Chapter 13 Lily #2
“It’s as real as what I have with you and Mom.
It’s as real as your love for Khazmuda and my love for Zehemoth.
I would marry him tomorrow if he were here.
You believe in me enough to hand me the kingdom, tell me I’m smart and I’m strong and everything you could ever want in a daughter, but my word suddenly isn’t enough for you.
You dismiss me like a stupid teenager who’s foolishly given her heart to someone with bad intentions, not as the woman you constantly praise.
I saved Riviana Star, I saved the Southern Isles, and I saved your life—but my word still isn’t good enough. ”
He wore a tired expression, like he just wanted this conversation to end. Like my emotion didn’t provoke him the way it should. “Why is he down there?” he asked with borderline indifference.
“What?” It was such a change of direction that I felt like I was riding on the back of Khazmuda and he made a drastic turn the way we’d just come.
“He made a deal with Bahamut. What was the deal?”
“What does that matter?”
“Because only vengeful and violent men make those kinds of deals. They trade their soul to win wars and steal thrones. They’re greedy and sinister and the types of men that belong in the underworld. And you’re going to ask me to risk everyone I love for a man who chose to be there?”
“You made a deal with Bahamut, Dad.”
“That applies to me as well. I deserve to be down there for everything I did to get my kingdom back.”
“Well, I don’t agree. Nor does Mom or Hawk.”
“You don’t know who I was,” he said with hardness in his gaze. “And if you knew all the atrocities I committed, you’d be ashamed to look at me.”
I gave a slight shake of my head. “Nothing could ever change the way I love you.” I didn’t care who he killed. I didn’t care who he deceived. It was blind, unconditional love that I would never extend to anyone else. The bond between us was just too strong.
His eyes softened, and he quickly dropped his chin in an attempt to hide the reaction. “What deal did he make, Lily?” He lifted his chin and looked at me again.
“I—I don’t know.” He’d never told me, just vague pieces of it. “Just said he did it for someone he loved.”
My father’s softness was completely gone now. “You ask me to bend over backward to rescue this man from the underworld, and you don’t even know why he’s there? You say you’d marry him tomorrow when you don’t even know who he really is—”
“I do know who he is.”
“The motivation to strike a deal with an evil god encompasses all of who you are. It reflects him to his core, and he didn’t even share it with you. Lily, do you realize how ridiculous that is?”
“Just because he didn’t confide in me doesn’t mean I’m unworthy of his story. It just means it’s too hard for him to talk about. I can see the difference, so why can’t you? You’ve told Mom every single piece of your life.”
“I keep nothing from her.”
“But did you show her all of you in the first few months?”
His angry eyes flicked back and forth between mine. “No. But she knew all of me when I was taken to the underworld and she got me back. You can’t risk your life and your soul for a man who wouldn’t tell you his greatest shame.”
“He said he was different from the others down there because he made his deal out of love, not power. He sacrificed himself for this person he didn’t name, and because his soul is different from the monsters below, that soul has survived all this time.
The specifics don’t matter. He shouldn’t be down there. ”
“He made that decision of his own free will.”
“How can you say that?”
“Because I made the same decision and accepted the consequences. He’s a man, and he can deal with it.”
I stepped back and shook my head. “As someone who’s been there in the flesh, as someone who knows what it’s like, how can you have so little empathy for a man I love?
For a man who gave up eternity out of love and not ambition?
For a man who saved me from the Barbarians, who gave me the strength of a god and the army of the dead, who did everything in his power to make sure I survived, even though he could never have me?
We’re all alive because of him—especially you. ”
He stared me down with that guarded and lethal gaze, his heart dead in his chest for anyone outside us and Khazmuda and his family.
“Stop giving him credit for your success.”
“But it’s true.”
“If anyone deserves credit other than you, it’s General Viper.
With no alliance with the Southern Isles, he came to a land he’d never seen with three hundred ships and saved men and dragon alike.
He looked me in the eye like a man and told me he did it for you.
I would never accept a vampire for my daughter, but I would make an exception for him.
I’m not unreasonable, Lily. But the god of the underworld… absolutely fucking not.”
“I don’t love Viper.”
“Maybe you would if you gave him a chance.”
“I don’t love him.”
“He’s handsome, strong, honorable—”
“Fuck off. I said I don’t love him.”
He winced like I slapped him. “Don’t speak to me like that again.”
“Where is my father?” I yelled. “Where is the man who would burn the world for me just because I asked him to?” My angry eyes flicked back and forth between his.
“Even after our last argument, I thought I would return, and you would immediately fight for me just because I asked you to. I told you I want to marry this man and have his children, and you continue to feel nothing. After everything you’ve done for me, after the way you’ve loved me like a dragon loves his hatchling, I really thought you would do anything for me.
” Tears sprang into my eyes, salty with rage and heavy with sorrow.
“Travel to the ends of the earth to find me when I’ve lost my way.
Give up your life just so I would smile.
Would do anything I asked just because I was the one who asked.
But here I am, begging you to help me, and you continue to look at me with the coldest eyes I’ve ever seen.
I tell you I love this man with my whole heart, and you push some other guy on me like he’s that replaceable.
Imagine how pissed off you would be if your own father had said that about Mom?
That you should just pick someone else because she was the inconvenient choice. ”
“Not the same thing situation at all.”
“But it’s the same idea, and you know it’s insulting.” I slammed my fist into my chest. “You insult me. You insult my heart and my mind and my soul. You insult us.” Tears continued to spill down my cheeks.
His anger faded as his eyes softened too, softened to wilted rose petals in the springtime rain. “Lily—”
“I didn’t need you to save Riviana Star. I didn’t need you to protect the Southern Isles. I didn’t need you when I defended the castle against the Barbarians who sought to claim it. And you know what? I don’t need you now.”
He shut his eyes like I’d cut him down with a two-handed blade. They remained closed as he processed the fist that just hit him in the face and bloodied his eye. They eventually opened again, dead inside, like he didn’t feel anything at all.
I gave him a moment to change his mind, to offer his sword and his power in this crusade, but he continued to stand there with dropped shoulders and scarred eyes. He held his ground, none of my words piercing the stone that surrounded his heart.
I turned my back on him and walked out, tears dripping down my face, my heart broken by the last person I’d ever expected to harm it.