Garrin blinked, and his gaze shot to Lex. “You mean to say she…she is…”
“My husband Kushiel was sent down to condemn the Dark King. Lex’s father was an angel.”
29
Garrin shook his head slowly. “Impossible.” Or was it? Lex’s eyes and their glow. Her unusual power…
“Is it impossible?” Isle said rhetorically.
“Angels no longer come to our realm. They haven’t for thousands of years,” he said, attempting to place logic where there was none.
“Until your father committed a most heinous crime,” Isle spat.
“What crime?” Garrin shouted, his patience dissolved.
Isle moved beside Lex, who was staring at her mother in shock. “Your father hadn’t produced a child after hundreds of years of marriage to his first wife, Dark Prince, so he sent her away. In the middle of winter.”
Garrin looked down, trying to interpret her words. “He sent her to live with others. It isn’t compassionate, but there was no crime committed.”
Isle chuckled darkly. “Not to live with others. He sent her to live in the Land of Ice onher own.”
Garrin looked up and blinked. “To fend for herself?”
“Casone ordered it a crime to the crown should anyone assist her. Her body was found many months later,” Isle said, stone-faced. “No one can survive the Land of Ice in the middle of winter without support. His noble-born wife was no exception.”
Garrin couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “You speak of the murder of an innocent woman, Isle Meinrad. Of the murder of a royal ordained to lead our land.”
“Indeed.” Isle gripped her daughter’s hand, and Garrin frowned. “And now you know why I must protect Lex from you and your father at any cost.”
Not from him. Never from him.
Garrin looked around the room. “Who else has heard this?”
Each face was more blank than the last. Until Garrin reached Amund’s hulking frame. “I have, Your Highness. Nothing for certain. And only amongst Newlanders. Nothing from our land.”
Camille carefully stepped forward. Garrin hadn’t noticed her partially hidden behind the others. “What Isle says is true.”
All eyes turned to Camille, even Isle’s, whose look of surprise could not be masked.
“I was acquainted with your father before I escaped Dark Kingdom,” Camille said. “The rumors of his ruthlessness in siring an heir are true. I never knew his first wife, but I knew y-your…mother.”
Camille’s whole body shook, whether from lingering weakness or the topic, Garrin didn’t know. “The angel Kushiel punished Casone, as Isle said, for what he did to his first wife by placing powerful magic over the land, preventing Dark Fae from leaving. I wasn’t alive at the time, but it is whispered to be true.”
History lessons and texts swam through Garrin’s mind. All of them missing evidence of what Isle and Camille said. “Why would an angel punish our people? If my father were to blame, why not harm or destroy him?”
Camille folded her delicate hands at her waist and looked down. “There is no greater punishment for Casone Branimir than failure. It is said that by making him responsible for his people’s misery, Kushiel served him his greatest sentence.”
Garrin felt the blood drain from his body. His father’s pride was a powerful thing.
If what they said was true, it would make his father a monster. One who callously murdered his first wife and silenced all those who knew about it. “My father couldn’t get away with such a past without lying.”
“Your father re-created the past in a farce that isn’t truth nor lie,” Isle said. “The truth lies in the details, which have been hidden. What is left is what Casone wants everyone to believe. And now, here we are.” She flung out her hand at their surroundings. “The Dark King wanted Lexandra, daughter of my husband who punished him, and you have spoon-fed her to him. Your father will have her destroyed.”
“I’m not afraid,” Lex said, and held Garrin’s gaze. “Okay, that’s not entirely true. The king scares the crap out of me. But I’ll fight with you. Someone has to stop your father.”
His nostrils flared, and he stared at Isle. “Why didn’t you mention any of this earlier?”
Her chest rose on an angry inhale. “If you recall, I told you not to take Lex to the castle. You didn’t listen. I do not trust you. Why would I tell you more than you needed to know?”
