Chapter 11 #2
She’d never met him. He’d never returned to Till, never sent for her.
She’d been so mad at him; she grew up an orphan, abandoned by her mother, knowing that he was somewhere at court, thriving, ignoring his only child.
She’d imagined chasing him down some day and throwing all that fury in his face, demanding an explanation, an apology, some compensation for the lonely, loveless days of her childhood.
But then he died and she never got the chance to meet him, and the fury in her heart turned into a wound that could never heal.
That pain threatened to choke her now, as his hesitating arms pulled her into an embrace. There were so many things she wanted to say, a stormy vortex of questions and accusations she wanted to hurl at him. But for now, hearing him say, “My girl, my beautiful girl,” was enough.
She refused to cry, though, and so did he. A shared stubborn streak made them separate in an awkward attempt to deny their feelings. He cleared his throat, all formal again; she ran her fingers through her tangled hair.
“What are you doing here? When did you arrive?” he asked.
It was a perfectly reasonable question, but she had no good answer.
She supposed there was another Liana, the real Liana, tucked away somewhere in Till, unaware of all the uproar about the royal wedding.
If her father started asking questions, the other Liana would find herself in trouble, unable to explain why he thought he saw her in Abia.
“I’m not really here,” she said at last. “I’m just passing through.”
He took a step back. “Did your mother send you?”
“No, I’m here against her wishes.”
What was it that she saw on his face? Caution? Fear?
“Are you in trouble?” he asked.
“No, but everybody else will soon be.” She gritted her teeth, struggling to say more. Perun had muddled her memories of war, leaving the echoes of its monstrous toll, but erasing the details. “Did you find the Seragians who attacked us?”
“No, not yet.” He shook his head. “The city is full of people; they melted into the crowd. The one they left behind had nothing to identify him by. He’s in the city morgue, but I doubt anyone will claim him.”
“Do you know of any reason why they would attack the prince?” she asked.
“Prince Amron told me they mistook him for his brother at first. If a group of Seragian mercenaries was after the crown prince the day before his wedding to a Seragian princess—” He rubbed his eyes with the heels of his hands, and it was obvious he hadn’t slept that night.
“The guard controls the whole city, we banned the weapons, we check everyone who comes in, and still they fooled us somehow. I’ve raised the alarm, the king knows what happened.
The Seragian ambassador will be here in the morning. ”
Would it be enough? When Amron and Liana ran into the night, the trajectory of events changed, the Seragians attacked Amron instead of his brother, and Amril pulled out unscathed. Now every guard in the city was on the lookout for troublemakers. Would it be enough to stop the war?
Stop it? a nasty voice whispered in her head. If you hadn’t arrived, Amron and Amril would have remained at Celandina’s the whole night and there would’ve been no one to attack. How about that?
“I think you should be as cautious as possible,” Liana said, shutting down the voice. “I think the attack will not stop here. There will be blood.”
She could almost hear it coming, the red wave, ready to break over the city and leave a trail of bodies behind it.
He narrowed his eyes. “Is there anything specific you might tell me? Anything useful?”
Somebody important will die. Not Amron, no, he survived the bloodbath in Abia, but another royal. His father? His brother? She couldn’t remember. “Watch the royal family closely. This is not the last attempt.”
His exhaustion hovered on the brink of anger. “That’s irritatingly vague, Liana. Give me something I can work with.”
She bit her lip so hard she drew blood. “If you fail tomorrow, there will be a war, and it will drag on for years.”
He huffed in frustration. “You sound just like them, you know.” He motioned towards the sky. “Like one of those veiled, dramatic prophesies that become clear only after the events have played out.”
Liana was just as irritated with herself as he was. Why did Perun curse her? She wasn’t here to change the course of history, she just wanted to kiss Amron and run away with him.
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry. I’m doing my best to help you.” Turning away from him, she walked to the tiny window and looked out, trying to force her brain to give her something useful.
“I know you are,” her father said. “But it might not be enough. The prince asked me not to mention your presence, but too many guards saw you, and they gossip like fishwives. By morning, half the city will know Prince Amron was with a strange girl when he was attacked. They’ll think you’re a spy, and he won’t be able to defend you.
His position is precarious enough because of the incident with his brother, he doesn’t need more trouble. ”
She shook her head in mute disbelief.
“I can get you out, but you have to go tonight,” he continued.
“I’ll tell the king I interrogated you and found nothing suspicious.
Just a simple country girl who was tricked into joining Celandina’s establishment and was horrified by the events.
I’ll send you to Till with a group of merchants.
By the time anyone remembers to ask about you in the morning, you’ll be miles away from Abia.
When you reach home, you’ll go back to whatever duties you abandoned to come here, and lay low for a while.
I’ll take the full responsibility. I can bear it. ”
It was riskier for him than how he presented it. He must have had enemies at court who would jump at this opportunity to drag him down. After the Seragian attack, his position was even more precarious than Amron’s. But he’d mentioned none of that to her.
A wave of warmth rose in her heart: an entirely new and unfamiliar certainty that her father cared for her and wanted to help, even if his plan didn’t suit her. “Thank you,” she said, “but I can’t leave just yet.”
“Why not?”
