47. Kiera
Chapter 47
Kiera
D ad’s wide, rough palm touches the side of my face before absently stroking back the pale strands of my hair as I sit propped in his lap. He’s lost in his own thoughts. He may pet me, but the action is one of instinct rather than true care. His back is to the side of our little cabin, and though I fiddle with the edge of his shirtsleeve, wondering when he’ll bother to look down at me—or pay me any attention—his gaze is fixed ahead.
I turn my eyes to the sight of the sunset in the far distance, over the hills and trees that make up our home in the Hinterlands. The snow covers the ground, normally a hard dark brown in summer, now a blanket of white. Here, we don’t own the land so much as we are part of it. The various shades of oranges, reds, yellows, and blues that bleed into the sky as the sun sinks over the horizon hurt my eyes, but my dad never looks away. It’s as if he’s transfixed by the sight.
I sigh and drop the edge of his shirtsleeve. I hate it when he gets like this because it means he’s thinking of her. Why can’t he just think of me? I’m here. She’s not.
As if he senses my impending mood, he shifts under me, the thick thigh I’m perched on swaying and me with it. “Kiki?”
Biting down on my lower lip, I wince as the nickname I’ve grown so used to hearing from him hits my ears. I’m almost nine now. I’m not a little girl anymore and he doesn’t have to pretend that he doesn’t miss her. Even if I don’t understand why he would miss someone who obviously never cared about us.
I force myself to smile as I look up at him. “Can I make the soup tonight for dinner?” I ask.
Dad’s hard gray eyes, similar to my own, rove over my face, and for the first time since I climbed upon his lap to watch the sunset, he actually looks back at me. “Are you okay, little one?” he inquires.
My smile turns strained. “Of course,” I say. “Why wouldn’t I be?”
Dad doesn’t respond. His lips turn down as his hand cups the side of my head and he pulls me closer. My cheek smooshes against the rough wool of his tunic. It might be scratchy against my skin, but the smell he emits—like pine needles and ice—soothes the raging emotions inside my belly and chest.
“I’m sorry,” he murmurs, fingers stroking through my hair. “I must have drifted off again.”
I repress a snort. Dad never falls asleep during the day. No matter how tired he is. No matter if he spent several days out hunting a beast to cart back. He doesn’t nap. I wish he did. That would make me feel better than these random moments where he is there and yet also not. Whoever she is, it’s clear that she still holds a great power over him.
I hate her for that.
Hate her for leaving him even if I used to hate her for leaving me too. Now, I don’t. Not for myself. I didn’t know the woman so she never hurt me, but I would never forgive anyone for the sorrow in Dad’s eyes. Even if he never wanted me to see it, I do. I may have been born at night, but I wasn’t born last night. Even a nine-year-old can see the truth when it’s sitting right in front of her.
“You’re upset.” Dad sighs.
I stiffen but shake my head. “No, I ? —”
“Don’t try to lie to me, little one,” Dad cuts me off. “A father can always tell what his little girl is thinking.”
“I’m not little anymore,” I grumble. I’m a grown woman with responsibilities and darkness in her past. I’ve killed. I’ve tasted my own blood. I’ve seen death … haven’t I?
He chuckles and the sound reverberates through his chest and into my side, distracting me. “You’re still little enough to sit on my lap,” he counters and then as if to prove his point, he leverages up to his feet. His arms close around me, lifting me easily. “See,” he prompts, hefting me against his chest as he takes a turn around the side of our cabin, holding me high so that I have to toss one hand over his shoulder or risk slipping out of his hold.
“You don’t count!” I squeal, laughing even as he jostles me with each massive stride. “You’re big enough to carry grown men!”
Dad chuckles at my response and despite the fact that he built this cabin with his own hands before I’d even been born, he ducks beneath the front door frame, which has, for as long as I can remember, been a bit too low for him, and carries me inside. Apparently, he’d been quite young when he’d built the place and not yet done growing into his adult body ... or so he’s said.
Inside the house, he gently sets me down between the table and the fireplace, still smoldering with heat from an earlier fire. The skin at the corners of his eyes crinkle as he smiles down at me and crouches low.
“Now, are you going to tell me why you’re upset, little one?”
I frown. Why am I upset? Something niggles at the back of my mind, warning me of an impending threat. I glance around our cabin, taking in the old decor—all of the hand carved furniture, even the pieces that I’d made, though those are far more scarred than Dad’s handiwork.
I don’t want to think about things that upset me, I just want to stay here with Dad. Holding my arms out to him, I offer him a smile. “I’m not upset,” I tell him. “I’m happy to be here with you.”
Dad straightens to his full height and his expression changes, morphing into one of sad amusement. That doesn’t make sense though. Those two emotions don’t go together. Why would he be amused and sad at the same time?
“I’m glad to hear that, little one,” Dad says, “but you know that you can’t stay here forever. There’s a life waiting for you out there.”
I bite down on my lip and turn away from him, folding my arms over my chest. The scratchy feeling of my loose handmade tunic is too much against my sensitive skin. “I don’t want a life out there,” I tell him. “It hurts. People hurt me. If I stay here with you, I’m safe.”
