Chapter 23 Callum
CALLUM
When Lily took a bath, I headed to the castle alone. I asked to speak to Talon, and one of the guards escorted me to his study. The door was wide open, so I could see Talon and Queen Eldinar facing each other in armchairs, having a tense moment even though neither of them spoke.
Talon’s gaze was focused on the floor while he slouched in the chair.
Queen Eldinar continued to stare at him, but when she noticed me, her eyes flicked in my direction.
I silently dismissed myself.
“Talon, Callum is here to see you,” she said. “I feel like our conversation has concluded.”
I stopped and turned back to the open doorway.
Talon straightened in his chair as he faced her, and then he spoke in Elvish, like he was fluent in it. “Riv yoru’rse vin bealoruso kila ceroso rivan…”
She held his stare for a long time before she placed her hand over her heart and said something back. “Riv hei’vango var.” She gave a slight bow to him then exited the room and walked past me, giving me a respectful look but without a smile.
Talon rose to his feet and regarded me.
“I apologize for interrupting your conversation.”
“Don’t apologize for interrupting my apology.” He turned to the armchair and took a seat. “Queen Eldinar is the only friend I have outside of Khazmuda, and I said a lot of unforgivable things to her. I’m lucky that she was kind enough to pardon my crime.”
I didn’t ask him for details because it seemed like a private matter that was none of my business. I was surprised he’d shared any of it with me at all.
“What did you need, Callum?” he asked with a sigh, like he was tired.
“Perhaps this isn’t the best time.”
“It’s never the best time for anything,” he said.
“She shared her conversation with Riviana. We only have two days before the portal shatters, so time grows thin. When Viper returns, we’ll have to travel to the dead island.
There’s not much time to prepare. It’s my greatest hope that this plan is a success, because I want to live a life finally free of the underworld’s interference.
It’s haunted me these last twentysomething years, thinking of Bahamut every time I see the hints of the scar he gave me.
I’m glad to be free of it once and for all.
And if we die…I suppose we all die together. ”
The weight of the task rested heavily on my shoulders, but I wasn’t just fighting for Lily’s life, but the life I was desperate to have with her.
He looked at me again. “What do you need, Callum?”
I’d never asked a father for his daughter’s hand in marriage.
Anya lost her father when she was a little girl.
I’d asked her mother, but it wasn’t the same situation.
She was just happy that her daughter had a man to care for her.
In this situation, I was a penniless commoner asking a king for the hand of his princess daughter.
“I want to marry your daughter, and I ask for your blessing, Talon.”
He clearly hadn’t expected me to ask that, especially right now. Confusion was rife on his face as his eyes darted back and forth between mine. “I don’t understand.”
“She forgave me and said she doesn’t care how Khazmuda or the other dragons feel…she chooses me.”
Talon continued to look confused. “And you think now is the appropriate time to ask this?”
I tried to word my response carefully, but I couldn’t think of a way to do so without planting fear in his head. “I don’t know what will happen down there, Talon. I don’t know if we’ll all make it back.”
Understanding moved into his gaze before he swallowed, his throat shifting.
“And if that happens, I’d like to tell Lily that I asked you when I had the chance. It would mean a lot to her…and the rest of your family.”
His eyes slowly dropped when he was forced to consider his own mortality. When he had to think about a world in which he no longer existed. When his wife would be a widow and his children wouldn’t have their father.
I hated myself for forcing him to think about it, to confront a reality he couldn’t escape.
After a heavy silence spent in deep reflection, he found my eyes again.
“My daughter is the greatest ruler that’s ever led the Southern Isles.
She doesn’t need my blessing, Callum. My father didn’t want me to marry Vivian because she was a fisherman’s daughter, and I fucking married her anyway.
And if he had said the same about Calista, it wouldn’t have changed anything. ”
That wasn’t the answer I wanted.
Maybe he could see it in my eyes because he continued.
“But, yes, Callum Riverside, I give you my blessing. I know you would die for my daughter, that you’ll be a great father to her children, that you would support her rule rather than try to sabotage it for your own gain.
That the love you have for my daughter is pure and true and real. ”
His words meant the world to me but I didn’t know how to say that, so I said something else, something far simpler. “Thank you.”
“I wish you two a lifetime of happiness,” he said as he clapped me on the shoulder. “And I would be happy to call you a son.”