Chapter 13 #2
“No, because you care.” I hooked a thumb beneath her chin, pulling her to look at me.
“You could’ve taken yourself out of the equation a long time ago, Petra.
Malosym wants you gone, and you could’ve made that happen.
You’re still here, still fighting because you care.
Because you care about the rest of the world and what you’ll leave behind. ”
A fat tear slid down her cheek, her jaw tight. “He can’t win, Cal.”
“As long as you keep trying, he won’t. And I’ll be here every step of the way. Where you go, I go, remember? ”
She closed her eyes and leaned against my shoulder again, and we stared into the darkness until the fires at camp began to burn low, until the guards changed shifts once, then again, until the sun broke through and split the darkness.
◆ ◆ ◆
I’d been staring at the back of Petra’s head for hours as we made our way through the Onyx Pass.
Even as we marched over dirt dappled in sunlight beneath a canopy of green trees and blue sky, it felt eerie.
My eyes scanned the forest, my body on high alert since we’d broken down camp this morning.
She wanted to be alone, and that was understandable.
But I’d be damned if I wasn’t watching her back as she rode.
“How is she doing?” a voice asked from behind me, and I tensed when the figure appeared beside me atop their own horse.
Kauvras.
I swallowed hard, sucking my teeth for a moment in an attempt to keep my composure. “Last night frightened her.”
Kauvras grunted, nodding as he watched Petra. “She’s strong.”
“Strongest person I know.”
“She should hate me.”
“She won’t,” I answered quickly. Kauvras remained silent. “She’s forgiving of people who don’t deserve forgiveness.” I should know, I thought to myself.
He sniffed, mulling over my words. “ You should hate me.”
“I do.”
I wasn’t like Petra. I couldn’t find forgiveness by looking at the root of the action against me, at the intentions. I hated Kauvras, and I wanted him to know it.
He didn’t protest. Didn’t try to state his case.
He simply nodded. His breaths were measured, his eyes forward.
Silence stretched between us, fragile and uncomfortable.
I hated this. I wanted to go back to the time when my father was a faceless enigma, existing only within the confines of my own mind like some sort of creature of myths.
“You left my mother,” I finally said, emotionless.
He sat silent for so long I thought maybe he hadn’t heard me. When he finally spoke, his words were small. They didn’t match his hulking frame and booming voice. “She was everything.”
My fists clenched on the reins. “But you left.”
One hand rubbed over the scruff on his jaw.
“I wanted to keep him away from her. My cause… It started off so simple. So many of us in Taitha were unhappy with the way the kingdom was being run. I just wanted Cabillia to have a better leader. And then Castemont got involved, and he got my blood somehow, and that was when it started to go wrong. That’s when the leechthorn started, and the…
” He trailed off, bracing himself. “And the invasions of villages and towns. I thought I was going mad. He promised he would help me ascend to Sainthood, and I thought maybe if I did, it would cure the madness. It was bad enough he knew who she was. I didn’t need him getting his hands on her. And had he known about you…”
“But he did know about me.” Whether it was the day he met me in Eserene and recognized the blue of my eyes, the same blue of the man sitting beside me, or whether it was before that, he knew about me. He knew I was Kauvras’ son.
“I… I was scared. He’d used other peoples’ blood to do horrid, horrid things, Belin, and I couldn’t bear the thought of–”
“You have no right to call me by the name she gave me,” I snapped, louder than I’d intended. Petra’s posture suddenly stiffened. She didn’t turn to look back. She could probably guess exactly who I was talking to.
My mother called me Belin. People called me Belin when I ascended the throne of Widoras, but it felt less personal in such an official capacity. Hearing Kauvras speak my name like this, so personal, so…familiar, it rubbed me the wrong way .
“I’m sorry,” he breathed, his eyes on the ground. And there was such pain on his face, such anguish, it gave me pause.
I suddenly felt like a knife had been buried in my chest, the sense of loss even greater than I’d ever imagined. “You loved her.”
He turned to me, and though I kept my face forward, I knew if I looked at him I’d see a familiar pain.
“Of course I loved her. I still do.” His voice cracked on the last word, twisting the knife.
“Castemont, back when he was Castemont, had told me she’d had a son a few years after I’d left.
I didn’t realize it was another son. I’d hoped she’d moved on to find someone new, for her sake.
Someone who would love her the way she deserved to be loved, be there for her. ”
My molars gnashed against each other as I tried to keep it together.
My mother had told me about my father, sure, about how she loved him and he loved her.
But there had come a time when I thought maybe it had all been a bit exaggerated.
When I grew up and learned the way the world worked, I couldn’t help but wonder if there’d been any love shared between them at all.
Maybe it’d been a simple tryst and she’d walked away pregnant.
Maybe he’d had a wife already and it was a case of infidelity.
Darker, more sinister ideas had come to mind, ones I fought hard to keep at bay.
“I had to leave,” he continued, and a part of me thought maybe he was telling himself that more than he was telling me. “I was going mad. I…” He shook his head, his chest rising and falling quickly, as if he were fighting to get a hold of himself. “I needed to keep her safe.”
I was still silent. What the fuck was I supposed to say? Was I supposed to thank him?
“There was a point when I knew I was going mad, but I was still present enough within my own mind to know what was happening. And I swear…” He trailed off, his eyes far beyond Petra, far beyond the forest that surrounded us.
“I swear I did hear Katia tell me her daughter would be coming. But I was soon po werless against that wretched bastard’s will.
And when Castemont came to me and told me that Arimara…
” He choked on a sob, clearing his throat in an attempt to keep himself composed.
“When he told me your mother was dead, my entire world tilted.”
Betrayal was hot in my ribcage. He’d been nearby all along, and he’d been taken from me. I’d lost years with my father.
“I’m sorry, Cal, that I wasn’t there for you,” he said, his voice sober.
My eyes were on Petra, her caramel hair swishing back and forth over her proud, straight spine as her horse continued on.
She was my everything, and she was everything to the world.
And it hit me that I’d done the same Saints damned thing.
Maybe the circumstances were different. But I’d left her all the same, going along with Castemont’s plan and dying as Calomyr for fear of what Castemont would do to her if I didn’t.
And how many people had acted against her, not of their own will? How many people had she extended forgiveness to after their curses were broken?
Kauvras had acted against the people he loved most because of Malosym. And fuck, if I didn’t know that feeling.
Finally, I said the words that somehow felt like both a triumph and a defeat, a blade and a salve on the wound it left behind. “It’s not your fault.”
Something shifted between Kauvras and I, then.
And after five more days of travel, when Petra’s mother and Solise greeted us at the edge of the Taitha, I didn’t flinch when I saw the castle.
I didn’t wonder where in the city my father could be.
I knew where he was, and though I couldn’t forgive him yet, I understood.