Could he see the darkness in my eyes?
I blinked.
I was twenty miles deep into a run, jogging beside John.
Sulfur stung my nose, and the bitter wind was a relief against clammy skin.
It felt like I was living in a dream within a dream.
A nightmare within a nightmare.
The tribulations continued.
Clashes echoed like thunder. High above the island, angels slammed their ice swords together. They thrust and parried, wings clattering as they flapped.
Wind howled, and tendrils of hair slapped my face as curls pulled out of my braids.
I was covered in a thick sheen of sweat. My bare feet were numb from pounding against rocks, lungs burning from exertion.
John loped silently beside me with a scowl on his face.
We ran at the back of our legion, with the other five men a few yards ahead of us.
“You back?” John asked in a clipped voice.
I nodded.
He turned forward.
We ran five more miles in comfortable silence. Mr. Hyde was never a big talker.
I cleared my throat.
John glanced down at me.
I gathered my courage and said, “Sorry about all that at breakfast. Do you need anything from me after…” I trailed off awkwardly. “Can I help make it better?”
I glanced up and wished I hadn’t.
John’s scowl deepened, and shadows hovered around him.
He opened and closed his mouth, then asked slowly, “What are you apologizing for doing to me?”
His phrasing was weird, and my stomach twisted in knots.
Did he want me to beg for forgiveness?
Mr. Hyde always had an intensity that put me on edge.
I took a deep breath. Stop being a baby. You’ve wronged him. The kings are right, you’re making this all about yourself.
“I’m-sorry-for-raping-you,” I said as fast as I could.
John’s eyes widened.
He stopped running, and the shadows around him expanded until the air shimmered with a black void.
“What are you doing?” Malum called as he looked back at John, who stood on the shore, getting left further and further behind.
I turned and ran back to where John was unmoving. “Hey, what are you—”
John lunged forward and picked me off the ground by my shoulders. He squeezed, and it felt like I was suffocating.
I stared into his dark eyes.
John barked with anger, “Did you say ‘rape’？”
I nodded and winced as he squeezed tighter.
“What’s going on?” I asked.
John screamed like a broken man.
Then I was airborne.
Slam.
I crashed against a wave.
It felt like I’d hit solid rock.
He threw me into the sea.
Water filled my lungs, and I choked as the rough surf pulled me under.
John wanted me dead.
Just like Sari.
To know me was to hate me. How was a person supposed to live with that?
Waves slammed my limp form against rocks, then sucked me out to sea.
Edges.
Everywhere.
I would have cried if I’d had anything left to feel.
Numbness swallowed me.
Maybe it was the haze. Maybe I passed out. Maybe I died but my heart wasn’t consumed so my queendom revived me. Or maybe my heart was eaten and the slave brand brought me back to life.
More tribulations.
Either way, the next thing I knew, I was lying on the shore while Orion slammed his hands against my chest in compressions.
His white-blond hair and clothes were soaking wet.
Stunning almond-shaped brown eyes were manic. Wide with terror. His pupils dilated.
Above him Scorpius loomed. He slapped my cheek and yelled, “Wake up!”
A few feet away, Malum was trying to slam his flaming fists into John.
The darkness around John shimmered like a tangible force, and he moved so quickly that Malum never landed a blow.
Salty water flooded my throat.
Orion pushed me onto my left side, and water gurgled out of my mouth.
Nose burning, eyes hurting from the pressure, I could do nothing but gag and choke.
“Sweetheart?” Orion whispered as his face hovered inches from mine. Wetness clung to his long lashes and dripped onto me.
I pushed away from him and got to my feet.
I stumbled across the rocks to where Malum was trying to hurt my friend.
When I saw an opening, I threw my aching body between them and blocked Malum.
“What the fuck are you doing?” Malum snarled, silver eyes hard as steel as flames danced off his shaved head in a creepy-looking crown.
“Do not hurt John.” I coughed up salty water.
“Really?” Scorpius yelled as he and Orion stalked toward us. “You’re going to side with the fucker who just threw you into the sea to die?”
The demons sat casually on a boulder and watched everything play out with bored expressions.
“Yes,” I said forcefully. “I will always defend him from you three.”
“He tried to kill you!” Malum bellowed to the sky.
Thankfully the angels were flying on the other side of the island and no one was around to see our legion falling to pieces.
“I deserved it,” I said through gritted teeth. “We all process trauma differently. John is allowed to hate me.”
John said something behind me, but I couldn’t hear it over the howling wind.
“What did you say?” I asked as I turned to him.
His voice was menacing as he said, “I’m not John.”
The ocean crashed across the rocks as if to punctuate his statement.
“What?” I said as I stared at my friend dumbly.
“I’m not John.”
Everyone turned to him.
A muscle in his jaw ticked. “I’m Luka, his twin.”
Time paused.
Jaws dropped.
Everything clicked into place with disturbing clarity.
John’s two dramatically distinct personalities. How he’d switch from being talkative and friendly to silent and brooding. He’d spend days saying nothing. Lothaire had told us we already knew our substitute. Last night, John had whispered to me he was sorry after he’d heard there would be a substitution.
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde were two separate men.
Mr. Hyde is Luka.
John had an angry twin.
And he was standing in front of me, seething because I’d hurt his brother.
“What?” Vegar asked from the rocks. “There’s been two of you for years and none of us noticed?”
John—no, Luka—gave a curt nod.
“Holy fuck,” Zenith said.
If that didn’t sum it all up.
I leaned forward and vomited water all over Luka’s bare feet.
He glared down at me with disgust.
“Nice to meet you,” I croaked.
Luka said nothing.
I remembered the hours I’d clung to Mr. Hyde in the black sea.
The hours he’d fought beside me in battles.
How he’d hauled my pathetic ass across these rocks.
He’d spent long days sitting next to me silently in class.
We’d shared a bed.
Trained until we couldn’t stand without leaning against each other.
Held each other up as we bled.
Shared meals.
All that time together and I didn’t even know who he really was.
Luka cleared his throat. “You’re Aran. And you hurt John,” he stated matter-of-factly.
Air whistled through my lips as I sighed heavily.
I nodded as I realized his voice was slightly deeper than John’s. Was that why he never talked?