Chapter 9 Lily
LILY
I left the dishes on the dining table and let the fire burn out. Eventually, I made it to the couch and cried on and off through the night, all the blankets pulled over me to keep warm since Callum wasn’t there to warm me with his skin or keep my fire going.
I had been devastated when my father had fallen. Devastated when dragons had dropped out of the skies. Devastated for myself when I’d reached the bottom of the funnel and was smothered by monsters.
But that despair was nothing compared to this.
I rotated through the different emotions, blazing anger, the sting of betrayal, unbearable loss…over and over. Doomed to repeat them nonstop, I cried until my ducts ran dry, and then once my body had rehydrated, I did it again.
A knock sounded on the door. “Lily, it’s your father.”
My responses were delayed in the clouds of depression. I stared at the empty wine bottles I’d drunk through the night on the coffee table and sat up, seeing the morning light come through the windows. It must have been dawn or shortly afterward.
He knocked again. “Just tell me you’re alright. Zehemoth says you’re in crisis.”
Crisis was the perfect way to put it. “It’s open.” I sat up with the blanket around my shoulders, the fire long dead.
My father stepped inside, took a quick scan of the dirty dining table and then looked at me on the couch. He seemed to glean that Callum wasn’t there, that it was only me, and I was physically okay…just heartbroken. “Zunieth…”
He came around the couch with wide eyes as he looked at me, liked I looked as bad as I felt. Then he took a seat, still looking at me like he was afraid I might burst from all the tears stuffed inside my body. “Lily, what happened?”
I didn’t have the heart to say it all, to repeat the horror, so I just stood up and moved to his side of the couch…and fell into his chest.
His arms were there to catch me, to envelop me tightly with the protection of a grizzly bear.
His touch reminded me of the scales of a dragon, the way Zehemoth had cocooned me to protect me from harm when we slept in the wildlands together.
I could even feel the heat from his chest as if there was an eternal flame inside his belly like Khazmuda.
My father rested his chin on my head as he held me against him, gently moving his fingers through my hair.
I started to cry in his arms, feeling his grip tighten as if that would help me through it. “You were right, Dad,” I said as I sniffled. “You were right.”
My tears put me to sleep, and I woke up in the same place where I’d fallen asleep.
In my father’s arms.
I hadn’t cried like that since I was little, since Hawk had broken my toy sword then thrown it over the cliffside to disappear down below.
I left my father’s arms and looked at the covered window, seeing the light was far more intense now. Hours must have passed, and now it was the afternoon. I ran my fingers through my hair then touched my face, feeling the puffiness of my cheeks from the tears.
My father stared at the side of my face but stayed quiet.
I moved to the far side of the couch, leaned against the corner, and pulled my knees to my chest.
My father continued to look at me, his stare far calmer than it’d been when he’d first come over. He didn’t interrogate me about my feelings, just let me sit in the silence as reality slowly crept back into my mind. “Can I get you something to eat?”
“No.”
“Water?”
“Wine would be nice.”
He looked at the bottles on the coffee table before he left the couch and walked into the kitchen. When he came back, he had a glass full of water. He set it on the coffee table in front of me before he returned to his seat. “I’m here if you want to talk…or if you don’t want to talk.”
“I know, Dad.”
He got comfortable against the couch and stared at the cold fireplace, trying to take the attention off me.
I stared at the stone hearth, the dragons carved into the surface. “Callum told me something, and it’s changed everything.”
He still didn’t ask. Just listened.
“Told me that…” I almost didn’t want to tell my father because I already knew he disliked Callum.
Didn’t want to give him another reason. But I couldn’t keep this secret from him…
or the rest of my family. “He had already made a deal with the Barbarians when he and I met. That he served them at the same time he served me.”
My father didn’t react at all, which was a surprise. He continued to stare at the hearth like he somehow already knew.
“He claims he was a traitor to them but an ally to me, and I believe him. But it still changes everything, because he’s the reason they came to Riviana Star. He’s the reason they had an army of vampires. He’s the reason you were stabbed. He’s the reason behind it all.”
My father continued to stare straight ahead without blinking.
