Chapter 56 Bondsmith
Chapter Fifty-Six
Bondsmith
One week later
“Bondsmith.” A knock on my door and the sound of Peytor’s voice had me dropping the book I was half-reading down to my lap, finger marking the page.
“Yes?” I called, twirling a lock of hair around my finger. I grew increasingly bored, stuck in this room. Fate had instructed me to stay in Alvor, that there was more for me to do here despite every cell in my body urging me to go to the Far North and find Itanya.
I’d been relegated to these rooms—Folami’s grief and her Bonded triad’s distrust forcing me away from the rest of the rebellion. It’d been weeks since I’d had another visitor, my only company the books and scrolls that were periodically left outside my door.
I could only imagine that either Torin or Peytor was leaving the small tokens out of pity. Torin insisted I was not a prisoner here, but the drab, dark grey stone walls and lack of windows coupled with the locked door spoke a different story.
“You have a visitor.” Peytor’s voice was muffled through the heavy oak door, so I wasn’t certain I’d heard him correctly.
“A visitor?” I parroted, probably dumbly. His soft chuckle told me he didn’t miss the incredulity in my tone.
“A visitor,” he repeated.
I glanced quickly down at my outfit, smoothing the wrinkles in the oversized cream tunic I’d found in the wardrobe.
I was in the middle of brushing errant crumbs from my equally large brown pants when the door unlocked and swung open, revealing Peytor and the face of a woman I never thought I’d see again.
My book tumbled from frozen fingers, thumping to the floor in the silent space.
Peytor half-gestured, half-pushed her into the room. “I’ll give you two some privacy,” he said with a wink before closing the door behind him.
“Faylinn?” I whispered, not daring to believe that she was here, willing to speak to me. The last time I’d seen her was when Razia and Solace attacked Lishahl. She’d appeared with her Bonded but barely acknowledged my existence.
“It’s Fay,” she said, voice hard even as she nervously canted her eyes around my room.
“Fay,” I repeated slowly and watched my daughter wince.
“Only Rohak and a few close friends call me Faylinn,” she admitted, her posture softening at just the mention of his name. My lips quirked in a small smile as I relaxed back in my chair, despite the fact that I wanted to jump from it and hold her tightly against me.
My daughter was here.
Silence hung between us, awkwardness and discomfort lacing every minor movement and shuffle of feet.
Once upon a time, back in Isrun, we moved together beautifully, like two parts of a song twining together into a perfect melody. Now that all of my secrets were revealed, however, it was disjointed and practically nonexistent.
“I’m sorry—”
“Why didn’t you—”
We both started at the same time before gesturing for the other to speak first. I mimed closing my lips before encouraging my daughter to speak.
She took her time, gathering her thoughts and breath in a move that was so like Holt’s it made my heart hurt.
I rubbed the skin above my sternum, willing the ache to dissipate.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” Fay asked, her voice barely above a whisper, eyes so much like her father’s, holding immeasurable amounts of pain.
“You had all the time in the world. Years together in Isrun. But instead, you . . . fucked off to gods know where and left me alone to deal with Holt’s—Dad’s—death.
You could have been my mother, but you chose not to. Why?”
Her accusations cut me to the bone, to my very soul, and I bit back a sob as I saw the same emotions roiling in my gut reflected in my daughter’s eyes.
Pain. Betrayal. Loss. Hurt. And, despite it all, love.
There’s still hope, I thought. I hadn’t fucked it up completely.
“I couldn’t,” I said with a small shake of my head. “My bargain with Fate wouldn’t allow it.”
Fay huffed and rolled her eyes, deflecting from the pain written in the rigidity of her posture.
“I know all about his bargains,” she quipped, and I cocked my head, curious as to what bargain she made with her grandfather.
One he hasn’t told me about. That thought alone made me uneasy, but it wasn’t what I needed to speak to Fay about now. It could wait—hopefully.
“Would you like to sit?” I asked, gesturing to the other wingback chair in the room. It flanked mine, separated only by a small wooden table that held a stack of books. Fay’s eyes sparked as she ran her gaze over the spines, fingers twitching slightly at her side as if wanting to reach for them.
“You can read any of them,” I said softly, dropping my hand back into my lap where I twined my fingers together. “What’s mine is yours,” I added, though that comment seemed to darken Fay’s expression.
“Except for the truth, hmm?” she snapped, but padded across the threadbare rug to the other chair, pulling it slightly away from mine before sinking down cautiously.
“For what it’s worth, I’m sorry, Fay,” I said once she was comfortable in her seat. She sat like I did, feet bare, curled beneath her bottom as if she wanted to disappear into the chair entirely. My lips quirked at the similarity.
