“Eli.”

Eli sat up straight in bed, blinking in the light of the glowstone by his bed. Someone had lit it, and that someone was calling him.

“Eli. Good. You’re awake.”

“Dad?” He rubbed his eyes. “What are you doing here?”

“I have a surprise for you, son.”

He could see now. Dad stood just inside the doorway. He moved to sit on the edge of Eli’s bed and tossed something at him.

Eli caught the smooth material, familiar and heavy in his hands.

“My blues.”

“That’s right. Your blues.”

Eli grinned and examined them in the light; the blue threads sparkled, winking at him. He wasn’t supposed to get these back until… Eli’s smile faded. “How did you get them?”

“Well,” said Dad, “Dom decided to give them back a bit early. He decided two months was enough torture for one bloody nose.”

Eli checked the time stone beside his bed. It glowed a dim purple.

“It’s late, son,” Dad said. “I was a bit worried when I found you still sleeping.”

“Yeah.” Eli stretched and yawned. “I stayed up late yesterday.”

“I know.”

Eli paused mid-stretch and glanced at Luc.

His father refused to look at him. “You were in the Room of Records. I saw you leaving it very late.”

Eli lowered his arms and gulped.

“What were you doing in there? You know, I’ve always warned you about the scribe. He doesn’t think like the rest of us.”

Eli shrugged, trying not to panic. “I’ve just been finding some interesting reading in there. I lost track of time.”

“Ah.” Dad rubbed his nose. “And when did the humans become so fascinating to you?”

Eli froze, his eyes wide, and then forced a laugh. “Oh, that. Yeah. Ever since Dom tried to take one I thought I might do some more research on them. You know. Try to get into their heads.”

“Hmm.” Dad frowned. “Interesting.”

Eli struggled to control his racing heartbeat.

“So.” Dad shifted so that his gaze pierced Eli. “Tell me what the plan is. The way I see it, there’s two options. One, you can tell me the truth, right here, right now. Everything will be forgotten. Those blues will be yours. Two, you can continue to lie to me, and I’ll turn around right now and let Dom keep those blues for as long as he sees fit.”

Eli gaped at him. There was no avoiding it anymore. Dad knew. He knew everything. The realization sunk in Eli’s gut and settled there. He closed in the borders of his mind and reached out to touch Nel’s presence.

“Don’t bother.” Dad’s voice cut through his mental barriers. “She’s awake. She’s listening. She can’t escape.”

Eli froze, the implications spinning his mind into a whirlpool.

Dad snatched the robes from Eli’s hands. “Let me explain something to you, Eli. I can’t tolerate dishonesty amongst my Takers. And I can’t tolerate it in my Guardian. This little scheme of yours and Dom’s has gone on for too long. All I want from you is a full confession. Tell me everything Dom made you do in return for your Guardianship. And then let me take the Kar-Tog. I’ll make sure Dom doesn’t punish you.” Dad chuckled. “He thinks I’m helping him get his stupid Kar-Tog back. But he won’t have much of a say in anything once all this is done.” He looked at Eli, holding up the blues. “I need your help to do this, Eli. We can put Dom in his place. We can put everything right again.”

Eli fixed his gaze on them, watching them sparkle in the light.

“I’ll welcome you back, Eli. All wrongs forgotten. And, there’s the matter of getting back in Ana’s good graces. You know she came to me worried about you, son. She’s a good woman for you. You’d be a fool not to win her back.” His voice lilted with all the gentle authority Eli was so used to.

Dad meant it. He would forget all of the insanity of the past few days. Eli would get his Guardianship, and everything would go back to normal. He could start his new life with Ana, just like he’d planned. And most of all…he wouldn’t have to lie to Dad anymore. He could be out with it all, right here, right now.

A tinge of guilt flickered in the back of his foggy conscience. “What about Nel?”

Dad chuckled. “She’s going to help me teach Dom a lesson. Her and her troublesome sister, too.”

“And then what?”

Dad looked at Eli askance. “Why are you so worried about it? I would think you’d want her out of your hair.”

Eli frowned. “And then what?”

Dad shrugged. “And then she’ll be treated to the proper Kar-Tog disposal.”

Eli shook his head. “No. We don’t have to do that. We can just let her go back home.”

Dad laughed. “After all the years you’ve spent around Dom, I can’t believe you’re so blind to his stupidity. Eli, he’ll keep the girl here until her sister obeys him, even if it means Taking her back himself. You know this, and I know this. If we just let her go, Dom can still wreak havoc again.”

“Not if they both go far away,” Eli countered.

Dad laughed again.

“They don’t want to be here anyway. If we let them both go, they have no reason to stick around the river anymore. They’d want to be as far away from it as possible-”

“She’s a Kar-Tog, Eli. This isn’t like you.”

