Tainted Plans

by Jenn Vakey

  I shook my head. I didn’t know if I was trying to convince myself or Rhydian that he was wrong.

  But Adler’s confidence made me ill. How had I not seen this coming? I thought I was so clever in leaving Rhydian out of this. All the while, I had really just been playing right into Adler’s hands.

  I forced my eyes off of Adler’s twisted expression and looked around so I could think. I needed a plan. I had to fix this, to get us out of here. To get…

  “Where’s my sister?” I demanded, looking back to Adler.

  He gave me a look oozing with condescension, almost as if I were a naive child. In that moment, that’s exactly how I felt. Ignorant, helpless. It left me with a strong desire to hit him. Why hadn’t I brought a weapon? I had been so concerned that it would make me stand out when I made it back inside of the wall that I hadn’t considered that I could need it before then. “The deal you agreed to was to bring him to me,” he said, giving me a leveled stare. “You appeared to be trying your best to prevent that from happening.”

  I didn’t bother trying to deny it. I had no idea how long he had been out there, how much he had seen. Probably all of it. Enough to know that I was planning on going back to Eden to get my sister back myself. He must have known the whole time that it wasn’t working. Why else would he have been at the archway seven hours early? How could I not have considered it as a possibility? I was so sure that he was clueless, that I was smarter than he was.

  There was a very real chance it just got all three of us killed.

  There wasn’t even anything I could offer Adler. He already had us. Had Rhydian. Not that I would have tried to barter for him even if he wasn’t here. I guess I could feel good that even staring at my own death didn’t turn me into a person I would have hated. Not that I could focus on that at all.

  “Please just give me my sister back,” I begged, tears filling my voice. “We’ll leave your city and never go back. Rhydian too. You’re going to be king anyway. Let us go and he won’t bother you. He won’t go after you.”

  He chuckled dryly, his eyes wide with a sickening look of pleasure. When the moonlight hit them, though, I saw something else. Something that didn’t seem right. Didn’t make sense.

  Confused, I looked back at Rhydian. He didn’t return my gaze. His focus was on Adler, the anger coming off of him palpable. Close to hatred, deep and raging. And he was saying something. Or at least trying to against the gag.

  I walked toward him, careful to keep Adler in the corner of my eye in case he tried something when my attention was elsewhere. I expected him to tell me to stop, or for Sentry to rush out and grab me. To stop me from getting anywhere near his prize. He didn’t.

  He just let me go to him.

  Rhydian didn’t turn his gaze to meet mine until I was reaching up toward his face. There was an understanding there now. He knew, he knew what I had done.

  I brushed my fingertips against his cheek, an apology I couldn’t voice in that moment. Pain filled his eyes for the briefest of moments. Then it disappeared, that mask of his slipping right back into place to shield himself from me.

  My soul felt like it was being crushed as I grasped the gag.

  Although I couldn’t really tell him, I knew I was going to do everything I could to get us out of there. Both of us. Even if the chances of that actually happening were small.

  He held my eye for three long seconds after I pulled the cloth out of his mouth, then his brow dropped to one filled with rage again as he twisted his focus back to Adler.

  “Hello, Uncle.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  The world around me felt like it stopped. Rhydian’s words didn’t even seem to want to register with my brain.

  Uncle.

  I could feel my eyes widen, the air being pulled from my lungs as I stumbled a step back.

  Adler was the only brother of the late King Phineas. If I was remembering correctly from school, Adler’s wife had been an only child. There wouldn’t have been any nephews on her side.

  That could only mean…

  No, it was impossible. Wasn’t it?

  Four years. Rhydian said he had been in Alkwin for four years. That his family hadn’t known he was Tainted. Four years ago Phineas’ second son had been killed in what had been reported as an attempt to assassinate the entire royal family. Just like the princess, who was now in Alkwin, safe and sound.

  Rhydian. Prince Evran.

  Everything I thought I had known was wrong. So very wrong.

