Blood Heir (Blood Heir Trilogy #1)(93)

When his father turned around, eyes dull black, face blank as death, Ramson saw a reflection of what he was to become. A demon of a man, unfeeling and half-crazed, willing to destroy anyone and anything in his way. Willing to murder an innocent child. Willing to let a woman he’d once loved die.

Roran Farrald straightened, tucking his hands behind his back, ever the Admiral, the soldier, the fearless leader. “That is the price that men like us must pay, boy. That is the price.”

Ramson Farrald didn’t show up at training the next day. The soldiers and scouts that his father sent found no trace of him; it was as though, overnight, he had vanished, and they were searching for a ghost.



* * *



—

Men like us.

With each stinging lash, each suffocating moment in that pail of dark water, the truth grew clearer. Ramson had run to Alaric Kerlan, Bregonian-noble-turned-crime-lord, the man his father had sought for years to destroy, in hopes of using him against his father. Your opponent’s hatred is a sword; wield it. His hope is your shield; turn it against him. One of his father’s favorite battle mantras, used to destroy him. The irony had felt like a success in itself.

But how many people had Kerlan sent to this very dungeon to be chained, beaten, and tortured? How many Affinites had his Order sentenced to a life of servitude? And all the while, Ramson had managed his businesses and ports at his side, run his blood trades, and been a good lapdog.



He had purged himself of friendship, of love, of any feelings of empathy or guilt. He had forged countless alliances, and broken them just as easily whenever it served his gain. He had backstabbed good men, conned bad men, stolen from thieves, lied to liars.

That is the price that men like us must pay.

He had become the demon he’d seen in his father that night; he had become the shadow to the monster that was Alaric Kerlan. And, despite the different sides of the war they fought on, Ramson now saw the similarities in men like them. Ruthless. Self-serving. Oath-breaking. Amoral. Merciless.

Men like us.

No, Ramson thought wildly in a moment of sudden lucidity. Not me.

But it was Ana’s face that came to him first, the fierce jut of her chin, and the way she chewed on her lip when she was thinking. Hadn’t he helped her? Protected her when she was weakest, saved her from those mercenaries?

Because she was your Trade, a voice inside him jeered. You used her to get to Kerlan; you cast her aside when you’d finished with her.

He still remembered the last words she’d said to him. I would like to believe that it is our choices that define us. And as he was forced into the pail of water over and over again, as Kerlan’s whip landed mercilessly on his back, Ramson clung to those words.

It is our choices that define us.

“Now it’s time for my favorite trick.” Kerlan’s voice rattled through Ramson’s half-conscious thoughts. He forced his eyes open. His back was on fire, his body on the brink of giving up. Yet despite the exhaustion that slugged at his brain, his senses perked with fear.



Kerlan had started a fire in the hearth. A single rod was perched on the floor, the iron at the end roasting in the flames.

Ramson jerked at his bonds. The chains rattled, solid as ever. He clamped his teeth against the feeling that his heart would burst from his chest. He would not give Kerlan the satisfaction of hearing him scream.

Kerlan smiled. “There we go. A dose of fear. What I’d give to see that look on your face over and over again, you incorrigible boy. Perhaps I’ll keep you alive for longer. No,” he said to the bruiser, who had moved to stuff a gag in Ramson’s mouth. “I want to hear him beg.”

Fear flooded Ramson’s chest and he was drowning again, his throat closing on him, his limbs heavy and frozen. Ramson gripped his shackles so hard that he felt a nail tear. “I’ll eat dog shit before I beg you, Kerlan.”

Kerlan reached for the hot iron rod. “I said it once, didn’t I, boy? You’ll only feel pain like this twice in your life. The first time, when you’ve earned my trust and passed the gates of hell into the Order of the Lily. The second time…when you’ve broken that trust and I throw you back into hell.” He blew on the hot iron; it glowed, bright yellow at the center, red at the edges. “I hope you enjoy hell, my son.”

Ramson’s courage and clarity dissolved. Not a monster…your choices…Ana.

A single moment flared into lucidity in his mind: a night sky black and bright, snow swirling around them as she held his hands and whispered to him that he could be good, that he could make the right choice. And when he’d let go, the course of his life had splintered into what might have been and what now was. He’d left with words unspoken that night, the ghosts of their echoes swept away in the silent snows.



She was broken, damaged, just as he was—only she still believed in goodness, and tried to be strong and kind. Drowning beneath the weight and the blood of their own pasts, she still chose to reach for the light, whereas Ramson had turned to the dark.

Your heart is your compass, Jonah whispered.

If he had a choice again, what would he choose?

When the hot iron came, Ramson gave in.





The world swayed around her, sending streaks of pain up her skull. Reluctantly, Ana surfaced from her sleep. Pale light danced across her eyelids, and the sound of creaking filled the air. Something cold chafed against both of her wrists.