The door shut. The spell within the car lifted, and the silence broke.
“She moved around for a bit, but she settled here seven years ago,” his father said, starting the engine and guiding the car back onto the main street.
Yiran wiped his eyes roughly with the back of his hand. “She seems happy.”
“Why do you think I’ve never approached her? Like the rest of the world, she thinks I’m dead. Her life is better for it.”
Yiran wasn’t sure if it was his imagination, but he thought his father sounded a little hoarse. Had his father watched her from afar in the years they’d been separated, just like he did now? Had he watchedYiran?
In his mind’s eye, Yiran saw the three of them: his parents laughing, a six-year-old him between them, holding their hands, connecting them. But it was only an illusion, like a shiny reflection in a soap bubble that would burst and disappear once you tried to touch it.
“Your mother has an ordinary spirit core,” his father said, “and while magic isn’t always inherited, patterns appear in bloodlines. No one in her family had ever shown the slightest potential for magic. Your grandfather decided on a more suitablepairing for me. I felt an obligation to what the Songs represented, so I married someone I felt nothing for. Lan Xi was born not long after, but I kept finding my way back to your mother untilshedecided to end our relationship.”
“Why didn’t you come back for us after you faked your death?” Yiran said quietly.Why did you let him take me?
His father’s grip on the steering wheel tightened. “Your mother must’ve broken it off with me when she found out that she was pregnant with you. I didn’t know of your existence until I received a letter from her out of the blue. Her letter detailed the strange things that had been happening to you and around you since you were a baby, and how these anomalies were getting more frequent. More obvious. She didn’t know what to do.
“I was stunned by the news. I wanted to take responsibility, to make things right. I knew your mother wanted a quiet life. It wasn’t something I could offer her, but I would’ve found a way. I was going to tell your grandfather after my mission, but it turned out to be my final one.”
Yiran stared at his scars, feeling the ridges of skin as he ran his fingers across each other. “I don’t understand why she would give me up.”
“Your grandfather must’ve discovered the letter after my presumed death. I suppose he looked for her and promised to give you a better life. In exchange, she could not contact you. She must’ve been frightened for you, and she acted on that fear, thinking she was protecting you by giving you up. Or he might’ve threatened her. Whatever the case, it’s likely she was forced or manipulated to—”
Yiran slammed a fist against the window. “Pull over.”
His father did so without question.
Yiran burst out of the car. Cold wind buffeted him as he walked to the cliff edge. The sea below roiled and roared, reflecting what was going on inside him. There was a path down to where water met land. It was wet and dangerously slippery. He climbed down anyway, falling and sliding at points, cutting his palms against rock, tearing a hole in his jeans, until he reached level ground.
The salt from the sea spray mingled with his own from tears. He didn’t know how long he’d been there when he felt another presence. His father was standing on the ledge above.
“He was trying tocut offmy magic, wasn’t he?” Yiran shouted above the sound of the waves. “To think that all this time, I wanted to believe the old man was trying to help me.”
“I don’t expect your forgiveness,” his father said, “but I can offer you a chance to get your birthright and your magic back. If that’s what you want, I will help you.”
“No one can help me. My spirit core and meridians are messed up.”
“You cast magic in the Simulator, and you cast it when you had the girl’s spiritual energy, didn’t you? There’s more to this—there’s more to you. We’ll find the truth together.”
Salt stung Yiran’s eyes. He stayed silent, shivering in the cold sea spray, half wanting to fling himself into the water.
“You are my son,” his father said solemnly. “My heir.”
Yiran forced himself to speak. “What about Ash?”
All hardness in his father’s face melted away, and he extended his hand. “I would have chosenyou.”
Yiran wasn’t sure if he regarded the Hybrids as enemies anymore, not when he knew how deep the rot in the Guild went. Not when he knew what Song Wei was capable of. What Song Wei had done to him. But he didn’t know if he could accept his father’s cause either.
One man’s villain is another man’s hero.
Yuki was wrong.
There were no heroes on either side. There were only the powerful and the powerless.
Setting his jaw, he reached up and took his father’s hand.
46