  Rhydian, or Evran, had taken his sister to keep her safe. They let everyone believe she was dead so no one would try to actually kill her. Adler was wrong. He lied. But how had I not picked up on it? Not even suspected it?

  My mind raced over everything he had said to me. He never actually said the words. He told me he was responsible for Phineas only having one remaining child. It was because he left, not because he had killed Gryffin. Rhydian didn’t kill them.

  I looked back to Adler, the shock still so overwhelming. He used me. Lied to me. And with sudden certainty, I knew it was him. He had killed them because he wanted to be king. That was why he wanted Rhydian. To take out the only person who still stood in his way.

  The Tainted prince.

  “Putting the pieces together, I see,” Adler said, almost in a bored way. “I thought it might happen eventually. That’s why I made sure to come out here well before the arranged time for you to bring him to me. Just in case you decided to pull a move like this.”

  “Phineas told me he had to be brought in alive,” I said, still so numb that I wasn’t really listening to what he said. That was why the king had gotten so angry. He just wanted his son back. How had I missed so much? “You made him leave before you gave me the instructions. You…”

  Adler rolled his eyes, waving my statement away. “Yes, yes. My dear brother, showing just how ill-suited for the crown he was, put his own needs above those of Eden. His weak bloodline gave him a son that would abandon his position and people.” He motioned toward Rhydian. “And he wanted to bring him back so he could hand him the throne? Sentimental and foolish.”

  “My father was not the weak one,” Rhydian said. His tone was level, but there was no hiding the anger there. “His only fault was not seeing the snake that you are.”

  Adler sneered, his dislike for being challenged by the prince showing through his arrogant facade. He didn’t rise to the bait. It would only prove Rhydian’s point. Show him as the weak one.

  “I’ll make things very easy for you, Miss Harkins.” He held Rhydian’s eye as he said it, then turned to face me. Then he reached behind his back and pulled out a gun. I tensed instantly looking at it, but he bent down and slid it across the clearing floor toward me. It stopped a few feet away, but I didn’t hesitate before reaching over and grabbing it. I didn’t really care what he intended for me to do with the gun. I wasn’t going to pass up on the opportunity to arm myself.

  “The only way you are walking out of this clearing alive is if my problem is taken care of,” he said firmly. “The last remaining child of my dear brother.”

  I looked away from Adler, as if actually accepting that I would allow it to happen. It wasn’t that, though. He didn’t know Myrah was alive. There was no way that I was going to let him see the look of relief that I knew had reached my eyes when I realized that. The satisfaction that this man didn’t really know as much as he thought he did.

  When Rhydian turned back to me, I flicked my gaze up toward him. It took only a moment before questions filled his eyes. Ones he wouldn’t ask, but I could see that he had picked up on the fact that something about the statement had earned a reaction. When there was a brief flash of fear that he couldn’t completely hide, I knew he had figured it out. Either that or he actually thought I was going to let any of this happen willingly.

  I took a breath to relax my expression, trying to ignore the hurt I felt at Rhydian’s reaction, and turned back to Adler. Even if I failed and we died here, there woul
d still be one person who could ruin his plans.

  “Kill him,” he demanded. “Unless you want your sister to die in the most painful way you can imagine. Trust me when I say that I have ways to make her torment last for days before I finally snuff out her life.”

  His words slammed into me, taking away whatever pleasure I had knowing he didn’t know about Myrah. I looked back down at the gun in my hand. The one he had put there. It felt so heavy, so uncomfortable.

  How could he expect me to make a choice like that?

  I knew what Rhydian meant to me. It was so much stronger now. Now that those few things that I didn’t like weren’t there to hold me back. Weren’t there to tell me he wasn’t really the good guy I wanted to believe he was. He was. And, God, I was completely crazy about him.

  Adler was making me choose between two of the most important people in my life. Telling me I had to kill one to save the other. I didn’t know how to get out of this with both of them still alive. He wanted Rhydian too badly. There wasn’t anything I could do or offer him to change that.

