Gérald strode from the balcony to the front door and opened it. Idabel covered Loïc’s eyes while the Zenith surveyed the blood-spattered passageway where more and more moths had gathered to witness. Then he turned back to them, his frame filling the doorway, blocking out the horror.
“Take your mate and son,” he commanded. “Leave immediately. Go now.”
Brandt struggled to his feet, mind reeling. “Zenith, I can explain.”
“No explanations needed. I’ll handle the body and the Council.” Gérald shut the door behind him. “You were never here. This never happened.”
“Why would you do this for us?” The word came out strangled. “Why would you do this for me?”
“He owes me a favor,” Ghantal said quietly. “I’m collecting.”
“A favor?” Brandt looked between them, noting the careful distance they maintained. “What debt could possibly warrant a favor of this gravity?”
“Tell him.” Ghantal’s voice was tight with compressed emotion. “He deserves the truth.”
Gérald’s marble composure cracked. “Ghantal, are you sure?”
“Tell him, or I will.”
The Zenith, the most powerful gargoyle in Solvantis, the embodiment of strength and authority who only gave orders and never received them, obeyed. “There is no easy way to say this. Your mother is my mate. I may not deserve the title, but I am your father.”
The words hung in the air. Idabel’s shock pierced through their bond, sharp as a needle.
It couldn’t be true. Brandt shook his head, his mind running over the timeline and all the things Ghantal had ever told him about his father. How he’d been high-tier. Had left her while she was pregnant with Brandt and never returned. How she could feel him through the bond sometimes, enough to know that he was alive.How she’d never seen him again.But she saw the Zenith all the time.
“That’s not possible.”
“It’s true.” Ghantal moved closer to Gérald, not touching but near enough that their connection was obvious. “We met while hunting in the wildwood. We were mated before he entered the Zenith trials. Young, foolish, and in love.”
“Cliffborn and towerborn,” Gérald added, his voice rough as he looked at Ghantal. “An impossible match, but we didn’t care. But when I was chosen as Zenith, the council made it clear. I had to abandon my unsuitable mate or lose the position.”
“He chose duty.” There was no bitterness in Ghantal’s voice, just old resignation. “Left me with enough coin to survive and you growing in my belly.”
Brandt’s mind struggled to reshape thirty years of understanding. Every interaction with the Zenith, every moment of feeling unworthy of notice. His own father, watching from a distance, saying nothing.
“You knew who I was all this time?”
“I watched you grow up with so much pride.” Gérald’s formality crumbled entirely. “Watched you exceed every expectation, become more than I ever could be. You are brave where I was weak. Loyal where I was false.”
“You let me think I was nobody.”
“I let youbecomesomebody. You proved it with every choice, every achievement you earned without any special advantage.”The Zenith—his father?—stepped closer. “Your mother has advised me in secret all these years. Her counsel has shaped every good decision I’ve made. But unlike you, I have been too much a coward to claim my mate or child publicly, and I regret it every day. I failed you both in this.”
Brandt couldn’t wrap his head around it. His father, always there but never within reach. His mother, lying to him his whole life. Could it be true?
Through the bond, Brandt felt Idabel’s steady presence, her love anchoring him through this reshaping of his world. He looked at her, at their son, at the family they’d pieced together.
“Don’t make my mistake,” Gérald continued. “Take your family and go. Tonight. Go south, to the cliffs where the Tower’s authority is less absolute. Live the life I was too weak to choose.”
Brandt looked at his mate, drank in the unflagging warmth from her brown eyes. He smoothed her hair back from her face. “Can you give up everything here? All you’ve worked for?”
She nodded, eyes shining. “You are my everything. Wherever you go, I’ll follow.”
Brandt turned his attention to his mother. “Come with us,” he urged.
Before she could answer Gérald caught her hand. “Ghantal, please. Stay.”
Her wings flexed in surprise. “Why?”
