Chapter 32
Alison sat on the stone bench beneath the trees, thick blonde hair braided back in her usual style. Nothing about her indicated she was any different from the person she’d always been.
“I haven’t been able to get you alone since you’ve been home. Every time I try to talk to you at Ravensmere, someone always interrupts us. Since you’ve declined all my invitations to visit my home, I decided to corner you. Seemed the only way to get you alone, what with you avoiding me.”
Connor swallowed. “You’re right, I have been avoiding you.”
“And why is that?”
“With everything that happened, I’m just a little mixed up. Not as healed as everyone thinks, I guess. Trying to focus on getting things back to normal. Avoid anything related to the military while I support Opal’s transition to life here.”
“Ah, yes. Your little soul-daughter. You rescued her not once, but twice. How long did she spend with the mercenaries that caught your team by surprise? The report you gave wasn’t clear.”
“Opal is traumatized still.” He shrugged. “She doesn’t remember a lot.”
Alison tipped her head in acknowledgment of that. “Standard travel would put her with them for a week, maybe even two. I find it hard to believe she doesn’t remember anything about them.”
“All due respect, Ali, stay away from my daughter. I’ve said no to all the requests to have her work with a mind mage to unearth the memories, and I’ll continue to. Even Ryan and Thalia agree it would be cruel to push her, and Thalia very much wants information on who killed her mate.”
“She turned in her papers today. I’d wondered if she was going after the men who attacked you.”
“Can’t really blame her, can you? Vengeance should be expected in a situation like that.”
“It is her right, with her mate being killed,” Alison said. “I just wonder how she expects to find them.”
“You’d have to ask her. But the information certainly wouldn’t be coming from Opal.”
“You’re very protective of her—Opal. It’s admirable.”
“It’s my job,” Connor said, a bite to his voice he couldn’t mask. “I’m not just her soul-guardian, I’m her father. I won’t let her down.”
Alison nodded, looking away into the trees.
“Being a guardian is difficult. At first, you focus on their physical health. Their mental health. Helping them through traumatic situations. The death of their parents. Then, you teach them to think and to be. To become more. They surpass you, in some ways.”
Connor swallowed the emotion clogging his throat as she described him. Their relationship as it had changed over the years.
“You want to make the world a better place for them. A safer place,” Alison said, rising from her seat to step toward him. “To honor that bond that fills your chest with warmth and purpose.”
He stayed still, unable to move as she caught and held his eyes.
“Somewhere they’ll thrive. And never know such extreme pain or heartache again. Never be subjected to fear. To trauma and death.”
The bond that connected them thrummed with emotion. He’d been fighting so hard to block it since he came home. To ensure he didn’t inadvertently give away their plans. The shield he’d kept was gone now, and he felt everything.
Alison cupped his face, her ice blue eyes full of familiar emotion. He felt a tear slip from down his cheek. “I’ve always loved you, Connor. Even before Davina died, I considered you mine to protect. I still do.”
Connor clamped down on the words trying to escape his throat—then why are you doing this? But the emotion reached her across the bond. He saw it in her eyes.
“The world is a brutal place, Connor. When we see it for the best it can be—the beauty, the progress—it blinds us to the threats that are churning. The dangers rising silently in the dark. Without care, they’ll overwhelm us.
You’ve seen the truth. Walked the battlefields no one else knows about.
That they take a different shape doesn’t make them less volatile. ”
“What are saying, Ali?”
“It would break my heart to see you suffer, my soul-son. Everything your mother did, that I’ve done, has been to make the world safer.
For you.” Her words were soft as she wiped the tear off his cheek.
“You’re a parent now. You understand that drive.
I see it in your eyes when you look at that girl. ”
“I would do anything to protect her,” he agreed. “But my mother—”
“Davina and I had different approaches. Different opinions. But our goal was the same. She made the world safer by creating a sanctuary for the unwanted. Designating protectors for them and building a pathway for them to find their way to us.”
That was… exactly right. He couldn’t describe it better himself. “And you?”
Her mouth tipped in a half-smile as her hand dropped from his face. “I do my best to prevent war, Connor. We do. Your team, the others under my lead, we unearth information. Influence the shape of world events through the shadows.”
