Chapter 20 #3
Nessa’s chest hitched, and she pressed her knuckles to her lips, and then she bowed her head and pressed the base of her palms into her eyes. They remained thus as if both spelled, the old man on his knees, his daughter tall and pressed against the shelving before him.
Finally, Nessa dropped her fists, and her shoulders sagged once more. Her gaze was wounded, raw, and so sad that it cut Harald to the quick.
“Yes,” she whispered, and fresh tears ran down her cheeks. “Yes, Father.” Her voice swelled with emotion. “Yes. I forgive you.”
“Oh, good,” snuffled the old man. “Oh, that’s nice. Let us sit, then. Verella, let’s sit and talk about the old days. Do you remember—do you remember Lord Cassomir, and his trained parrot? Oh, that was a merry bird, and—”
Nessa stared at the old man as if searing the memory into her face, then tore herself away from the wall, took Harald by the sleeve and dragged him out of the study.
She went faster and faster down the hall, and burst out into the night at a run, releasing Harald to sprint down the driveway, fast as a fleeing shadow, only to stop and drop to her knees before the gate.
Harald rushed up alongside her. He felt lost, unequal to what he’d witnessed, but he knew, if nothing else, that he just had to stay with her. “Nessa?”
She sobbed, then laughed, and raised her face to the sky. “It’s the damndest thing.”
“What is?” he asked softly, kneeling beside her.
She canted her head to the side so as to look at him, cheeks wet, her smile heartbreaking. “The Fallen Angel must have been listening in. When I forgave him? I… I was awarded a level.”
“You were? Here? Outside the dungeon?”
Nessa laughed again, miserable and amused, and then shook her head despairingly. “I suppose everything, even my pain, is but mortar for the damned bitch.”
Harald frowned, tried to reconcile everything that just happened. “I…”
She looked questioningly at him.
“I don’t think that’s it,” he said, feeling his way forward. “Remember when you said you hadn’t leveled after fighting the Handmaidens?”
She nodded mutely.
“And how your powers weren’t working?”
Again she nodded.
“I think—maybe—your level was just… deferred? Until you could do… this?” He waved at the old manor house behind them.
“I think you had to find a way to release, or—or whatever it was that happened inside. You’ve been—all the years I’ve known you, you’ve been carrying so much pain, and—and maybe by forgiving him, you… I mean, how do you feel now?”
“Now?” Her smile was bitterness refined into the ultimate elixir.
“A fool. A mad woman. To have feared that… whatever it is he’s become.
Or perhaps always was. To see him like that.
So… old. And broken. And pathetic. I—” She inhaled sharply, raggedly, and closed her eyes, sinking back onto her heels.
“Oh, the angels wept. I’ve spent so many years in terror of his fist, his opinion, his… everything.”
Harald shuffled alongside her to drape an arm over her shoulder. “You did it, though. You came back. You faced him.”
“I did.” She exhaled. “And I feel… to answer your question—I feel… empty?” She considered. “I forgave him, didn’t I?”
Harald couldn’t help but smirk. “You did.”
“Why would I do such a thing?” She stared off into the night.
“But… how could I not? I always thought him so strong, but he was so weak. So undone. Perhaps he wasn’t always that way, but the father I grew up knowing…
I see it now. It was his weakness that terrified me, masquerading as strength.
And when I realized that, I…” She exhaled again, blowing out her cheeks.
“I felt pity. The pain is still there. The loss. But I felt pity. For us both. So—yes. I think…”
She trailed off, and didn’t finish her thought. After a moment, she leaned her head against his shoulder.
They remained thus, kneeling on the gravel drive, in the thick silence of the night.
Eventually, she stirred, as if rousing herself from sleep. Drew away from him, then slapped his knee. “Come on.” She climbed smoothly to her feet. He rose rather less fluidly, his legs having cramped. “We need to get you to the dungeon.”
“You sure?” He fell in alongside her as they walked the rest of the way toward the gate. “We don’t have to rush.”
“I’m sure.” She wiped at her face, then gathered her long hair back into a tail and tied it off with a leather thong from around her wrist. “Yes. I’m good.”
He looked at her tentatively. “You are?”
She considered, slipped through the gap in the gate, then smiled as he followed. “Yes. Perhaps for the first time in forever. This emptiness. It feels… good. Like there’s room at long last for something else in my soul.” Then she laughed dismissively. “Who knows.”
They fell in together and walked up the road, alongside the walled forest, and back toward the great gibbet at the hilltop.
“Thanks, Harry.” Her words were warm and soft. “Thank you. For coming. For being here.”
“Always,” he said, and linked his arm with hers. “I’ll always be here for you.”
She squeezed his arm with her own, and they walked the rest of the way back to Flutic in silence.