But then Trev Blayne turned the corner, and Kalon grabbed him and pinned him against the hard wall, baring his fangs at him. “Why are you following us?” he hissed.
“Oh, that’s what you meant,” I murmured. Kalon had recognized Trev’s scent, having known him for so long. It must’ve come so naturally to him. I hadn’t made the connection, and I was too shocked to make sense of this unexpected situation. “What are you doing here?” I asked Trev.
The Rimian didn’t fight back, allowing Kalon to exert his dominance. He raised his hands in a defensive gesture. “Not looking to hurt you.”
“I would love to see you try,” Kalon said, grinning. “I’m not going to ask you again, Trev.”
An idea shot through my head when Trev refused to answer. Connecting several dots, I searched his pockets while Kalon held him in place. Trev tried to move, but Kalon had a firm grip on him. Seconds later, I pulled out a braided thread from his dark green tunic, and my stomach sank.
Kalon’s face turned pale at the sight of it. “Care to explain, Trev?”
“No.”
“Don’t mess with me!” Kalon growled and grabbed Trev by the tunic, angrily shaking him. “The Red Threads just tried to kill us, so you’d better have a good explanation as to why you’re following us around and why you’re carrying a red thread in your pocket!”
Trev hesitated, further stoking Kalon’s swelling rage. I worried he might lose control, since he was dealing with a potentially treacherous friend who, above it all, had also lied to him earlier with regards to the Red Threads.
“You need to tell us the truth before someone else gets hurt,” I said, hoping the Rimian might do the right thing. Kalon was dangerously close to the tipping point now.
“I didn’t know they were going for your heads,” Trev finally said.
Utterly astonished by his response, Kalon let go and moved back a couple of feet, as if the rug had just been pulled out from under him.
I gasped. “Are you serious?”
“You’re with the Red Threads, then,” Kalon replied, glowering at him.
“I didn’t ask for it!” Trev said. “I’m doing this because I want to take the Darklings down! Don’t think I forgot about what they did to Luna!”
Suddenly, it all seemed to make sense for Kalon. There was a piece of history I was missing here, but he knew exactly what Trev was talking about. Lights flickered in his blue eyes, and the Rimian let a deep sigh roll out from his chest.
“I have spent years trying to figure out a way into the Darklings. It’s why I’ve joined the tournaments. Why I angled for the big prize. It’s all so I can become an Aeternae. So I can infiltrate the Darklings,” he added.
“You told me you wanted immortality,” Kalon murmured.
“What’s eternal life without Luna, huh?”
“Guys, I’m glad you’re not at each other’s throats, but I’m way behind here. What’s going on?” I asked.
Kalon offered a bitter smile. “My cousin Luna. She was only nineteen when the Darklings murdered her,” he said. “We don’t know why. Well, actually we do now… She was supposed to be a sacrifice for the Black Fever, I guess… Anyway, she wasn’t their only victim, but she mattered to us. To Trev, in particular. They were in love.”
“Whoa,” I managed. “Is… Is that allowed?”
“It’s not against the law, but it’s socially frowned upon,” Kalon replied. “Point is, they never got a chance at a life together.”
“And no one avenged her death,” Trev continued. “Five years gone, and her killers are still free. It’s been my sole motivation to get out of bed in the morning. The thought that I will get them eventually.”
“How do you plan on doing that, exactly?” I asked.
“The Red Threads have connections to the Darklings. Connections that not even that guy you two captured knows about,” Trev said. “It’s known only in the leadership circle. They exchange intel, occasionally. They don’t work together, as factions, and they pretend to be against each other, but really, they’re not.”
“I’m confused,” I mumbled. “The dude we captured said they were anti-Darklings.”
“He knows what the leaders told him,” Trev said. “In the end, the Red Threads are perfectly happy with Darklings dropping Aeternae bodies. A little bit of anarchy never hurt a rebellion, did it?”
“Holy crap…”
Kalon chuckled softly. “Right there with you.”
“I’m in touch with one of the Red Thread leaders. I told him I want to switch over to the Darklings after I’m turned. He said he can introduce me to the right people,” Trev said. “That’s been my strategy from the very beginning. I spent months in the Rimian taverns, eavesdropping on the right conversations, until I realized that my best shot as a Rimian at entering the Darkling circle was via the Blood Arena and the Red Threads. It’s the only reason why I joined these so-called revolutionaries.”
I noticed the contempt in his voice. “You don’t seem to like the Red Threads much.”
“They traffic in Rimians and Naloreans, much like the Darklings,” Trev replied.
Kalon didn’t seem surprised by this.
“What do you mean?” I asked, increasingly overwhelmed by this sudden dump of crucial information. My blood ran cold, as part of me already understood what Trev had meant.
“They abduct Rimians and Naloreans from the poorer neighborhoods. In some cases, they pay flying-ship pirates to smuggle them in from Rimia or Nalore, directly, by the hundreds,” he explained. “They tag them and sell them to rich Aeternae. It’s Visio’s best-kept secret, in case you didn’t know. The upper echelon and the government know about this, and even though outright slavery is illegal, they don’t enforce the law on these hounds because they’re direct beneficiaries. Almost every Aeternae household worth over a hundred thousand gold coins has at least one Rimian or Nalorean locked in a room, somewhere, on whom they feed.”
My stomach turned. I was close to retching, instinctively covering my mouth. Kalon, on the other hand, was perfectly calm, his gaze fixed on the ground as he listened.
“You know about this?!” I croaked. “Do you have Rimian or Nalorean blood slaves at home?”
He looked at me with ice-cold shock. “Never! I would never do this to anyone! I would never hold someone against their will.”
“But you know about the practice.”
