“Zarik says there’s a training program for warriors in Beast City.”
“There is.” I crunched on a cracker.
“When you and Sienna go back, can I come with you guys?”
“No,” Hasel answered. “I need you here.”
“You don’t really need me, and I’m no good with throwing spears, but I could be if someone trained me. I wanna go, dude. Please take me with you.”
“I said no,” Hasel repeated.
I sipped my soup, giving Sienna some time to get accustomed to our new rooms, the ones we would share together for as long as I stayed here. Which was another two or three days. After that? Well, I didn’t know what would happen in Beast City, what Alpha would say, but I knew after the excitement of my return settled, Vice wouldn’t let me get away with picking up an unregistered mate.
Since I didn’t know what was in my own future, I couldn’t promise anything to the poor kid with innocent wonder in his eyes. Man, it must be great to be eight. “I began my training on my fifth birthday,” I said.
Hasel stopped chopping. She washed her hands, turned around, and leaned against the counter. I wiped my mouth. “So the morning I turned five, I leapt out of bed and found my mother with my aunts busy with my older sister. It was her wedding day. Or so I thought. I pulled on my mom’s skirts to get her attention, but she shooed me away, told me to wait by the mirror. So I did. Waited by the mirror where I could see my sister’s face. She stared into her reflection. There was no joy in her eyes, so I stuck my tongue out to make her laugh.” I sipped my soup, my mouth gone dry.
The boy leaned in. “Did she?”
“Did she what?”
“Laugh.”
“Nah. You see, at five, my entire world revolved around me. That morning, I was supposed to start my male journey, follow my father and his father before him in preparation for one day becoming High Priest of Tineya, Alpha’s highest councilor. But everyone ignored me because of my sister’s wedding. I didn’t like that, so I threw a few tantrums, which got me locked up in my room. I never saw the wedding, and my sister returned to the house instead of leaving it. I was too busy to notice her ’cause I got into my training the next day. I thought I wanted to follow my dad, be like him. I even talked like him, walked like him, thought like him.”
“But here you are,” Hasel said. “What happened?”
“Sixteen years later, at the time of my first Judgment, a day when I would judge another beast for his crimes, I stood in the same place my sister had stood when I was five. Same mirror. She sat on her bed and asked me to set the beast free.”
The boy didn’t move, kept his gaze locked with mine, eyes like saucers. I scuffed up his hair and continued. “My sister told me about Earth, about the youngest of Alpha Nie’s sons, Goner, who was quietly sneaking out beasts from Tineya to Earth. She told me she was leaving, told me not to believe my father, for there is no one true descendant of Great Mother, no one true way, no one true Alpha. Our alpha is the strongest beast among us, not the truest beast. She believed Jamie was the strongest, one she wanted to follow. I accused her of blasphemy and threatened to tell our father she planned on leaving.”
Hasel gasped. “If you were mine…” She picked a wooden spoon and waved it. “Mm-hm.”
“We got into a fight, and in a fit of anger, my sister lashed out about her wedding day, a wound she’d kept to herself all those years. You see, my sister’s mate was found to have conspired against Tineya’s Alpha, namely he’d helped smuggle goods off Tineya and back to Jamie. It was her mate’s Judgment day and not their wedding day. Father made her wear a white dress and took her to the Judgment Hall in hopes her mate would deny his involvement, denounce another alpha, and accept the holy nature of Alpha Nie so that he might join with my sister. Her mate admitted his involvement, proclaimed Alpha Nie an imposter, and pledged loyalty to the Alpha Beast. My father sentenced him to death. My sister’s life was ruined. My mother has never been the same.”
“Because your mother wanted your father to free him,” Hasel said.
“He could’ve,” I said. “He could’ve smuggled both of them out. Instead, he ordered her mate’s head chopped off right then and there. Even after all that, I refused to believe my sister. I didn’t tell on her. I went to deal out my Judgment.” I took a sip of water. “The male before me was a mighty beast with eyes and body as black as Sienna’s dress. Proud jaw and a deep scar in the middle of his forehead.”
“An ax cut,” Hasel said.