RAVAGED HEARTS | CHAPTER ONE
THEN, SEVEN YEARS AGO
WHEN IT STARTED, she never thought it'd end like this. It began with the two of them in a reclusive manor playing a deadly round of cat and mouse, just two children playing games too big for their innocent eyes. It ended with her lying on the cold marble ground of a palace long past its glory, slowly bleeding out, staring at the ceiling with blank eyes and a heart full of hatred.
It wasn't meant to be like this. She hadn't expected it to be like this. Maybe part of her was still too naive, still too trusting. Maybe she never learnt her lessons, maybe she was just stupid.
They'd warned her about this, hadn't they?
She hadn't listened, because why would she? She wasn't famous for being a good listener. In her eighteen years of life, stubborn was the word most used to describe her. Willful a close second maybe, if the speaker was feeling particularly eloquent or nice.
They usually weren't. Especially not when the speakers were most frequently exasperated school teachers or parental figures on their last rope.
She pressed her hand against her wound in some desperate attempt to stop the blood from gushing out. Bitch, she thought to herself. I should have god fucking known it was her.
Her activity had been so suspicious from the start. She would pop out of nowhere. She said the most suspicious thing. Io had just been too clouded by emotions and her thoughts to have noticed. Or at least, realised the true extent of threat the woman was.
She'd been played. Completely and utterly played like a puppet on a stage. She hated it when that happened, absolutely loathed it. It wasn't a nice feeling, being played for a fool, especially as someone generally appreciated for her intelligence and quick thinking. Though remaining calm had never been one of her strong suits.
Slowly, she pushed herself upwards. They'd made one mistake, though. They assumed she was dead. But the wound, while deep, wasn't fatal. Not if she could deal with this soon enough.
The safehouse. Then what? Ovienada? To Danna? That was so far away. She wasn't sure she could make it.
You have to make it. She wasn't ready to die yet. She just wasn't. She had a long time to live, a lot to see and a lot to do. She didn't want to die.
Oh, Louis, Louis. If only I'd never fallen for you. If only I'd never seen you as anything more than a friend. This was all my fault, wasn't it?
It was. You don't need to lie.
-♡-
NOW,
RUNNING AWAY, TECHNICALLY speaking, was rarely the best course of action. She'd say the opposite, really, it was usually the worst thing a person could do, and Io had never been fond of it. But sometimes, it was the only choice. Desperation could make a person break any oath.
It had been nine months and seven days since she'd vanished clean off the face of the earth. If any of her friends had actually managed to locate her, no one uttered a word. She heard nothing from them as well. Maybe they recognised the need for her to be with herself and no one else for a while.
The last time she'd done this, her seclusion had lasted a month. She'd been forced out of it. This one had lasted longer than even she'd expected.
But what was there for her to do? She'd spent her entire life fighting one war. One. Her entire life, she'd been an agent for the Saian crown. Its enemies were hers. And now that the weapons had been laid down, both sides retreating back into their own borders and the future seeming so bright...
All Io knew was warfare. She was born because of a revolution, because her mother was selfless and used herself and her body to gain intel on the enemy. She was a mistake. She'd always known that. And when you knew your very existence was a smudge in the world, you did your best to make up for it.
She'd tried. She really did. She put everything she could into it. She devoted every inch of her energy and time to make herself worth it in the grand scheme of the world, so that she won't just be another forgotten name washed away by the sands of time.
"You're leaving." It wasn't a question, but a simple statement. Io glanced at Fayette, a dark silhouette at the door. The two sisters could not be more different, but when she had needed a safe space to hide in, Fayette had been the first person she'd thought of. Blood was blood, and Io knew Fayette wasn't the kind of person who'd shut her doors to her once more.
Fayette hadn't come alone. Behind her, the second figure asked, "When?"
Io replied, voice crisp and untinted with emotion, "My ship sails tonight. I don't want to intrude on your hospitality."