“I just don’t see why killing her is necessary.”

Dad made an incredulous noise. “You don’t see why it’s necessary.” He shook his head. “In all my years, I’ve never once heard you question why it’s necessary to kill the Kar-Togs.” Dad grabbed Eli’s shoulders and gripped them hard. “They are Kar-Togs. They are inferior. They are enemies of the Eltana. If these aren’t reasons enough for you, then maybe we need to go through basic schooling again.”

Eli glared at Dad, and Dad glared back, his blue eyes cold.

“They are worthless,” Dad spit into Eli’s mind. “And if you defend them, you stand against everything we’ve fought our whole lives for.”

Images flooded Eli’s mind. There were the many lessons he’d learned at Dad’s side, fighting next to the Takers, and training with them. There he was, working his way through the ranks— there was Dad, smiling at him with pride, and through him, Mom’s approval beaming. There was the spotless record of successful new-moon offerings they’d had under Eli’s Guardianship. And there, they counted the number of lives they’d saved by making certain to always bring back a victim, and doing it all to honor Mom.

“Do you see? Do you remember?” Dad shook his shoulders more gently this time. “We are the friends of the Tognir people. To side with the Kar-Togs is to turn against your own kingdom and break our promise to your mother. We must protect them. And that means we can’t afford to pity the Kar-Togs their fate.”

Dad was right. Something within Eli protested, but the familiarity of the memories pressed down on him, protesting their rightful place in his heart and mind.

“This is what we’ve always known,” Dad coaxed. “This is what is true.”

Without knowing where the words came from, Eli spoke.

“I confess. I obeyed Dom and I brought Nel down here. I kept her here so that Dom could use her as ransom to bring Mil back. I hid it from you.” Eli’s nose began to burn. He sniffed hard against it.

“Yes, my son. Very good.”

Dad’s encouragement strengthened something in him that willed him to speak on.

“I wanted to confess. I wanted to turn Nel back into a human and then tell you what I had done. That was my plan. Now I realize that I was wrong.”

Dad clapped him on the shoulder, though Eli’s mind swirled with confusion. Had he been wrong?

“That’s it. That’s all I needed to hear, my boy. Now you’ll let me take the Kar-Tog, and the whole thing will be put right. You won’t have to do anything else.”

Something deep within Eli struggled to come to the surface at the mention of Nel, but something else shoved it back down. He saw the robes glittering in the light again and was struck.

He needed them. He needed them more than he needed whatever was trying to make him afraid.

“Yes. Take her.”

“Good, son. I’m proud of you.” Dad patted his shoulder, handed him the robes, and stood.

Eli stared at the robes in his hands, his mind shrouded in fog. His thoughts continued to absorb him. The glitter of the robes arrested him, even as Nel’s shouts reached him and rang shrill in his head.

It was the right thing. It was what was best. It was what had to happen all along. He’d been a fool for thinking otherwise.

As Dad pulled her past his doorway, he paused.

Eli didn’t look up, but he heard the words Dad uttered low in Nel’s mind.

“He is mine again. You will not steal him from me.”

“Eli.” Nel’s pleading voice made something flutter in his stomach. He looked up.

They were gone.

* * *

It had been two days since Nel’s capture, and still Eli didn’t feel like himself. He hadn’t seen or heard from Dad since then. He didn’t know what Dad was planning. He didn’t care. All he could manage to do was stare at his robes or go out to the training fields with his spear and practice, imagining Dad there smiling at him in approval.

His stomach flipped as he came back home from training, close to morning. Some part of him did care, though he couldn’t figure out why. It was as if a blanket had been spread over all that related to Nel, and he couldn’t get to what was underneath it.

He told himself it was for the best. He knew it was probably true.

He got inside and had just sat down at the kitchenette table when a voice intruded into his thoughts.

“Eli.” It was her voice, and it sounded close.

Eli looked around by habit before realizing once again that Nel wasn’t there anymore.

“I’m in Luc’s house. I’m trapped here, and now Millie is here with me.”

Eli’s heart gave a little leap. That wasn’t supposed to happen. But Dad had mentioned something about Mil…hadn’t he?

“Mil?”

“Yes. She wouldn’t listen to me. Luc threatened to kill me if she didn’t come. We’re both trapped here now. I tried to steal the keys, but Luc caught me. Millie’s unconscious because he gave her that drug again. Nobody should have to go through this twice. Nobody should have to even go through it once. Eli, you’ve got to do something. We’re going to die.” Her thoughts were tinged with bright violet panic. “Luc plans on forcing Dom to do whatever he wants, and he’s going to use Millie and threaten her so Dom will have to obey him and let him become king. Then he’s going to kill us both anyway. Tomorrow, Eli. At the new moon.”

