“You haven’t connected with her,” he said.
I shook my head.
“Why is that?” He kept his eyes downturned at some paperwork on his desk. He liked to believe his green eyes were so piercing that his gaze would intimidate anyone he stared at too long.
He wasn’t exactly wrong. For nearly my entire childhood, the weight of his full attention had been too much to bear.
But now, much like how Carissa’s prettiness no longer affected me, my father’s green gaze fell flat.
I’d been stared down by both an angry Skye and infuriated Zephyr in these past weeks. Their pale eyes were much more piercing and eerie than my father could ever hope to be.
“Wyatt,” he sighed heavily when I didn’t reply. “Wyatt, it isimperativethat you connect as soon as possible.”
“I don’t believe that,” I started, but he shook his head to stop me.
“Something is coming. There’s unrest amongst the commoners. The Crown Princess is a joke. There are…others gaining momentum.”
“Others,” I repeated.
He began speaking again, going on and on about the importance of connecting, how much more powerful I could be, blah blah. I glanced around the office, looking for something that could help me disassociate, andholy shitdid I find something.
There, on the wall, was a black flag. A black flag with two crimson triangles meeting in the center to form an hourglass.
The same symbol the attackers at the academy wore. The same symbol that Skye had seen right before she made the snap decision to teleport away.
Wait.
I forced my gaze to the ground, breathing in and out slowly so I didn’t arouse my father’s suspicion.
I needed to stay calm. I’d been too fucked up emotionally as of late, and I hadn’t been practicing my mind shields the way I should’ve. Rafehad been on me about it, and I’d waved him off. My father could obliterate me right now if I didn’t play this carefully.
“She wants to take it slow.” I said suddenly, deciding that was the best course of action. If my father found out I’d been rejected, he’d probably have Skye kidnapped.
“So convince her,” he replied, giving me a slightly horrified look. “Why let her dictate this? If she doesn’t understand the importance–”
“The important thing is that she accepts me,” I ground out. “I want this to work out naturally.”
“That’s not the point, son.” My father sighed deeply. “Your affinity could be leaps and bounds more powerful than it is now. Your memory distortion could actually work the way it’s supposed to. Don’t you care about that?”
“Obviously,” I muttered. He loved bringing up myfailed affinity, as he called it. He was endlessly disappointed over it. I was disappointed over my memory scrambling, sure, but my earth and healing affinities were much stronger. Why my father never chose to focus on what I was really good at was beyond me.
“Then stop messing around,” he growled. “Look how much my earth affinity grew after meeting Lauren. Connecting is not to be taken lightly. It’s something the both of you should want. I could explain it to her. I could–”
I laughed, sudden and sharp. “Try again,” I said darkly. “You’re not meeting her.”
My father clenched his jaw.
“There’s other ways of handling this,” he said slowly, something about his tone setting me on edge. “You know, back in the old days, a female Key couldn’t formally reject her Links. The Links were entitled to her.”
“Entitled…” I said slowly, and my father nodded as it clicked.
What thefuck? Was he really suggesting–
“Are you kidding me?!”
My father dropped his head back as far as it would go before letting out a long, heavy sigh.
“Willow dear,” he started.
