My stomach fell in shock, my cool expression wavering. And for a moment I wondered if my mind was playing tricks on me, that if somehow, I was being deceived by the dark inside me. But then the hot air, the smell of jasmine, and a glance in his direction told me that this was reality.
A maniacal laugh bubbled up my throat. “What a tangled web we weave.”
“Listen to what I have to say, then make your decision,” he said indifferently, standing with his hands in his pockets, his gaze in front of him like he hadn’t killed me for the exact thing he was now asking me to do.
Heat flared inside me. “Did you listen to what I had to say before thrusting your blade in my stomach?”
“You would have done the same to protect your own.”
That calmed a bit of my ire. I knew it to be true; I would have done anything.
Roldan glanced down at me, sizing all five-five of me up. “You like my brother?”
I frowned in thought, a little surprised by the question. “It’s a little more complicated than all that.”
“Isn’t it always?”
My brows knitted. “What’s it matter to you anyway?”
“Whether or not what I’m going to tell you will have any merit.” He paused, waiting for me to admit whether I liked his bastard of a brother or not.
I felt like a child who had to admit they had a crush on someone. It sucked. “I wouldn’t step on his fingers if he were hanging off a cliff,” I offered with a lift of my shoulder.
“Good enough for me,” he said.
Yea, because I was sure that was the closest way Titans showed they loved one another: not save each other, but not push each other over the ledge either.
“What we are, we don’t have a name—at least not anymore.”
My heart jumped that he was actually going to tell me who, or what Weston was. The thought sent anticipation zinging through me.
“Words are important here, I’m sure you know. And since our kind went rogue after the magic was sealed, any mentioning of us in books was erased from the land. We were—are—the nightmare you had as a child.
“Other kingdoms, weaker people, wanted us destroyed; and therefore, the idea of us had to be gone. Mentioning even what we were, could be carried on the wind, creating us once again. And so, hundreds of years went on, and we completely disappeared from memories, the only fleeting idea—the monster in your nightmares.
“Before the magic was sealed, we were the most feared race. We were the strongest—every advantage given to us. Built like predators, we fought like it too—but we had a flaw, one that destroyed us. We could turn our humanity, or sanity, on and off. A basic survival instinct to conquer more land, more villages, more people, without guilt, without remorse. To do what we were created to do.
“Many chose to flip the switch; it was easier that way. Our nature is to conquer. Denying it causes boredom to settle in like insanity,” he said as if from experience. “Therefore, anything that keeps our interest, even mildly so, we hold onto it.” He looked at me meaningfully. “What I did to you . . . it went against the order we’ve found amongst each other. Anything that can keep one of us from tedium, from madness, is off limits to the other, and I broke that code. But I’m not asking you for this out of some remorseful notion.”
“That’s what it sounds like,” I said vaguely, my head spinning with answers, sweet, sweet, answers.
“Because we could turn our humanity off, we were unpredictable, dangerous and untrustworthy. The only way we remained as a unified people, was having a leader who ruled ruthlessly, a dictator who put fear into everyone. But when the magic was sealed, our ability to control our humanity dissolved, and we scattered, never returning as one again.”
My brows knitted. “What does that mean, your humanity dissolved?”
“That at a certain point in our life, our humanity shuts off completely, and it does not turn back on.”
My heart stilled, cold. “And when does this occur specifically?”
“Around thirty.”
“And how old is Weston?” When he didn’t respond right away, I said harshly, “What age?”
“Thirty.”
The word settled around us like the world’s greatest secrets were just shared, and we needed a moment to take it all in.
My throat felt thick. “And what happens when one loses their humanity?”