“But—”
“How many times have you intercepted information that was dangerous?” Her eyes brightened fiercely when he remained silent. “How many, Connor?”
He put a hand through his hair in agitation because he couldn’t deny it. The knowledge they unearthed allowed others to intervene. Prevented violence from escalating. Allowed others to operate safely.
“All the time,” he murmured.
“All the time,” she agreed. “We make the world safer.”
The longer she spoke, the harder time he had biting his tongue.
He needed to know. To hear her explain why she was consorting with people he considered evil.
Despite her passionate speech, it wasn’t lining up for him.
Wasn’t making sense with the Ali he knew.
The one who had raised him and taught him to fight.
He sought something—anything—to pivot the conversation so that he wouldn’t slip and ask her what he so desperately wanted to know. “Did you know Mom was going to die? Doing work for the lightning teams?”
Granted, she’d been on a political trip with Celina at the time, not an active lightning team mission. Still, he’d always wondered how Alison felt about it. Had never asked.
“Most warriors die in the field, Connor. You know that.” A flicker of anger sharpened Alison’s movements as she turned away from him.
“Yeah, but Mom knew. Looking back… some of her words and Dad’s… she knew. They knew. Prepared for it.”
“Davina’s premonition magic was as much a curse as it was a gift.
I can’t tell you why she didn’t try to stop it, Connor.
It’s not something she ever confided in me about.
Not after she bonded with your father. I don’t have any answers for you about her death, or the choices she and your father made. ”
He hadn’t really expected her to, but it was something that had been plaguing him recently.
Leaving Opal alone in a dangerous world was one of the things that dampened his desire to challenge Hannelore.
He’d be doing what his parents knowingly did to him and his sisters.
Walking into death headfirst. Choosing to leave her alone.
“Your mother was an incredible warrior and leader. But she had blinders on when it came to the refugee program,” Alison said. “Sometimes, I thought she cared about it more than she did you kids. She didn’t appreciate that observation, but we both knew it was true.”
“She thought it was right. That it was bigger than just our family.” He’d gone over it endlessly. It was the only thing that made sense, given what he knew about her.
“It took me a while to see that,” Alison admitted, nodding her head. “I was so angry with her. Livid that she would make that choice. I couldn’t understand it.”
Timing clicked together in his head. “That was when you switched. From the refugee teams to reconnaissance. Wasn’t it?”
“Yes. I needed to do something else. Something that didn’t remind me of her. And eventually I came to understand. A world of peace is worth fighting for. Even when you have to make horrible sacrifices.”
“Peace,” he uttered the word, uncomprehending. “I don’t follow.”
“War is brewing under the surface, Connor. You know it. I know it. Every reconnaissance team in every realm worth their salt knows it. You can’t deny the truth you’ve witnessed.”
“Some of the realms… but not all of them,” he argued weakly.
Her sharp look called him out on his words.
Unrest and division were prominent throughout the realms. Worse in some. But what happened in one affected them all. Caused a ripple effect across the realms. Forced even peaceful realms like Calderre to choose a side. To fight.
“There. See? Your mind is working on the argument for me, isn’t it?”
“We’re still a long way from war, Alison.”
She laughed, striding away before turning back to him. “Really? Your daughter was sold twice, by two different groups, as a mage slave, and she was on her way to be sold a third time. All for a resource that she possesses that others don’t. A resource that many believe should be controlled.”
“Out of fear. They want to control magic because they fear it.”
“What’s the fastest way to end a conflict over a resource, Connor?” she asked.
His gut twisted into a knot as the tangled logic he’d been struggling to understand snapped into a straight, clear line. He locked eyes with her, sickened. His magic whispered at him, but he couldn’t pull his attention away from her.
She stared back, waiting for his answer.
Connor closed his eyes. That was what she was doing. Why she was doing it. She thought controlling magic would prevent another war.
He took a breath and forced the words out. “Eliminate the resource or its scarcity.”
“That’s right. Take away the reason to fight. Complicated, because the resource is tied to people. But the principle stands. All or none having it keeps peace. Every other scenario leads to war.”
“You think history will repeat itself.”