Whenever he didn’t blink, I knew he was angry. But he tried not to show it to me, not wanting to upset me more than I already was.
“I wish he hadn’t told me.”
“I’m grateful that he did. Because you’re right, it does change everything.”
I stared at the side of my father’s face, seeing him remain somber.
I turned back to the fire and let the silence build between us.
My father eventually spoke. “I’m sorry, Zunieth.”
“So am I.”
“I know what he means to you.”
I didn’t expect him to handle this with such empathy instead of white-hot rage. Didn’t expect him to keep his voice so low. “You were right, and I’m sorry I didn’t believe you. I was in love, and…I just couldn’t see straight.”
“Love makes you blind, but that’s not always a bad thing. Your mother’s love has made her blind to the millions of reasons why I’m unsuitable for her. That tunnel vision has only brought people closer together.”
I was still surprised by his calmness. “I expected you to react much differently to this.”
After a long stare at the fire, he turned to look at me.
His face had remained unchanged throughout my entire life, and now we were almost the same age in appearance.
To anyone who looked at us through the window, they would think we were friends or siblings.
But I saw past his youth to a man aged by experience and war.
Saw a man who had an endless depth to his eyes, similar to Callum.
“The god of the underworld is tasked with the heinous crime of harvesting souls from the worst of humankind. It was hard to believe that someone in that position could be as good as you claimed to me. This revelation actually makes me feel better.”
I continued to stare into his dark eyes.
“My suspicion is now confirmed, and I feel like I finally understand Callum Riverside. And I feel better that he shared this information with you rather than chose to conceal it. It makes me more inclined to trust him—not less.”
“He’s the reason you were stabbed…and you trust him more?”
“It’s far more complicated than that.” He looked away again. “How do you feel about all this, Lily?”
“Did all the crying and empty wine bottles not give it away?”
The corner of his mouth rose into a fraction of a smile before it quickly disappeared. “I admit it’s a hard truth to accept.”
“All the while I was falling in love with him, he didn’t tell me.”
His eyes shifted away, but he gave a nod in understanding.
“We lost a lot of good soldiers, a lot of dragons, the damage to the village and our fleet of ships. Our kingdom was being viciously attacked while you lay in bed, unable to do a damn thing about it. I grieved for a father who hadn’t actually died.
And while Callum was directly responsible for all of this, I was foolishly falling in love with him.
He says the powers he gifted to me without wanting anything in return saved our kingdom, but I wouldn’t have needed them in the first place if he hadn’t helped the Barbarians.
He voids all of his contributions. He was just putting out all the fires he started. ”
My father nodded in agreement.
“It completely changes the story…the story of us. Star-crossed lovers separated by the veil between the living and the dead who will do anything to be together, and now he’s the chess master and I’m just a fucking pawn. We’re all fucking pawns.”
“Do you believe he would have made the deal with the Barbarians if he’d met you first?”
I held my father’s gaze and didn’t need to consider the question. “No.”
“And do you think you would have still fallen in love with him?”
I couldn’t imagine being around Callum and not falling deeply and passionately in love with him. Couldn’t imagine not feeling my body tense every time he was near. “Yes.”
He looked to the fireplace ahead and fell into silence once more.
“You think I should forgive him.”
“I didn’t say that.”
“Then what do you think I should do?”
“That’s up to you, Lily. If you want him to leave the Southern Isles, I’ll escort him elsewhere. If you want to marry him, you have my blessing.”
“That is not the attitude you had before at all.”
“And I realized the error of my ways.”
“Dad.”
He continued to look at the fireplace.
“Dad.”
He finally turned to look at me.
“You weren’t wrong,” I said as I shook my head.
“You were right the entire time, like you always are. I should have listened to you. I shouldn’t have foolishly risked my eternal soul for someone who couldn’t be honest with me.
I should have known he was too good to be true.
I should have known he was hiding something from me.
When I reflect on the past, I see the evidence right in front of my face.
I see all the signs I was too distracted to notice, and I feel so stupid.
” Tears started to flood my eyes again. “I let a man make me feel stupid.”
My father briefly closed his eyes, like it hurt to hear me say that.
“And he was the last person I ever thought would make me feel like this.”