Dante went very still.
Dread crossed his face.
"Can I see them?" The question came out quieter than she'd intended, but she pushed on. "I know they're dead, but I've been living among the dead and I never even thought to ask?—"
"Don't." The single word came out sharp. Almost desperate.
"Don't what? Don't ask about my own family?"
"Don't ask questions you don't want answers to." He turned to face her fully, and she saw exhaustion there, and guilt.
Her stomach dropped. "What does that mean?"
He ran a hand through his hair, a gesture so human it caught her off guard. "It means some knowledge only brings pain."
"They're my parents. I have a right to know."
"Do you?" The question was harsh. "Do you have a right to knowledge that will destroy any peace you might find in this place?"
The corridor felt like it was closing in. Servants had vanished, sensing the dangerous undercurrent in their lord's voice.
"Tell me," Brynn whispered.
"No."
"Tell me what happened to them."
"I said no." His voice carried that edge she'd heard him use on courtiers who overstepped, the tone that reminded everyone exactly who they were dealing with.
But she wasn't everyone else.
"You don't get to decide what I can handle." She moved toward him instead of backing away. "You don't get to shield me from my own life."
"Your life ended the night you were marked for tribute." He held her gaze. "Everything since then has been borrowed time."
The cruelty of it stole her breath.
"Then tell me about their deaths," she said quietly. "If my life is already over, what's left to shield me from?"
For a moment, she thought he might break. His shadows reached toward her before recoiling.
"Time changes everything in the death realm," he said finally, his voice barely above a whisper. "Even love. Even memory. Even the people we once were."
"What does that mean for them?"
His eyes closed briefly. "It means the parents you remember, the ones who loved you... They don't exist anymore. Death changed them. The betrayal that killed them, the way they died believing theworst..." He shook his head. "They're trapped in that final moment of despair, reliving it endlessly. They wouldn't recognize you. Couldn't recognize you. All they know now is the pain of believing their daughter turned against them."
The words drove the air from her lungs.
She'd expected them to be unreachable.
Not this.
"They think I betrayed them?" Her voice came out thin. Broken. "They died believing I was part of what destroyed our family?"
"The betrayer was thorough." His voice gentled in a way that made her chest ache. "Made it look like the whole family was involved. Your parents' final moments..." He stopped, shaking his head.
"Tell me."