Eli frowned. Dad had brought Mil back. But Dad would have been the one to put her back on land to begin with. Something wasn’t right.

“Eli, did you hear me?” Her voice was shrill with fear.

“Yes, I heard you.”

“You’ve got to do something.”

“I can’t.”

This was met with an indignant silence.

“I can’t lie to my dad anymore. I can’t convince him to stop. He’s bent on putting Dom in his place.”

“And you’re going to help him, aren’t you?” Her accusation held that familiar venom. It made his stomach drop to his feet. The blanket was coming off, and the memory of her smile assaulted him with guilt.

He’d made her hope. And then he’d sold her to the devil.

“I don’t know,” he protested. “I don’t know what he wants from me. I haven’t even heard from him since…” He couldn’t bring himself to say the rest.

“You know I want nothing to do with your stupid political drama. I just want my sister out of here. And if I wasn’t chained to the floor, I’d drag her to the Threshold myself.”

“I’m sorry.” Eli sighed. There was nothing else he could say. “I’m sorry I brought you here to begin with.”

“You’re not sorry,” Nel retorted. “You’ve gotten what you wanted. You’ve got your fancy robes. And you can wear them all you want, if they make you feel better about yourself. If they make you feel honorable.”

“I’m trying to do what’s honorable.”

“You keep letting Luc tell you that,” Nel replied. “You let those robes tell you that. But you wouldn’t know honor if it looked you in the face.”

Eli tried to protest, but slammed into Nel’s mental wall. He didn’t have the energy to try to break it. Instead he slapped his palms onto the table and resisted the urge to beat his forehead into the stone. The fog he’d been under the past couple of days was dispersing, and the more light got into his head, the more frantic he became.

Nel was going to die tomorrow. Tomorrow. And Mil was doomed with her. He didn’t know what he could do to help them. He didn’t know if it was possible to help them. He was fairly sure it wasn’t.

And if he went against Dad again… He shook his head, unwilling to think of the consequences.

“Eli.” It was Dad. Speaking of the devil.

“We’ll meet in the front room tomorrow night before the offering. Come in your robes.”

“Alright.”

That was it. Dad’s presence faded, and Eli sighed. If Nel was telling the truth, Dad was breaking his oath to Dom’s father in wrenching the throne from Dom’s hands this way, as well as going against the decision of the Tognir people to put Dom on the throne to begin with. It didn’t sit well with him, and it didn’t fit with Dad’s strict honesty.

Yes, Dom was too inexperienced and too stupid for the throne. But was that reason enough for Dad to break his promise?

“Eli!”

He sighed. If one more person talked to him today, he might break.

“Eli, I just heard the news!” Ana hurried into the kitchen and threw her arms around Eli’s neck. “You’re going to be re-promoted!”

“Yeah.”

Ana settled into the seat across from him. “Aren’t you happy?”

“I guess.”

Ana sighed. “What are you worried about? Everything’s going to be like it used to be again. I won’t have to worry about you sneaking around and hiding some Kar-Tog in your house. You’ll be back in the court’s good graces.” She reached across the table and picked up his limp hand. “You’ll be back where you belong, with me and the nobles.”

“She’s going to die,” Eli said.

“So what? You’ve done what you needed to do. Everything will be fine.”

“I told her I would save her.” He looked up at the ceiling, at the swirling lines which congealed into something he didn’t quite recognize. The blanket in his mind was being tugged away. How could he have betrayed her? Mom would have killed him.

Ana dropped his hand and heaved a sigh.

“It doesn’t matter now, Eli. She’s a Kar-Tog. Why should you care if she dies? Why’d you even tell her you were going to save her?” She snorted. “Don’t tell me you’ve got a thing for her.”

Eli shot her a stern glare, but his mind conjured an image of Nel’s smile, and familiar bubbles erupted in the pit of his stomach. He remembered their well of shared grief, and the simple touch of her hand on his shoulder, validating his mourning.

He looked away, looked at the ceiling again, and found the spiraling lines taking the shape of an eye staring back at him in accusation.

Maybe…he did.

The blanket came off then, and he gazed at Ana as the realization unfurled.

Ana stared back at him, her lips parted in disbelief.

“You do, don’t you? You’re in love with her.”

