“Do you think I have respect for a noble who would go over aKyzaire’s head and run instead to his father, who hasn’t stepped foot on Krynn in over five years?” I asked.
“This is no time for your pride, Kythel,” Thraan growled, sweeping his arm out like a slice of a blade, as if to cut off whatever I was going to say next. “Kaan said he’s tried repeatedly to have a meeting with you.”
“There’s been a lot to do in Erzos.”
“Including this human mistress you’ve been keeping?” my father asked.
I stiffened.
“Yes, I imagine that takes up a lot of time,” he spat. “I never expected this fromyou, Kythel. Your brother, yes. Obviously. Kaldur, perhaps. But not from you.”
“She’s mykyrana,” I said, the words slipping from my lips before I could stop them. But I didn’t want to. “Not my mistress.”
Whatever my father was going to say died. His wings twitched behind him, and then he smoothed a hand over his left horn, as if to calm himself.
“You have a responsibility to the Kaalium,” he finally said, and a little flame of fury and hurt stoked in my belly, becoming hotter and hotter. Searing me from the inside out. “Your mother and I were not fated. Our marriage was arranged. And we made our own fate, and I loved her with every drop of blood inside my body. I would have bled out every last drop from my veins if it meant I could save her. Having akyranameans nothing.”
“How can you say that?” I asked. “You never had akyrana. You don’t know what it feels like.”
“You will build a life with Lyris, and you will come to love her, just as I did your mother. A marriage that benefits Erzos and the Kaalium,” Thraan said.
“I love mykyrana,” I informed my father. For the first time, those words escaped, as shackled and restrained as they’d been. And it felt like arelief…only I’d said them to the wrong person.
He scoffed. “Don’t be a child, Kythel. Weneedthedravawhen war comes.”
“And what do you care if war comes?” I asked.
My father’s nostrils flared.
“Maybe you would like to see the Kaalium burn,” I said, wanting to hurt him. “Maybe you want to see the memories burn too. It might make it hurt less.”
Whatever restraint my father possessed, I saw it play over his face in a flash. But I refused to take back my words. A long stretch of silence lapsed. For all his flaws, my father could hide his emotions like a shield of ice. Just like me.
“You will make your marriage bonds within the week,” Thraan ordered me. “You owe it to your mother. Don’t you?”
It felt like a blade slid deep into my lungs, robbing me of breath.
“Marry Lyris of House Arada not because of thedravabut because you owe it to Aina…and yourmother. You promised her that you would always put duty first, didn’t you? I heard you say it. Are you going back on your word now? Are you breaking the promise that you made to her as she was dying?”
“You’re a bastard,” I breathed, staring across the space right into my father’s eyes. “I have given everything for the Kaalium!”
“Not everything,” my father said, his tone hardening. “I am not blinded. You are. If you saw things clearly, you would do what is right. Protect the Kaalium. Do your duty to your people. Fulfill the promise you made to your mother.Thatis what’s important. Not your human whore.”
A swipe of my claws whistled out, shredding the Halo Com screen in two. The projection of my father disappeared, the call ended with violent finality. Rage was building, clamoring and clawing its way up my throat until I felt like I wouldfuckingchoke on it.
There was a sound echoing in the office. Rough and raw and angry. And it took me a moment to realize it wasme. Bellowing out my fury and my grief and my hatred and my exhaustion. The realm of the living slowed. I felt the painful pound of my heartbeat. Shreds of paper were falling like snow around me. I was tearing at everything, my claws bleeding. Glass shattered, the window gone. A warm breeze slid over the nape of my neck, sunlight flooding in, blinding. The shattering of a priceless vase, and I grinned at the sound. Nothing would calm me down. I wouldn’t stop until I tore this entire keep apart.
No.
I knew what I wanted.
All I wanted was Millie.
She would calm me. She would soothe and bandage this oozing, gaping, stinging wound inside me, one that had never quite healed. Even now, after what I’d done, if I went to her, she would still open her arms and embrace me. Because her heart was warm, not covered in ice so cold it burned like mine. I didn’tfuckingdeserve her. I never had.
She was everything I was not, everything I wanted—and needed—to be.
And I’d turned my back on her, choosing what I’d perceived as mydutyover her. Was this who I was?