She thought of Amron in that alley, leaning on the wall, catching his breath. Her hips against his, his mouth hovering a hand’s breadth above hers. She was so close.
“I need to see Amron again,” she said.
He didn’t ask why. Instead, he raised his eyebrows and said, “Is that what you call the prince now? Amron?”
A stupid slip. She turned her face away to hide her frustration. “That’s none of your business.”
“Liana, child, look at me.” He stepped around to catch her gaze. “I don’t know what’s going on, or what you think is going on, but he’s a prince of the blood, and he’s married. I don’t want my daughter—”
“You have no right,” she cut him off.
“Excuse me?”
“You have no right to tell me what to do,” she said. “You’ve never been a father to me. I’m sorry I accidentally wandered into your territory and caused you trouble, it was never my intention. But I’m here on my own business, which has nothing to do with you.”
He looked as if she’d struck him. “I just want to help you.”
Liana knew he was telling the truth. She knew he was trying to do his best in a complicated and possibly dangerous situation. But once she’d opened the old wound, she couldn’t prevent it from bleeding.
“Do you?” she asked. “Well, you’ve had nineteen years to help me, and you did nothing.”
“That’s not true,” he retorted. “My father wrote to me as soon as he found you, I received monthly reports from Till. I never let you out of my sight. And I sent money.”
“Did you?” she snarled. “How kind. Did you know my mother banished me when I was six, fed up with those precious few motherly duties she was willing to perform, and barred me from finding her in the forest? A rusalka led me to the first village we came across and just left me there. I was lucky the people who found me were kind, I was lucky my grandfather recognized me. I could have starved, for all she cared. She’s never been fit to raise a child. Why did you abandon me?”
The old fury was still there, and it still burned hot.
“I didn’t know you existed,” he said.
“I don’t believe you.”
“Do you think your mother shared her plans with me? I was sixteen, dammit, a stupid boy who lost his way in the forest and got waylaid by a goddess. I could hardly understand what was going on, let alone predict she would bear a child. I was shocked, Liana. Your mother is terrifying. I couldn’t stay in Till after that, so I ran to Abia and worked my way up the ranks.
When my father let me know he found you, I was already so tied up I couldn’t leave.
I worked from dawn till midnight. I had no wife, no family.
I was in no position to raise a child. So I left you in Till, because it was the best thing I could do for you. ”
Once again, his face was the perfect reflection of hers, pain mirroring pain.
It had never occurred to Liana that Lela had hurt him just as much as she’d hurt her, but now it made perfect sense.
Humans were little more than pretty pets to her mother.
She inflicted pain with a flick of her wrist and walked away without turning back.
“I was a coward, but I was only twenty-one when they found you. I was living alone in a small room not unlike this one. What would I do with a little girl? And your grandfather did a great job. Look how beautiful and clever you are. I hear Lord Echton holds you in high esteem and the other hunters love you.”
Liana turned back to the window, hiding her tear-filled eyes. She would have traded every achievement and every praise in her life for a father who was there for her.
“Look,” he said, “if you don’t want to stay in Till, come back here when things settle down a bit. I’ll help you, you have my word. Just leave now, because I can’t protect you.”
She wiped her tears with the back of her hand.
“I’ll leave when my job here is done,” she said, catching his worried gaze and holding it.
“You’re a man of duty. You know how sometimes there’s no time for explanations and everything seems illogical, but still you know exactly what you must do?
I know what I must do, and you have to let me do it. ”
“And that thing you have to do, it includes Prince Amron?” he asked with a mild note of disbelief in his voice.
She tried and failed to imagine her father’s expression if she told him she’d lived with Amron for thirteen years in this very palace. Such a future would seem impossible from this angle.
“It’s not what you think,” she said. “You know the prince well, you know what kind of man he is. He hasn’t tried to do anything improper, even when he thought I was one of Celandina’s girls—which I am definitely not, I hope that’s clear.”
Her father cleared his throat to hide his embarrassment.
“I just needed a way to approach him, and that was the fastest. I’d almost succeeded in what I needed to do when those Seragians attacked us. Now I need to talk to him one more time.”
He was quiet for a little while, studying her.
“I must ask you this, I’m sorry,” he said. “This business you have with him, you need to tell me what it is. It’s my job to protect him and I need to know if your plans are dangerous. Will he get hurt? Because one attack can be a coincidence, but if something else goes wrong—”
“You don’t think I would hurt him, do you?”
“The royal wedding is tonight, Liana. Even one bad coincidence is one too many. If the king has to choose between protecting his sons and believing his captain’s daughter, he’ll throw you to the wolves.”
“The king won’t even know I exist, I promise,” she said with more confidence than she felt.
“Can you at least wait until the wedding is over?”
“No, it must be now.”
He stood before the door, blocking her way out, shaking his head in silence.
“Arrest me for treason if you think I’ve done something wrong, or let me go,” she said. “If you try to keep me locked in here, I swear I’ll dig a hole through the wall with my nails.”
He shot her a long look, frustration and worry mixing on his face. Then he opened the door and stepped aside. “I’m going to regret this.”
She leaned towards him and kissed his cheek. “Thank you, Father.”
“Prince Amron’s chambers are—”
“I know where they are.”