Fate and Destiny (The Fated Series, #2)

Ch. 95 - Fauna - Memories

Gods and their Saints I can't do this. I can't watch as my brother will crumble beneath my words. I can barely make it past the sting of betrayal that shudders his eyes and pauses his swinging arm. I had hoped that I wouldn't have to tell him - that he and Kat would live out in happiness and not be tainted by the truth and corruption of our past - his past. I thought I could keep this one last secret from him forever, and spare him this, because this...I can barely live with it, and it hurts.

"Lance-"

"You shut the hell up," my brother grits to Will, laying the point of his blade at Will's throat.

"Lance..." I bring my brother's attention back to me and step out of the rain beneath the canopy. Rohana steps aside but stays close. "Put down the blade and let me explain. Please. Please," I repeat when he still doesn't lower the blade.

"Why are you protecting him?" I flinch at the anger in his eyes. "He killed Rose - he killed our father!"

"I know."

"He was standing over her dead body!"

"I know."

"Her blood was on his hands!"

"I know!" I yell back. I hear the anger that strikes my voice and I hate the sound of it. He doesn't deserve any of this.

He stares at me, eyes still blazing. More hot tears run over my cheeks as I struggle to get the next words out. I can't do it looking at him - or any of them. So I stare at the ground. "Xaxias, when he...when he would...when he torture me and take...take my memories, sometimes I wouldn't fall unconscious with the pain. I'd...I'd stay awake, and he'd talk. He'd tell me things he thought he could erase but...I remember what he said."

I look back up at him, already begging him not to hate me. "He told me about how he sent his spies to hunt mom down and torture her to death for trying to escape him, and he told them to make sure that we watched. To drive fear into our hearts. He-he knew that dad would take us back to the assassin's keep and train us, so he sent two spies to find a way in. To get close to us so he could tear us apart and then be there to pick us up so we would find loyalty to him. When Will came to the keep and we all became friends, Visha and Morana went after him. They manipulated him to gain his trust, and when they found out about Will's fating bond to Rose, he...he used it."

Slowly, Lance lowers the knife. He of all people in the world knows when I'm lying and when I'm not, and I can see it in his face now that he knows now is not one of those times where I am. I wish I were. Saints I wish I was unconscious when Xaxias said all of this. This is a curse. One Will has been carrying for years now but could never say or do anything. I don't want to know this - I don't want to know any of this or to have to tell him or keep going or keep crying. For Saint's sake I want it all gone again. It was all so much easier when it was gone.

I rub at my forehead that aches with the amount of tears I've shed today. There so much - too much to keep trying to explain to try to make him understand, and I...I struggle to keep going, if only because simply carrying the knowledge is tearing me from the inside out. 

"I...he..." I take a deep breath, holding it until some resemblance of fucking control let's me talk.

"Xaxias he...he cast a spell that would temporarily allow him to take over Morana's body, and once he did he implanted a part of himself into Will's mind by dropping a few drops of his blood into Will's drink one night. From then on out Xaxias became the voice of reason in Will's mind. He told Will to go to the bakery and see Rose, to get closer to her. All the while he kept that fating bond from ever snapping into place and...and that day that Rose asked to be taken to the keep, Xaxias snatched his opportunity and made Will do it. And when she walked into our father's office, Xaxias used his power to shift Will's fating bond to Rose, onto you. He made your senses heighten and your body react to something that felt like the bond...but it...Gods Lance I didn't know," I beg desperately. "I didn't know and I...I didn't believe him when he kept saying it was true but he kept pointing things out and - and - and I thought that nothing that powerful could ever be faked, let alone touched or...or broken."