Chapter Text
The door to Kenric’s readying room burst open without warning.
He jumped.
Oralie strode in like she was floating, all pastel pink ruffles and icy fury, her golden curls gleaming in the light. Her chin was high, her azure eyes too bright. She looked like she’d stepped straight out of a painting someone had once died over.
And even angry— especially angry—she looked beautiful.
“This’ll be fun,” he muttered under his breath, turning slowly. “Oralie.” He leaned back into the red armchair and gestured to the one across from him. “Good to see you. Have a seat.”
The room was warm, but sparse: deep reds and dark wood, shelves lined with old reports and crystal flasks he never remembered filling.
Oralie gave the red chair the same look she’d probably give a rotting fruit. “No. I won’t be staying long enough for that.”
Kenric raised a brow. She was usually more composed. He’d expected a confrontation about leaving—but not this soon. Not tonight . He’d hoped she’d at least enjoy the party thrown in her honor before coming to yell at him.
“I just came by to tell you that you can stop pretending to be my ally,” she said, stepping further into the room. “I know you want me off the Council.”
Kenric tilted his head and gave her a slow, amused smile. “I do? Huh. That’s news to me.”
“Oh please. Clarette told me during dinner that you were the lone holdout vote during my election—which you would’ve heard, if you’d stayed past the first course tonight. But clearly you couldn’t stand to watch me be celebrated.”
Of course Clarette told her. Of course Oralie noticed he left.
“No,” Kenric said, stretching out in the chair and crossing his boots at the ankle, “My stomach wasn’t feeling well, and I assumed you wouldn’t appreciate it if I vomited during your fancy dinner.”
Her eyes narrowed. “Yet you seem perfectly fine now.”
“Because I hailed Elwin!” He said, far too pleasantly. “He told me which elixirs I should take—and he warned me that one of them would have me burping like an imp for over an hour, so I figured everyone would prefer I not come back for dessert.”
She stepped closer.
His body went rigid in a heartbeat—just enough for her to catch it, probably—but she didn’t call it out. She just reached forward, gently resting her hand over his.
Kenric’s thoughts went... blank.
Just for a second.
Oh stars.
It took him a moment—half a moment too l ong—to remember what she was doing.
Right.
Empathy.
Right .
Pull it together.
He should’ve been prepared. He usually was.
He leaned back slightly, trying to ignore the way her touch made his skin buzz in a way it had absolutely no business doing.
“You’re a better liar than most,” she said, “But I can still tell. So why don’t you try the truth this time? It’s obvious you don’t like me—and that’s fine. I’m not a fan of you, either.”
Kenric let himself smirk. She was staring at him like she wanted him to break. Like she needed to win this argument, the same way she always needed to win everything. But there was a flush rising on her cheeks—like she’d felt something in him just now that she didn’t know what to do with. “Is that so?”
She gave a tight shrug. “Yes. You’re arrogant and boring. And you have terrible taste in everything.” Her gaze flicked to his tunic, a bright orange one that clashed horrifically with his bright red hair.
He grinned wider, noting that she hadn’t moved her hand from his. “If you were a better Empath, I doubt you’d denounce my taste in everything. ”
She yanked her hand away like he’d burned her, glaring at him. “I’m the best Empath you’ll ever find!”
“Someday you might be,” Kenric said, sitting forward slowly. “If you stop letting your personal biases and ambitions cloud your judgment.”
She gasped—offended in that effortless, elegant way she’d perfected over the past year. Hand fluttering to her chest like he’d insulted the sunrise. “ Excuse me?”
“And there it is,” he said, fighting a smile and failing. “The wide-eyed innocent act you love to hide behind.”
“There’s no act!”
He stood, stepping into her space with mock concern. “Really? So you parade around in pink and ruffles because you want to be taken seriously?”
“I dress this way because I like the way I look.”
He raised his eyebrows. “Pretty sure it’s because you like to be admired.”
Oralie stepped closer—close enough that he could see the gold in her lashes and the way her curls framed her face like they were part of the charade—and maybe they were.
Maybe all of her was a performance.
Except...
Except when she was like this. Furious. Honest. Real.
And he’d always preferred honesty.
“You like to be showered with attention,” he continued, voice barely louder than a whisper now. “And you want everyone to think you’re sweet and pretty and caring. But the person you care about most will always be yourself.”
She didn’t flinch. Didn’t back down. Instead, she stepped closer again— into his personal space. “Well, I guess I should thank you for finally dropping the polite act,” she said, words soft and sharp at once. “I always prefer to deal with my enemies honestly.”
Stars , was she dramatic. “We’re enemies now? Is that how it works with you? If someone doesn’t fall all over themselves to impress you, they’re a villain ?”