“You don’t understand, Ana.” Eli rose and began to pace. The memory of Nel’s joy and hope pulsing rosy pink in his mind threatened to bring him to guilty tears. “I promised her I’d get her out. She doesn’t deserve to be caught up in all this. I brought her down here just so I could get those robes back. I brought her here as a captive, as a nobody-”

“She is a nobody, Eli!” Ana shook her head. “You’ve gone and lost your mind, just like Dom. At least with Dom we know why. He’s got some Kar-Tog blood in him. But you…”

“They’re our equals. They’re just like us. They feel the same way. They fight for the same reasons. Do you realize,” Eli pointed towards Dad’s apartment, “that she was going to die rather than have Dom find her sister? She stole my knife. She tried to kill me her first day here. She stood up to Dom and nearly got herself throttled in the process.”

Ana scoffed. “That’s idiotic.”

Eli strode over to Ana and bent down so they were on eye level. “That’s courage.”

Ana glared at him.

He shook his head and moved away.

“After all I’ve done for you, after all we’ve been through together, I can’t believe you would throw it all away over some human.”

Eli stopped and turned back to look at her. Her pout let him know the storm was coming.

“She’s a human, Eli. A human. I’m everything a man of your rank could hope for in a mate. We’ve been friends since childhood. I’ve stood by your side through everything. I even got Dad to quit jumping your case. We can be together now, Eli.”

Fear pricked at Eli even as Ana’s words pulled him. They could be together. They could live a normal life. It would be everything they’d ever need. And to give that up would be crazy.

Nel’s trustful smile haunted him. He’d never be able to unsee it, never be able to live with himself for letting her die. Not after knowing how much she would give up to save her sister. Not after knowing what she’d lost.

And to never know what could have been, to lose that tentative trust she’d placed in him, the honor she’d drawn out of him…the thought crushed him. A piece of her would always be with him, and every time he thought of Mom, he’d be assaulted by her memory, too.

It was a double sword.

He’d lose everything he thought he held dear if he saved her. For all he knew, he would never even see Nel again if he did succeed in saving her life.

But how could he live with himself otherwise?

He turned to Ana. Her eyes pierced him. Her mingled sorrow and indignation washed over him like the hot water of the river. She knew what he was going to say.

Eli reached for her hand. He had to say something to comfort her. After all she’d done.

“No.” She snatched her hand back. Her aura swirled deep blue with sparks of fiery orange. “I can see it in your face. In your aura. The way you think about her…” She sniffed hard against the sob threatening to take her. “…it’s the way I always think about you.” Ana shook her head. “I can’t change it. Just like no one can change the way I feel about you. Not Dom, not the Eltana herself. I know that for a fact.” She stood, her shoulders shaking although she tried her best to hold herself together. “I wish with everything in me you wouldn’t go risk your life for a human. But I know you’re going to. Because I know you.” She touched his face, ruffled his hair, her brow furrowed with sorrow.

He didn’t know what to say. He ached on her behalf, though her words rang true. The monster he’d been fighting had won long before he’d ever tried to fight it. He couldn’t deny it. He’d fallen in love with a human just as surely as Dom had.

And he had to save her, come what may.

Ana turned and made her way towards the door.

Eli pulled her back and held her close, just for a moment. “Thank you.”

She collapsed into sobs, her body trembling against his, her aura tearing apart fleeting shreds of silver-blue hope. It was over for her. All her happy hopes of their finally being together were dashed without mercy and buried deep under a hard line of feigned indifference, something he recognized in every eye roll she’d ever given him, every bite of sarcasm at his pretended flirting.

But there was something bright, something selfless, something that gleamed golden-white even in that dark apathy. It was only a shroud, and it would soon sprout new hopes. He could feel it, even though the black mist drowning her aura in grief prevented her from doing the same. There was strength in her, strength gleaming like a beacon even in the storm of her loss.

He did the only thing he could. He offered his grief, his troubles, his sorrow, and pushed his aura close to hers.

She paused for a moment and looked up at him. Her eyes were narrowed in confusion.

He touched her aura, like Nel had touched his, inviting her.

Violet pulsed once through her aura, but she let their auras join.

It wasn’t quite the same, but it had its intended effect. Ana lost herself in the sea of Eli’s pain, and Eli did the same, touching each aspect of her grief, affirming it, bringing her selflessness and love to the forefront. Don’t ever lose that, he told her. This is love, Ana. This is the light that shines in the dark of all this mess. Mom had it, too. I saw it in her when she died.

Ana’s aura swirled, the darkness dispelling, just a bit.

You have it, too, Eli. It shines brighter than anything I’ve ever seen. It always has.

She pulled away then, letting the connection between them fall. There was a small, sad smile on her lips. “I’ll be around,” she said. Her smile faded as she left, but Eli could see the cloud in her mind had shrunk.

She would be alright.

He stole a glance toward the balcony, toward Nel’s empty room.

And now, he had to go do something he wasn’t supposed to do.