His hand strokes my hair back as he gently turns me to face him again. Dad’s face is clearer than it has been in years—I see it so well now, all of the details I’d forgotten. There’s a small cut on the underside of his jaw, the line pale against his tanned skin.
“You’re always safe with me, baby girl,” Dad tells me. He continues to pet my hair, moving the strands out of my face. “But you’re all grown up now. Little girls don’t need their daddies when they grow up.”
“I—” I’m grown up? That’s what I’d said earlier, but … I glance down at my hands. They reflect the size of a child’s. “I’m not grown up.” Am I?
“You are,” Dad insists. His palm leaves my head and I jerk up, reaching for him again but he steps out of my reach. “I know you’re scared, little one,” he says, walking backwards until he’s a good several feet from me. “It’s a scary world beyond these walls.”
I nod. It is a scary world. “Why can’t I stay with you?” Will he reject me? Will he leave me again? Tears fill my eyes and slip over my cheeks. I can’t bear it. I can’t do this again. “I don’t want to be alone,” I cry.
He tilts his head to the side. “Oh baby girl, you’re not alone. You haven’t been alone in a long time. You have friends, you have loves. They’re there for you. They’re waiting. Don’t you remember?”
A memory snaps into place. Kalix and Theos laughing at a prank they’d played on one of their classmates during training. Ruen’s dark brow as he’d quietly shook his head at the two of them in reproof, and me—I’d been the only one to see Ruen’s secret smile, the amusement he’d felt at his brothers’ antics. Friends. Loves. They’re waiting for me.
I jump from the seat and rush forward. With each step my legs grow, lifting me up and up and up until I’m at my natural height and not that of a nine-year-old girl. I fling my arms around my father’s form and cling to him.
“I love you,” I whisper. “I’m sorry.” Little slivers of shadow pop up along my forearms, curling down from me until they form a curtain-like image, swaying around me.
“There, there, now.” My father soothes me in that deep baritone of his. “There’s no apologies here, little one.” After a beat, he grips my arms and sets me back. “Now, as much as I was overjoyed to see you again, it’s time for you to go.”
I look to the front door of our cabin, where an unusual light has begun to creep in around the cracks. “Do you still think of her?” I ask.
Silence meets my question and I force my eyes back to his. The second our gazes connect, he responds. “Every single second she is away from me,” my father murmurs. “The same as you, baby girl.”
More tears streaks down my face. This time, it doesn’t feel weak to let them surface.
“Go.” My father gestures for the door. “They’re waiting.”
Turning, I follow the command, letting my hand find the door handle and ripping it open without looking back as the entire world turns white because I’m the darkness here.
I come awake with a gasp, sitting up on a stone platform only to be shoved back down. “Enough!” Tryphone yells, his face a mask of anger as he hovers over me with a blade in hand. Turning my cheek as it scrapes the stone, I find that we’re not alone.
Ariadne’s body is a crumpled heap on the steps beneath the dais and the Darkhavens are each set on their knees, bodies bared and bleeding with various Gods at their back. A panting, sliced up Azai gripping Theos around his neck. A furious Gygaea, holding onto Ruen’s form with her nails sinking into his shoulder. A grim-faced Makeda and tear-streaked Danai on either side of Kalix—who appears even more wild than the scene.
His nostrils flare and there are snakes curling around him, biting at each bit of flesh they can get close to. Those snakes creep up Danai and Makeda’s limbs, wrap around their wrists and legs as if controlling their movements. Black veins arch up the Goddesses’ throats and their lips are a dull purple—serpent venom.
They are not working with Tryphone of their own free will.
Of all of them, however, Caedmon is the closest as he stands before Tryphone and me on the opposite side of the platform from the God King.
“If you kill her, you will regret it,” Caedmon says, his eyes locked on the God King.
“Her power will sustain me for centuries to come!” Tryphone’s eyes are wild and the blade in his palm trembles as if he’s attempting to force himself to move, but Caedmon’s words halt him.
“Killing her will end your reign,” Caedmon warns him. “It will set into motion your demise. Listen to me, old friend. You do not want to do this.”
Glancing up between the two of them, I see the tightening of Tryphone’s eyes. What he wants isn’t in question here, I realize. The shakes and trembles. The darting eyes. The ease with which I managed to wound the God King of all people—no matter that I hadn’t succeeded. The evidence is all there. I’ve seen it before—in the eyes of addicts in back alleys.
Tryphone is addicted to the power of Mortal Gods—physically and beyond. Even if it means he might die, he has to have more of it. As if sensing that I’m awake, both men turn their gazes downward.
The end happens so fast, Tryphone’s shout and the drawing back of his arm, the flash of the blade, my own power shoving forward. Then as I jerk up into a sitting position, capturing the wrist that means to come down and slice through my chest in what will be the final killing blow, a flying spider slaps Tryphone in the cheek.
Ara’s mind seeks mine out with a silent war cry as she sinks her fangs into his flesh and pumps him full of her venom. With a grunted curse, Tryphone rips my Spider Queen away from his face and crushes her in his palm.
“No!” The pain of her life being snuffed out so easily rips through me and then everything else is ripping apart too.