaned forward so he would catch the full effect of my glare. “Let me be clear to you. If I could feel such emotion, I would because Vade is a great king. One that rules with a sound mind and puts his people first because he found me in a state much like you are in and showed me compassion for the first time in my existence. I did not think my actions through, I will grant you that, but let me explain why. It was because the wrath that I am, the wrath that is pulsing through your soul, had seized that right from me. I thought I had all the answers, every square inch of my issues resolved, and only one sacrifice was needed for that to occur. I would have never left you or any other in the hands of the king that found you. Right now, you are repeating my mistakes and that king is playing you for a fool.”