  “I can’t,” I whispered. Tears rolled down my cheeks freely, my body shuddering as I struggled to keep from completely falling apart. I couldn't afford that now. “You can’t ask me to do this. I won’t.”

  “Just do it,” Rhydian’s voice cut through the tense silence. My eyes went wide in disbelief as I whipped my head back toward him. He looked so defeated, broken. I did that to him. Even more so than Adler had. “He’s going to kill me anyway, Leeya. You know he will. He has to if he wants the throne. There’s no reason for both of us to die.”

  There was no sign that he was saying it in some self-sacrificing gesture. Instead, it looked like he had completely given up on any desire to live. It shattered my heart, and I knew there wasn’t anything I could do to make it better. To take his pain away. Not after I betrayed him the way I had.

  “Kill him and your sister will be returned to you,” Adler said. His voice was gentler, like he was trying to coax me. “You two may leave Eden and live with the trash in the woods.”

  The twisting realization that hit me almost caused my knees to buckle underneath me. Tears filled my eyes again, which were still on Rhydian. I could see that he knew, even without waiting for me to confirm. Even with everything he was dealing with, there was sympathy there in his eyes. Adler was lying.

  “Is she still alive?” I asked, my voice breaking with fear that I might not get the answer I needed to hear.

  “Of course,” he said. I closed my eyes for a moment and let out a slow breath. She was. Lillith was still alive. “They all are. At least the ones that haven’t outlived their usefulness.”

  My eyes shot back open at his words. I mentally sifted through his declaration, searching for any sign of deception. One I didn’t find.

  They weren’t killing them. Everyone had just accepted that the captured Tainted were being killed, but they were alive. Being held like Lillith was.

  Rhydian kept his gaze on me, I could see that he was searching for an answer. So I gave him the smallest nod I could, then watched as the gravity of the development settled in.

  “Why are you keeping them?” he asked, turning to Adler.

  His uncle laughed his response, not giving anything away. He didn’t even look slightly concerned that he had said too much. Of course, he had no intention of letting us out of here to tell anyone else. He apparently also thought I was too naïve to realize that. Not that I had done anything to make him doubt that belief.

  But I still wanted an answer. Then I remembered the scream in the woods. The confusion that I’d had about why a Tainted would have been attacking us. He must have had one there, forced them to use the ability to take us down.

  Thinking about what he must have been doing to them, to Lillith, caused the fear inside of me to give way to the anger. It had been bad enough when we thought they were killing them. Somehow, this was worse.

  He had never intended to release my sister. He was going to try to capture me too. Adler had lied to me. He made me hurt Rhydian, to believe horrible things about him. Murdered his father and brother. He did who knows what to my sister. Played me like a fool.

  And I hated him for it.

  My grip tightened on the gun in my hand as I turned and raised it. There was no hesitation, no wondering how this would make me feel later. I wanted to hurt him. I wanted to kill him.

  I squeezed the trigger over and over, determined to empty it into him. To watch the life leave his evil eyes.

  But nothing happened. No repetitive explosions. Nothing more than a faint clicking sound.

  I looked down at it, then back to Adler. He didn’t look surprised at all. He hadn’t even flinched when I aimed it at him instead of Rhydian. I couldn’t understand it, but then I remembered why I had it in the first place. He had given me a gun that wouldn’t work and told me to kill Rhydian. Not to see if I would do it. To hurt him more. Adler wanted for the last moments of Rhydian’s life to be filled with the knowledge that I would have willingly killed him myself.

  A scream of frustration and anger ripped through me, and I threw the gun as hard as I could at him. I’ll give the guy one thing. His reflexes weren’t terrible, because he shifted to the side before it could hit him without any trouble.

  “You just killed your sister, girl,” he said, as casually as if he were doing nothing more than discussing what to eat for dinner. “And for what? Love?”

