Chapter 154: Hate 2

EDELINA

Johann was on his feet before the last word had left the man’s mouth. The movement was so quick that the retainer’s eyes snapped toward him, but there was no fear in his reaction. No instinctive retreat at the sight of a prince rising against him.

Only contempt.

I heard the bloodlust enter his voice then, no longer hidden beneath the trembling urgency with which he had delivered his message. Johann heard it too. His body shifted forward, every instinct urging him to close the distance between them despite the exhaustion still weighing on his limbs.

The retainer’s gaze moved over him.

"Look at that one." His lip curled. "Standing there as though the title still means something."

His eyes narrowed.

"I suppose he wasn’t sick enough after that beating he took, considering he still managed to take two of my brothers-in-arms down with him beforehand."

"You speak treason, boy," Johann said.

His voice was quiet, but there was enough warning in it to make the words feel heavier than a shout. I noticed the slight sway in his stance, the way he locked his knees a moment later to keep himself upright. He was exhausted and refusing to let the man in front of him see it.

The retainer gave a bitter laugh.

"I am not your fucking boy. You think I give a fuck about that word anymore?"

Whatever restraint he had left finally gave way.

Johann moved.

He crossed the first few steps before I had time to think, anger carrying him forward with enough force that I knew exactly what he intended to do when he reached the man. His injured body protested almost immediately. His shoulder pulled tight, his breathing turned ragged, but he pushed through it.

"Johann."

He did not stop.

I stepped between them and raised a hand.

"Let him speak."

"Mother—"

"Let him speak, Johann."

My voice left no room for argument.

Johann stopped, though barely. His chest rose and fell hard, his hands clenched at his sides as he stared over my shoulder at the retainer.

The man had not moved.

He simply watched Johann with the same hatred that had been sitting behind his eyes from the moment he entered the room.

"Whatever you came here to say," I told him, keeping my hand raised until Johann finally took a reluctant step back, "say it."

"You high-rankers are the rot at the center of this kingdom. Every one of you. Maybe the rogues understood that better than any of us ever bothered to."

His breathing grew heavier. He looked as though even standing had become an effort, but he refused to step back.

"I can’t believe I still had faith in any of you."

His voice faltered.

"Not after the first time."

"The first time," I repeated. The words came quietly, but my chest had begun to tighten.

He looked at me then, and something in his face made me wish I had not asked. "I helped High Beta Bradley kill healers and Omegas."

For a moment, the room seemed to lose its air. Because I knew why. I was the reason why that was so.

He continued before I could respond.

"Under the High Beta, I followed your late husband’s orders. The same way I’ve always followed orders, because that’s what good sentinels and trusted retainers do, isn’t it?"

His mouth twisted around the words.

"We obey. We don’t question. We don’t ask whether the person giving the order deserves to be obeyed. We just carry it out and tell ourselves there’s a reason we haven’t been told."

His hands had begun to tremble.

He curled them into fists, but it did nothing to stop it.

"One of the girls looked me in the eye before it happened."

The anger in his voice faltered, replaced by something quieter and far more difficult to look at.

"She looked straight at me and told me they hadn’t committed any sin. That every one of them was innocent."

He swallowed.

"I told myself she was afraid. That she was desperate and would say anything because she knew she was going to die."

His eyes dropped to the floor.

"That’s what I told myself."

The silence that followed was brief, but it carried the weight of years.

"Months have passed after that, and I was so sure I was on the right side of history. Imagine my shock and disgust when, less than an hour ago, I heard High Beta Bradley speaking."

His gaze rose again.

"He said he intended to kill every one of us who had been in that infirmary hall today."

Johann’s expression changed.

I felt my own stomach drop.

"He said it was the only way to protect Alpha Lysander’s claim. To protect the royal family."

The retainer’s voice cracked.

"And because of what?"

His eyes burned as he looked at me.

"A healer? The throne? Whatever excuse they give themselves when you people decide our lives are worth less than yours?"

His breathing shuddered.

"After everything we did for this kingdom, after everything we did because we believed we were serving people who mattered, he decided we were loose ends."

He laughed once, but there was no humor in it.

"And I finally understood what that girl was trying to tell me."

His gaze hardened.

"We had to be the ones committing the sin beck then."

He let that settle in the air between us before continuing, his voice dropping lower, almost conversational now in its bitterness.

"Makes you think, doesn’t it. Were those Omegas silenced for something they’d witnessed too? Something they’d done that made them inconvenient afterward? We sentinels were only ever helping our superiors carry out what they demanded of us. Why should any of us pay the price for that kind of loyalty, over and over, until there’s nothing left of us to spend?"

"If you hate us this thoroughly," I said, keeping my voice steady though my mind was already racing three steps ahead, cataloging everything this admission could mean for me, for Johann, for whatever remained of my careful plans, "why bring this information to my door at all? Why not simply keep it to yourself and let the rest of us destroy each other in ignorance?"

"Because I’ll probably die soon regardless of what I do next," he said, something almost peaceful settling into his features now that the worst of his confession had already left him. "Bradley already suspects we know too much to live. What exactly we know... I have no idea. But I know it concerns you. You should have seen the way he looked at those of us who were standing closest when it happened. I want to leave my mark before that comes for me. On my own terms, for once in a life that’s never once belonged to me otherwise."

His eyes moved between Johann and me, something almost pitying in them now, an expression I hadn’t expected from a man who’d just confessed to hating us both so openly.

"This, for me, is simply Ouroboros," he said. "You bastards should consume each other from the inside out, fighting over that throne like dogs over a single bone. It’s the only justice a man like me has left available to give."