Fayette was unmoved. "We're family. We couldn't help you before because we could barely help yourselves. But things have changed. You can stay however long you want. Doesn't bother us at all anyways. You almost never show up at the clubs."
Io shook her head. "It's time for me to go. I've got myself a mission."
"Where are you going?" Adrian questioned, stepping into the light besides his twin. "You've been in contact with the Saian Service again?"
"In a way."
"When?" Compared to his twin, Adrian was a damned more considerate and caring, which made him both her favourite and her least favourite among the two. The three of them were quite mismatched—Fayette, who ruthlessly built up her empire in Gira without a second of hesitation on who she had to step on to get her way; and Adrian, who was good with people and cared about them, so they cared about him too.
Io shrugged. "Not for either of you to know. But we have our methods."
Fayette looked unconvinced. She was someone used to being in power, almost omniscient in every sense of the word. But the Saian Secret Service had ways even she couldn't comprehend. And Io hadn't exactly gotten the mission from her superiors. She'd just heard of the case from one of the few friends she seemed to have left, wrote a letter to Sai informing them she was coming out of self-imposed exile and was going to deal with the mission. And that they needn't send anyone else.
The chances they still went ahead with getting someone to Vayante, her destination, wsa still high, though. She'd just have to be fast about it and hope they send someone that she likes. That was most of the competent agents in Sai, wasn't it?
Io stood up from where she was packing, clasping her chest shut. She hadn't brought much with her here, and she wouldn't bring too much with her when she left either. In the past few years, she'd become a simple person. She said, gently, "Did the two of you leave Naeva to handle the clubs?"
"She can manage." Fayette stalked forward, all predatory grace. In another life, she'd have made the perfect evil queen from a fairytale with her silky dark hair, the same shade as a crow's feather and her ruthless, piercing eyes. Her skin, pale as first snow, was striking in the barely lit room. "You planning on coming back any time soon, or is this permanent?"
Wryly, Io replied, "Careful there, or I'll start thinking you're actually fond of me."
Fayette glanced at her nails, flexing her slender fingers before fixing her cool gaze on Io. "You've started growing on me. And we still share blood, whether we like the idea of that or not."
"Faye," Adrian warned, stepping forward, shaking her head. "You two... I don't understand you two, sometimes."
"You won't," Io replied curtly. "I'll be fine, you two don't need to worry about me. I'll be gone before you know it."
"Don't get yourself killed, god knows this family lacks people already. What mission is this?" Fayette, always the rational, logical one. She sat down on Io's bed, wine red gown parting at the slit slightly. She pushed it back into position.
"It's in Vayante. A politician's kids have been kidnapped. Political motives are suspected. Sai backs them. That's where I come in. All I need to do is retrieve the kids and ensure they and their father's safety."
Fayette shrugged. "Jenaro Bailen, huh? Difficult to keep people alive, but I wish you the best."
"Might be the nicest thing you've said to me all year."
"You've only been here for seven months."
"My entire life, then.'
Fayette raised a brow. "We've met a grand total of four times in our entire lives."
"Every time counts," Io replied. "Again: I'll be fine. I'll be perfectly alright. No need to worry about me."
Fayette opened her mouth to speak again, but Adrian cut in. "We believe you. Just... write sometimes, yeah? Send a letter once in a while so that we at least know you're alive."
"Use your sources."
"We try our best to stay away from the espionage and politics of the world unless it involves us," Adrian said, voice wry. "Just asking for trouble, in my opinion. I have no interest in being arrested for accidentally intruding upon some secretive treaty or the like. Or worse, getting directly assassinated."
"I'll get you out of trouble. And you're wiccai."
"Don't need your help," Fayette replied, colder than ice. "You're going soon, then?"
"In—" she glanced at the clock on the nearby wall "—in about half an hour. Bu yong song wo le."