“No. But if they actively work to hurt me, then they are. I’ve always wondered why it took so many days for everyone to reach a consensus, since Emery had told me I was the only Empath up for consideration. But apparently it was you—and I came here to ask why, but I’m pretty sure I already know the answer.”
Kenric fought the urge to laugh at her self-righteousness. “Do you, now?”
She glared at him, as if he was below a response.
“I know what you’re thinking, Oralie—and no, not because I’m listening. You’re much easier to read than you think you are—and you’re wrong.” He paused as she frowned at him. “I voted against you because I didn’t think we should elect someone who rushed through her assignments so she’d be available for tasks that would garner more attention.”
“I have never rushed through an assignment!”
“Oh really? So you didn’t declare Lady Fayina dead within two days of her disappearance—without finding a body—and then find yourself conveniently free to work one-on-one with Councillor Emery on something else?”
Oralie’s eyes flashed with anger. “I don’t owe you an explanation for any of my decisions. But if you’d seen how devastated her family was—and how badly they needed closure—perhaps you’d understand why I felt the need for urgency. Especially if you’d also looked at the abundance of evidence I found suggesting that she fell from a cliff. My swift decision allowed her husband to arrange a planting in the Wanderling Woods so everyone could start grieving and healing.”
That was…
Fair.
He sighed, crossing his arms and turning away. “Fine. I suppose your actions may have been justified. In that case.”
“They were in all my cases,” Oralie protested. “Which is why everyone else was eager to vote in my favor—while you voted against me, three times!”
Kenric threw his arms in the air in exasperation. “Why does that bother you so much? I eventually gave you my vote—you have the circlet on your head to prove it.” He watched as she reached for her forehead and traced her delicate fingers over the jewels in the circlet.
“It bothers me because you still do everything in your power to prevent me from doing my job! I’ve been here a year now, and I still haven’t been given any serious assignments. Every time my name comes up, you convince the others it would be too traumatic for an Empath. ”
“Because it might be!”
“That doesn’t mean I can’t handle it.”
“It doesn’t mean we should risk it either. Especially when we have eleven other Councillors who are more than capable.”
“ I’m capable. And I’m tired of being treated like I’m weak!”
He looked at her— really looked at her.
Golden curls, glass-cut cheekbones—that impossible, fragile elegance that had fooled more than a few people—including him. “I don’t think you’re weak, Oralie,” he said—more softly than he’d ever spoken to her. “In fact, I’m fairly certain you’re stronger than all of us. But your ability will always make you more vulnerable to certain things.”
Her expression softened, just slightly. “How?”
Kenric sighed and slumped back into his armchair. “The only way I can give you an example is if you let me erase your memory of this conversation afterward.”
Just like that, her openness was gone. Her eyes turned sharp as she smiled thinly. “How convenient. And let me guess—you’ll also need to erase everything Clarette told me about you.”
“I would—but I have no problem with you knowing about that. In fact, you have my word that I’ll come to you and confess. Take a reading if you think I’m lying.” He held out his hand, a smirk pulling at his lips. “And just think: If you take this deal, you’ll get your answer and you’ll get to yell at me all over again.”
Now he was grinning—not missing the way she flushed just slightly as she suppressed a smile and looked away. He couldn’t resist adding, “I’ll even make sure you’re holding a beverage, in case you want to splash it in my face!”
Kenric felt a different weight settle in his chest as she bit her lip.
Because what he was offering wasn’t just dramatic.
It was forbidden.
He was a Telepath. A trained Washer. The Council’s failsafe. He was the one who erased the memories of the other Washers when it became too much.
He was trusted above all to hold the most dangerous secrets of the Lost Cities.
And he’d been given one very specific rule about this sort of thing: Never touch the mind of another Councillor.
Not even if they asked. Especially not then.
And he was already offering to break the rule for her.
It’s not the—
He shut that thought down immediately, looking back at Oralie.
She nodded, whispering, “tell me.”
He stood and started pacing. “During my last investigation, I learned that we’ve been imprisoning someone for thousands of years. Someone whose crimes were so horrible, they’ve been completely stricken from any kind of record.”
He glanced at Oralie.
Her face had gone unreadable again.
He stepped close to her again. “We found evidence of a plot to break her free, and it was my job to ensure that it never happens.”
Oralie tilted her head up at him, eyebrows furrowed. “Is there more to this little example? Because I don’t see the problem.”
“That’s because,” Kenric began, stepping closer, “you’re not considering what will happen if it turns out that I failed. I couldn’t find any specifics about the plot—who might be behind it, when they’ll strike, what they’re planning. Nothing. Best I could do was amp up security. And if that ends up not being enough, I’ll have to know that a monster is back out in this world because of me.”
“No, you won’t,” she countered quietly, not looking away from him. “It’ll end up in your cache.”
For a long moment, Kenric just looked at her—watching the way she looked at him , too gentle, too concerned for someone who was supposed to be confronting him.
