One-by-one, the initiates marched up to him and drank from the goblet. When it was all done, only thirteen had survived. They followed Captain Somerset out of the ballroom. I could do nothing but stare at their terrified faces, wondering if their expression was mirrored on my own. That horrible scene was certainly seared into my mind. My heart ached for the dead, and it ached for the survivors. My initiation ceremony hadn’t been pretty, but it hadn’t been…this. Half of our numbers hadn’t been massacred by Legion soldiers—people the new initiates now had to work and live beside every day until death claimed them.
I looked around the ballroom for Ivy or Drake, but they weren’t here. I didn’t know if I was glad that they didn’t have to see this or depressed that I didn’t have a shoulder to cry on. My friends must have been moving our things upstairs, I realized. My memories all clicked into place. Oh, that’s right. Last week, the Legion had informed everyone in my initiation group that we were all getting a room upgrade on the first of the month. Ivy, Drake, and I now had a three-bedroom apartment. Between the situation with the witches and everything else that was going on right now, I’d been too distracted to think about my changing living arrangements. Where I slept seemed so irrelevant in the grand scheme of things.
I stared across the room, finding Nero immediately, but when he turned toward me, I looked away. I couldn’t talk to him right now, not after the cold way he’d watched all of those initiates get shot or poisoned to death.
Soldiers were carrying off the dead initiates. They didn’t look troubled by all the death. They’d undoubtably seen it all so many times before that they’d hardened their souls. I knew I was expected to do the same, to close off everything that made me human, but I just couldn’t. All those bodies, all that innocence—gone. Someone had to mourn for them. My eyes burned with unshed tears, and my mind choked on the finality of their deaths.
Acid singed my throat. I pushed blindly past the soldiers carrying the bodies and ran straight for the bathroom. I barged into the nearest stall and bent over the toilet to throw up everything in my stomach. Even when there was nothing left, my body heaved and quaked. My legs gave out, and I collapsed to the cold floor, shivering.
“Leda.”
I didn’t turn at the sound of Nero’s voice. “Go away.”
Instead, he lowered to his knees and lifted me into his arms. As he carried me out of the stall, I pushed against his hold, but I was too weak right now to stand a chance.
“Please,” I croaked, the word scraping against my throat like sandpaper. “Leave me alone.” I turned my face away from him, hiding my tears.
I was surprised when he didn’t carry me into the hallway. Instead, he lowered me to the floor across from the sink. We sat there in silence on the icy marble floor, side by side, our backs pressed against the wall.
“You reacted strongly,” he finally said.
I turned my head to meet his cool stare. “And you didn’t react at all. How can you be so cold? How can you act like all that death doesn’t bother you?”
“I’ve learned to shut off that part of me.”
“Well, I haven’t.”
“I know.” He folded his hands together on top of his raised knees. “Why did you come to the ballroom tonight?”
“I didn’t mean to. There was this lieutenant. He ran past me in the hallway and told me to come with him. I thought we were being attacked. I’d forgotten what day it was.”
“I didn’t want you to see that.”
“Those people.” I brushed a tear from my eye. “They were so scared. Couldn’t you have calmed them?”
“You mean use my magic to control them?”
“Yes.”
“I could have calmed them,” he said. “But that wouldn’t do them any favors. Soldiers of the Legion must be strong. They must face their fears and rise above them. Calming them with magic might have put off their deaths for a few weeks, but it would not have saved them in the end. Their will was not strong enough to survive the Legion.”
“That is a very callous attitude,” I told him.
“It is the way of life at the Legion. Sometimes, the initiates are strong and sometimes not. Most of the initiates in this group were not.”
“Is it often that bad?” I asked.
“No, but it is never pretty. Your ceremony was among our less violent ones.”
“It didn’t feel that way at the time.”
“I know.” He reached out to touch my shoulder, but he withdrew his hand, as though he’d thought better of it. “I wish…” He sighed. “I wish you’d gone back to your room like I asked you to. I wanted you as far away from this as possible.”
“Why?”
“Because I knew exactly how you would react,” he said. “I knew it would hurt you to see it. You are too good for this.”
“I thought I had a good side and a bad side.”
“Not a good side and a bad side. A light side and a dark side,” he corrected me. “It’s different. You have both darkness and light, but you are all good. You’re compassionate. And you fight fiercely for those you love. You’re tough, Leda, but that toughness doesn’t cover your heart. It hurt you to watch those people die, even though you do not know them.”
I leaned my head against his shoulder. “You don’t mind?” I glanced up at him. “I know it’s not appropriate. But just for a little bit…”