"No interest in doing so, I'm a very busy woman." Fayette sucked in a breath. "Off you go again. It was nice having you here while it lasted. The whole family united." There was mocking in her eyes. Neither of the twins knew their father. They assumed he was a wiccai, because Io had no wiccai ability but both of them did. Their mother had played the role of courtesan years before she met Io's father, so it could have been any of her clients. Most likely though, they assumed someone of mixed heritage. It seemed unlikely Dominique Min would have born twins with a foreigner, but Fayette and Adrian's features showed signs of Arecian or Caershireen blood. Not much, though.
Io knew her father. She wished she didn't, though.
They were a cruel caricature of a family, these three spiteful half-siblings. They were born in blood and raised in war, thrust onto the streets and made to fend for themselves. And each of them had carefully made a name for themselves, carving out a way no one else had walked before.
Io said, "Go back to the club, I'll be fine. I already have everything figured out."
"Do you."
Fayette reminded Io of a worse version of Daneira Pang. Or maybe Danna on her worst days. She hadn't liked her sister much when they'd first met, and she didn't like her now. She was one of those people who only respected strength and despised weakness with every inch of her body. On the battlefield, that was wonderful. In a more domestic environment?
It made her a bitch. A complete and utter bitch. And Io liked to consider herself someone who'd grown up around many.
Still, blood was blood, and Fayette had her good side. She was cunning and shrewd and determined, utterly single-minded and ruthless in her path to success and wealth. The perfect businesswoman. In another life, that might be what Io was aspiring to herself.
But it wasn't. In this one, she was an agent. One of the best agents. One who'd vanished clean off the world a year ago, after the war she'd dedicated her entire life to ended. When everyone else celebrated and cheered for their victory, Io snuck away quietly without a word.
She felt a bit guilty over it. But just a bit.
The past nine months have been... uneventful. She lived here, in Gira, occasionally helping out with her siblings' clubs. The other times, she wandered the streets, sometimes picking petty fights with the criminals who dominated half of the island nation.
And in the dead of the night, she read the newspapers, keeping track of everything that was going on in the rest of the world.
Then she'd heard from a friend who she hadn't talked to for a long time. Io still wasn't sure how Myung-Dae Sterling had located her, but she supposed the man had his ways. His lover was, after all, the head of Arecian Intelligence. He might have been keeping tabs on her the entire time. Sterling was one of those people who never realised she'd grown up.
Jenaro Bailon's children had been kidnapped in an attempt to force him out of the race. Vayante, newly liberated, but still under the Meliquean threat. Because destabilising the run for the new and first president of Vayante was the Meliquean's easiest chance at reestablishing themselves before it was too late.
The mission was everything she wanted. Something she was passionate about—damn did she hate children being used in these political games, something that fitted her skillset, and an easy way to go back into the world she'd hid from for the past nine months.
And so she agreed to it.
"I do," Io said with a bit more force than necessary. "No need to worry your pretty head over me."
"We—well, she might not admit it, but we do care about you. And it's more than just blood, which both of us know doesn't make family." Adrian raised his head, and for a moment Io saw the same flame that fuelled his twin flickering in his hazel gaze.
"I know," Io told him, stuffing a silk gown into her suitcase. When had she purchased this? She wasn't sure. Maybe it was one of the gowns Fayette had given her for when she went to the clubs. She could count on one finger the amount of times she'd done that. "I know, don't worry."
"Didn't make you give us an early warning before leaving, though." Fayette sounded mildly annoyed. "We'd have gotten the kitchen to make some good food for you."
Suddenly, Io was struck with a sense of deja vu. It seemed every time someone sent her off, they just had to give her some food to bring along. Things never changed. Thousands of years, and they were no different from the people who walked on the ground they now stood on in all the time that had passed.
"No need," Io said. She stood up straight. "I'll be fine. I'll survive."
"You shouldn't be after survival," Adrian murmured. "You should be after a life."