“Not immediately ,” he said slowly. “They’ll have to tell me why my memory is being washed. And if I manage not to shatter from the guilt right then and there, that horror will still linger with me forever. Emotions can’t be erased. They can only be buried or misdirected—which is much harder to do with an Empath. And I know you’re probably standing there thinking it won’t matter because you’re too brilliant and gifted to ever fail at anything.”
And, stars, he hated that she really, really was. She was brilliant and gifted and talented and…she still would fail.
Kenric lowered his voice yet more and cautiously placed a hand on her arm. “Take it from someone who’s been at this job a whole lot longer than you. You’ll do the best you can. But you will fail. And until you truly accept that, you shouldn’t go anywhere near a serious assignment.”
Oralie was silent. But he could feel it.
Even without Empathy—he knew she was scared. He could read it in the way her expression had frozen, gaze somewhere far away.
And not just because of what he’d said.
Because of him .
Because she’d felt something from him.
Something Councillors weren’t supposed to feel. Especially not them .
Not him, admired by the people.
Not for her, the youngest to ever wear the circlet, still desperate to prove she deserved it.
One of them would die before she gave up that pink circlet—and they both knew it.
He needed to get over this.
“Erase it,” she said quietly.
He swallowed. Nodded. “Already working on it.”
As he turned to retrieve a vial from his jerkin pocket, he tried not to look at her. Because if he did—if she looked at him like that again—he wasn’t sure he’d be able to go through with deleting the memory.
“You’ll need to sit,” Kenric said, holding a small glass vial between his fingers.
Oralie’s eyes narrowed slightly, gaze flickering from the vial to him. “Don’t you wipe the memory?”
He blinked. And something in him... slowed.
She wasn’t testing him.
She...genuinely didn’t know.
“You’ve never had a memory wiped before,” he muttered, not sure if he was more shocked or…
Devastated .
She didn’t answer.
Kenric blinked, hard.
He was the first to give her knowledge like this.
To take a memory from her…and make her trust him to do it.
His grip on the vial tightened—just slightly. When he spoke, it was quieter than before. “You won’t need to refer back to this. It’s not... it’s not something that belongs in your cache.”
She looked like she might argue, but she didn’t.
He tried to find his voice again. “You need to sit,” he repeated, softer.
She did.
And it hurt to watch.
That elegance she wore like armor had faded—not gone, never gone—but... quiet .
He’d seen her furious. Defiant. But this stillness? This was something else.
The ache returned, heavier now.
Settling in his chest like guilt always did.
Her expression hardened. “I’m not fragile,” she snapped.
His voice was rough around the edges as he said, “I know, Ora.”
Her breath caught—just barely. And then her face turned away again, that too-familiar pink blooming in her cheeks.
He lowered himself to the ground in front of her, kneeling like this was a sacred ritual. Maybe it was. He held out the vial with both hands. “The sedative makes a clean break,” he murmured, voice so gentle he hardly recognized it. “It gives the memory a place to fracture. Makes the erasure clean. Fast. Safe.”
She nodded once, fingers brushing his as she took the vial.
And for a moment, neither of them moved.
Their eyes met.
Oralie closed hers. Her fingers curled tighter around the glass. “Where will I wake up?” she asked, voice barely more than a whisper.
His throat was suddenly dry. “I can take you to your readying room...or your castle.”
“My castle. Before the dinner ends. I don’t want anyone to see.”
“Okay,” he said immediately. “I’ll make sure of it.”
She drank the vial without opening her eyes—and within seconds, her head tipped to the side.
Kenric’s heart stuttered. He reached for her, fast but careful, steadying her before she could fall. She felt...small.
He pressed two fingers gently to her pulse. Steady. Slowed. But safe.
Still, his hands were shaking.
They shouldn’t be.
He’d done this a thousand times.
But not with her.
He brushed a stray curl back from her face—and then placed his fingers gently against her temple and entered her mind.
Even moving toward the memory, her half-sedated thoughts whispered into his mind.
He’s closer than I thought he’d be.
His eyes have green flecks in them.
He doesn’t want to do this.
Why does he care so much?
The memory formed—sharp and present. The confrontation. Her hand on his. The electricity in the air when he said:
“If you were a better Empath, I doubt you’d denounce my taste in everything.”
Her thoughts rippled through the memory like echoes:
That’s not fair.
You shouldn’t say things like that.
You shouldn’t feel things like that.
His breath caught.
He moved gently. So gently. He located the memory, severed it.
And…he stored it in his cache.
Just in case.
When he returned to himself, her body hadn’t shifted. But something in him had.
He looked at her for a long time.
He hated himself for doing this.
Even though she’d asked.
Even though it was the only way to keep her safe.
His hands were still trembling.