  My chest tightened at the sound of the word. Love. Was that what this was? This feeling I had for Rhydian?

  I found myself actually wanting to smile at the thought, despite everything going on around me. It both warmed and terrified me.

  “It’s a shame,” Adler continued with a sigh. “I was so looking forward to having a set of twins. One Tainted, one not. It’s a good thing I already have the samples I need from her. I’ll even let you say goodbye. Right before I kill her in front of you.”

  Adler reached back again and pulled out another gun. This one he aimed without hesitation at Rhydian.

  I didn’t even think. My body was already moving before I really knew what my actions would mean. The only thing I knew for sure was that there was no way I was going to let him hurt Rhydian while there was still breath in my body.

  Because he was right. I did love him. And that was what I concentrated on as I closed my eyes and listened to the sound of five shots being fired.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  The pain tearing through my side was like nothing I had ever felt before. It felt like I was on fire, the sensation spreading like lightning throughout my body. I cried out, forcing myself to stay upright. It wasn’t easy, but I wasn’t going to move from between Adler and Rhydian while I still had any say in it.

  I opened my eyes to make sure that he knew that, and was stilled when I saw four pieces of metal floating a foot in front of me. Bullets. Then, they just dropped. With them, so did I.

  The pain was too much. My hand clasped at my side, blood pouring through my fingers. My Healer training started pushing through my clouded thoughts as I tried to think about what was there. How much danger I was in. But things around me weren’t over.

  Adler growled and aimed again, but the gun went flying out of his hands.

  My heart leapt.

  Telekinesis.

  I looked over to Rhydian to see his face covered in sweat, his breathing heavy. He was exhausted. So much so that his knees buckled under him and he slid down to the ground himself. I didn’t understand it, and started looking over him for any sign of injury. But there wasn’t one. It had to be the ability. The energy needed to do what he had done.

  “So you are Tainted,” Adler said, a note of disgust in his voice. “I never could get a clear answer. Not that it’s going to help you any here. You’ll still die, boy.”

  He advanced toward us quickly, throwing himself at Rhydian with an animalistic snarl. His hands wrapped around his throat, arms twitching with the force that he was putting into squeezi
ng.

  “No!” I yelled, pushing through the pain to get to my feet and stumble toward them. I grabbed Adler’s hands and tried to pry them off of Rhydian, but I could feel my energy failing me. My body shook, my legs starting to weaken underneath me.

  Then I felt it, that same helplessness I’d had that night in Eden with Lillith. As hard as I had tried to better myself in Alkwin, I was still going to be unable to save someone I loved.

  “Stop,” I pleaded, terrified that I was going to have to watch him kill Rhydian. That there wasn’t anything I could do to stop him. I pulled and pulled, but I was nothing more than a nuisance to him. And Rhydian… Rhydian was fighting so hard to breathe, but Adler was holding on too tightly. His face was growing darker. He was dying.

  I screamed before I even knew it was coming. When it moved through me, it was joined by a surge of power that I didn’t know I had. Like a spike of adrenaline that my body was giving me to try and help me fight back. And I wasn’t going to waste it.

  When I grabbed Adler’s wrist again, I was surprised when he actually stumbled back. The moment his grip loosened, Rhydian started coughing and gasping in breaths. I must have caught Adler off balance, because he toppled back out of his crouch and landed on the ground, jerking me forward with the grip I still had on his wrist. Pain shot through my side as I moved, but I tried to push through it. The more I did, the more it seemed to actually go away. The stronger I felt.

  “Leave him alone!” I yelled, squeezing him even tighter.

  And Adler… I didn’t know what was happening, but he was growing weaker. Like everything he had just been doing to Rhydian was backfiring and happening to him.

  “You’ll never see her again,” he growled, then just stopped. Stopped moving, stopped struggling. Stopped breathing.

  I gasped, letting go of the hold I had on him. I stared down at him. The man that had my sister. The only person I knew of that actually knew where she was. Where all of the captured Tainted were. Dead.