Wanting desperately to achieve the faultless excellence of a Steward, she had spent hours here, practising until her limbs trembled, her breathing ached, and the sweat dripped from her skin.
But the Steward drive for perfection now looked different. The unwavering rows of sword tips, the absolute control that they strove for was no mere desire to achieve an ideal, but a terrifying necessity. Their self-denial, their turning away from the flesh, their strictly regimented lives, all of it was to hold their shadows back.
Justice stood by one of the columns, looking out at the space where he’d spent so long in training. His handsome face was drawn and silent; he didn’t greet her as she came to stand beside him. Following his gaze, Violet looked out at the empty yard, knowing now that she didn’t see the same things that he did in the Stewards and their practice, and never had.
Everything was different now, of course. In London she had been a naive, unthinking girl when her identity had shattered her world open. Lion. This felt like a similar breaking open, the Stewards forced to face what they were for the first time. She said quietly, ‘Are you all right?’
Justice gave a small, wry smile. ‘You show me the kind of compassion that I did not show to you.’
She thought of all the ways that was true. He had lied to her, while refusing to forgive her lies. He had called her a creature of darkness, while he carried darkness within himself.
But in his world there were no shades of grey. She saw that now. Once you drank from the Cup, you were going to turn. There were no second chances, and the only way out was death.
‘You took me in,’ said Violet. ‘You trained me.’ His words to her on her first day in the Hall came back to her. ‘You said everyone should have someone on their side. Someone to look out for them.’
Justice didn’t answer for a long moment, his eyes on the training yard. Empty now, the wide, silent yard seemed to suggest generations of Stewards who had trained, and drunk from the Cup, and died before their time. ‘We stopped at a roadside inn,’ Justice said eventually. ‘We were returning from a mission in Southampton. We should have come straight back, but he looked so happy, I suggested that we stop … A stolen night out together, no curfew, no duties. It’s against Steward training, but I wanted to give him one night to just be himself. I only left him alone for a moment.’
He was talking about Marcus. Violet drew in a painful breath, imagining their last moments together. ‘You two were close?’
‘We were like brothers. The shieldmate bond is … We did everything together.’ Justice said it holding his body very still. ‘To fall into darkness … it was his greatest fear. And I left him alone with that.’
In his voice she could hear what he had not allowed himself to show in front of Cyprian. Guilt, greater than that of a man who had simply left a friend alone to be captured. She understood, her chest hollowing.
‘He’s turning, isn’t he?’
Justice gave her the slightest nod, the barest acknowledgement. ‘I saw the first signs in Southampton,’ he said. ‘I thought we had more time.’
It made everything very real suddenly. The darkness gathering on the horizon. The threat of shadows, Simon’s malevolence dragging the past into the present. And Marcus. His final days spent in terror of what he was about to become.
‘How long?’
Justice’s eyes were dark. ‘They say that when the three kings drank, they lived a full life of power, and only became shadows after they died natural deaths. But the Blood of Stewards is not as strong as the Blood of Kings. We can only resist the Cup for so long. If an ordinary human were to drink, they would turn to shadow instantly. Even those with weaker Steward blood would turn too fast – a day, a week. That’s why only the strongest of us drink. The stronger your blood, the longer you last. But of course, you can’t know for sure.’
It was the closest he’d come to admitting the weight of the burden he carried. We do it because we must, he had said. The Elder Steward had said that the only thing that lay between this world and the Dark was Steward training.
He said, ‘You can ask it.’
She drew in a difficult breath. ‘Are you turning too?’
‘We’re all turning,’ said Justice. ‘It starts the moment you drink, and continues until the shadow has you.’ He spoke with scrupulous honesty. ‘But I’ve shown no symptoms yet.’
It was enough, she thought. It had to be. For both of them.
‘Maybe fighting is knowing there’s darkness in you, and still choosing to do what’s right,’ she said. She wanted to believe it. But it wasn’t as simple as that. The shadow would take Justice over eventually, no matter what he chose. She didn’t want to think about what she would do when that day came. Justice had always seemed so strong, such a steadfast guiding light. She couldn’t imagine facing the dark without him.