Chapter One
Tressa
It’s past midnight when I realize my father isn’t coming home on his own.
I’m already dressed and out the door, walking quickly through the empty streets. The spring air is warm against my skin, but the knot of dread in my stomach only tightens with each step. He should have been home hours ago, and when the clock struck midnight and his chair by the fireplace remained empty, I knew I had to go find him.
The streets are quiet in this part of the city. Peacekeepers don’t patrol these neighborhoods, because they don’t care about the poor. The walls keep monsters and dangerous outsiders from getting into the city, but inside these walls, in places like this, we’re left to fend for ourselves. I walk quickly, my boots echoing on the cobblestones, and I reach the first pub on my mental list of his usual haunts.
The barkeep shakes his head before I even finish asking.
“Haven’t seen him tonight, girl.”
The next three pubs give me the same answer, and with each rejection, the weight in my chest grows heavier. I’m running out of places to look and out of hope that I’ll find him conscious and whole.
He’s drinking himself into an early grave, and I’m barely keeping us both afloat with the money I make. Every coin I earn goes to food or bills, or the debts he racks up. He never thinks about what that costs me.
My father never considers that I lost Brandon, too. And then I watched our mother die of grief while he drowned himself in ale and self-pity. I nearly died of grief myself after we lost them, but I couldn’t afford to break down. Because someone had to keepus alive. That someone was me, always me, and he never once stopped to think about how much I was suffering, too.
I turn down another narrow street and head toward the White Stag, one of the seedier establishments where desperate men go to drink away their wages. The alley behind it is dark and reeks of piss and rotting garbage. I almost walk past it when I hear a low groan coming from the shadows.
I find him crumpled against the wall. My stomach turns at the sight of him. He’s not a real person, he’s a lump.
“Father.”
I crouch beside him and reach out to touch his shoulder. He groans again. His face is destroyed, covered in bruises and dried blood. One eye is swollen shut, the skin around it purple and grotesque. His lip is split open, and when he opens his mouth to make another pained sound, I see a gap where one of his teeth used to be. Blood has dried on his chin and down the front of his shirt, and his hands are shaking.
“What did you do this time?” I ask. “Who did this to you?”
He can’t answer. He’s too drunk, his breath reeking of cheap ale. The words that try to leave his mouth are nothing but incoherent mumbling.
I grab his arm and try to pull him upright, but he’s dead weight despite being small and withered. He’s hunched over and gaunt, looking like a man twice his age. I can barely remember a time when he was strong, handsome, and capable.
I get my shoulder under his arm and heave him up with all the strength I have. He groans louder, and pain shoots through my back and shoulders, but I grit my teeth and start dragging him forward. One step, then another, and the walk home stretches out endlessly before me. My muscles scream in protest, and blood from his wounds smears across my shirt. Dirt from the filthy alley clings to my pants, but I don’t stop because there’s no one else who will help us.
Our house sits at the end of a narrow street in a neighborhood that used to be decent before it went bad over the years. The house itself is small. There’s only the ground floor with two bedrooms, a kitchen, and a living room with a fireplace. I shoulder the door open and drag my father inside.
The first thing I see is the small table near the window, where I always keep fresh flowers in a glass vase. Two paintings hang on the wall. One shows my mother when she was young and carefree, back when her smile was wide and genuine, and she still had hope for the future. The other shows Brandon at ten years old, captured right before he died and our entire world fell apart.
I don’t let myself look at them for long because if I do, I’ll start thinking about everything we lost, and I can’t afford to break down right now.
The bathroom is cramped, but I manage to get my father propped against the wall. I fill a basin with clean water, grab towels, and begin cleaning the blood from his face. I work as gently as I can, even though part of me wants to hurt him the way he’s been hurting me for years. He winces when I touch the worst spots, but he doesn’t fight me or try to pull away.
“Hold still,” I mutter, and I continue washing away the dried blood until I can see the full extent of the damage.
I spread salve on the deepest cuts, and bandage anything that’s still bleeding, checking his ribs to make sure nothing is broken. They’re badly bruised but intact, which is more luck than he deserves. When I’m finished, I help him to his feet and half carry him to his bedroom. I tuck him in. He groans again, his one good eye fluttering as he tries to focus on my face.
“Stay here,” I tell him. “I’ll make coffee.”
The kitchen is small, and the cupboards are mostly empty because we can barely afford food. But I always keep coffee. It’s the one indulgence I refuse to give up. I need it for the nightswhen I work, when I have to stay awake, alert, and functional while pretending to be someone I’m not. I brew it strong and black, and the rich smell fills the kitchen in a comforting way.
I bring the cup to my father’s room and make him sit up against the headboard. He drinks in shaky sips, spilling some down his chin. The fog in his eyes begins to clear. He looks at me, and his face crumples as he starts crying.
“Father…”
“I’m sorry.” His voice breaks on the words. He can barely get them out. “Tressa, I’m so sorry.”
The tears come harder, and he’s sniffling and sobbing like a child who’s been caught doing something wrong.