"And you can't have the latter when you don't even have the former yet." Io scratched her forehead. "It'll be okay. I have years ahead of myself to enjoy. I'll just do everything that I need now."
"You're twenty-five. Not in your first blush of youth."
"I never claimed that I was." Io turned to face her sister. "You're twenty-seven."
"Operating damned successful clubs with more money than I know what to do with. I'm content. What are you?"
"Are you content?" Io challenged. "Because all the money in the world couldn't fill in that empty hole in your heart, Fayette."
The woman grinned. It was ugly, out-of-place on her face, all teeth and no smile. "And what do you know about filling in empty holes, Iolanthe?"
The two half-sisters glared at each other for a few moments, and then both tore their gazes away. Io let out a snort. Adrian all but rolled his eyes, always disapproving of their strange rivalry. Maybe it was because the two sisters were too alike, even if neither were willing to admit it.
"Well," Fayette drawled. "If you want to go, we won't stop you. Just don't forget about us, yeah? You'll break Naeva's heart."
"Naeva's stronger than that."
"Yes, yes, I suppose she is. After what General Man did..." Fayette trailed off, then shook her head. "But we've moved past that now."
"We moved past that years ago," Adrian said gently. "Need help with the packing?"
Io shook her head, gesturing to the two chests on her bed, one closed, one opened, and the small rucksack beside it. "Not much I brought here."
"She hua yi dian ni hui si ma?' Fayette's words were biting. Would it kill you to be a bit more luxurious?
Io raised a brow. "Wo xi huan jian pu, ni jue de you wen ti?" I like it simple. You have a problem with that?
Fayette just let out a noise that sounded suspiciously like a snort.
Adrian's commentary and view on the situation was simple. And expected. "You zhi." Childish. Io couldn't say he was wrong without sounding like a self-absorbed idiot, so she stayed quiet.
She said, "Whatever. I'm leaving soon."
Her exit from Gira was just as quiet as her entry. She might as well have never existed at all in the first place. There were no farewell parties. Just a quick stop at the clubs the twins and Naeva Li operated, where she bid farewell to the final member of the trio. Naeva didn't look surprised.
All she had said was, "Once you go to them, you can't go back."
Io had lowered her head in reply, not daring herself to say a word. Naeva had her own negative experiences with those in Sai. For the past six years, the woman had hid here, slowly building up her kingdom, not once glancing back at the empire that had birthed her, raised her, ruined her. She had nothing there she wanted, needed. It was admirable, the way Naeva had rid herself of her past and started over on a blank slate. She wished she could do that.
But Io had said, quietly in reply, "You know he's still looking for you?"
Naeva's responding smile had been vicious and knowing. She most definitely kept tabs on the catalyst of her disgrace, not that Io could blame her, even when she was friends with the man who caused this. "Good. Let him suffer. He deserves it after what he did to me."
"You really hate him, don't you?"
"I don't hate him." Naeva had flexed her perfectly manicured fingernails, all painted a blood red shade. "I just don't like him, that's all. You can't blame me for feeling a bit sadistic after all he did."
"It's been six years."
"Seven years for you, yeah? You haven't forgiven him either. A word of advice." Naeva had then pursed her lips. "There's many men out there. Bad men. Bad men who love breaking hearts of girls like you and me. Betraying our trust. Don't let them."
But now, on the ship as she got further and further away from the Giran shore, Io wanted to argue back:
But what if they hadn't meant to? What if they hadn't meant to hurt you at all?
And maybe that was the worst part, when you were wronged, yet the other person hadn't made an error at all. There was no one to blame except yourself. And she'd fallen down that trap too many times to count. That perpetual cycle of self-blame and self-loathing until the world came crashing down around you. Until you stood in the centre of a disaster of your own making.
But she'd grown up now, finally learnt her lessons. And she's shut the pages on the last chapter of her life.
This was the beginning of something new, something better. She'd make sure of it, whatever it took.