“So you just, what, trained me for years while knowing I was your daughter, watched me grow close to my father without knowing he was my father, and just . . . felt nothing?”
I shook my head, involuntarily reached for my daughter, and winced when she flinched away from my touch.
It would take months, years, to heal the hurt I’d caused; enough to where she’d let me embrace her fully.
“I wanted to tell you, every minute of every day. Holt, too. But we couldn’t.
So we did the next best thing—raise you as well as we could and provide you skills that would be useful as you grew older.
Holt knew he would never leave Isrun,” I said quietly, watching as Fay played with the clear crystal on her neck.
Her eyebrows shot up at my admission, her movements stilled. “He knew he would die?”
I nodded.
Fay chuffed a laugh and shook her head, curls bouncing around her face. “And here I thought it was my fault.”
“No,” my voice cracked across the space, causing my daughter’s eyes to widen once more. “No,” I repeated softer. “It was not your fault. Certain things were always meant to happen.”
“Fate versus free will and all of that?” Fay asked with a cocked eyebrow. I laughed and was pleased to see a ghost of a smile on my daughter’s face before it disappeared again.
“As much as I want to . . . reminisce, it’s admittedly not what I’m here for,” Fay finally said, straightening in her chair and dropping her hold on the necklace.
“Oh? And what are you here for?” I asked, trying to cover my disappointment over the fact that my daughter did not intend to heal our relationship today.
Patience. It will take time.
“Kaos inadvertently sent me,” Fay admitted, and I shook my head ruefully.
“That meddling brother,” I groused.
“So he’s done this before?”
I laughed long and loud at that. “Yes, daughter. It’s one of his favorite things to do.”
My laughter died as I watched Fay try to puzzle through that piece of information. “He has his own agenda, Fay. Best not to try and parse through it. Fate knows I’ve long since given up.”
Fay hummed, absently stroking the Bond Mark on her forearm.
“What did he send you here for?”
“He didn’t exactly send me here. Just insinuated that I needed to bring Ellowyn with me on an . . . adventure.”
“So you’re here to collect her?”
“More or less.” Fay shrugged, but I sensed there was something else.
“And?” I prodded, grateful that while Fay wasn’t talking to me about the revelation that I was her mother, she was at least speaking to me again.
Small steps.
Fay sighed and cracked her neck. “And I may have discovered your artifact.” She opened her eyes once more, gaze boring into mine. “I’m guessing you were the last to know of the other two?”
I gulped, sweat building at the base of my neck as the corner of my eye twitched.
“Yes,” I responded a little too curtly. “Yes, I was the last to see them.”
“Where are they?” Fay asked, ignoring my shortness as a giddy light reflected in her eyes, the promise of information nearly driving her from her seat.
I shook my head, deflating her excitement.
“I cannot tell you. Nor do I know of all their exact locations anymore.”
“You cannot tell me where they are located now?” Fay asked, frowning as she dissected my words. I twined my fingers together, knowing that she would figure out the meaning behind them.
After all, she was both my daughter and Fate’s true granddaughter.
Wiliness ran in our blood.
“But you can tell me where they were at one point,” she finished, a smug smile spreading across her face as she leaned back in the chair, confident she’d discovered my white lie.
A genuinely proud smile erupted across my face.
“Yes, I can.”
Fay’s eyes shone with victory.
“After I brought them across the Ice Shelf, I gave them to the Keepers in the Valley. What happened after that”—I spread my hands wide—“I cannot say. Apparently, mine ended up in the hands of Lord d’Refan, if you’ve seen it recently.”
“Have you seen or heard of them since?” Fay asked, hands flying to the utility belt at her waist as she conjured a thick journal and charcoal pencil, ignoring the comment about my artifact. It was no matter, she could do whatever she wanted with it—destroy it, save it, study it.
My immortality no longer mattered to me.
Faylinn flipped to a half-blank page as she began to hastily scribble in the margins.
I nodded once. “I have.” My throat and tongue burned with the admission, eyes flicking to Holt’s necklace dangling on our child’s throat. “But do not ask me to speak of anything more. It could, in all honesty, kill me.”
Fay’s pencil ceased its scratching, her wide eyes meeting mine briefly before she focused on her writing once more.
“Then that’s why he needed me to go to the Valley. But what else is there?” she mused, no longer speaking to me.
“You’re going there?” I asked, concern evident in my tone. Last I heard, nothing remained of Solace’s previous home. It was burned beyond recognition, a soulless graveyard full of secrets. Secrets that my daughter apparently wanted to uncover.
Fay nodded. “And I’m bringing Ellowyn.”