The instant we’re alone, I draw my dagger and step forward, shadows wreathed around me.
“Whoare you?” I snap. My voice trembles with barely contained ire. “My father died eleven years ago in battle.”
“Meryn—”
“Don’tsay my name!” I shout. “Are you like Killi—” I stop short, smarting. “Are you likeAlistair? Are you a Siphon in there who took over my father’s body?”
Lines are blurring. Something broke when I saw Killian’s eyes roll back. When I watched him turn into someone else. The crack deepened when I realized how ghostly Saela had become. It’s difficult for me, now, to believe that the people I love—whom I once loved—are even real.
My dagger is pressed to his chest, tip aimed at his heart. And Anassa looms behind us, growling so deeply that it rumbles through me even though we aren’t touching.
But he speaks calmly. “I’m your father.”
I shake my head. “Prove it.”
“How?”
“Tell me something only my real father would know,” I demand.
He doesn’t hesitate. Immediately, as if calling up the memory from the very surface of his soul, he says, “On your ninth nameday, I took you hunting in the woods south of Sturmfrost.”
My jaw tightens until my teeth creak.
He keeps going. “You were such a quick learner. Unafraid, even thoughI was worried that breaking down an elk would scare you. I told you that it would feed us, your mother, the neighbors. And you understood, even though you were only nine. You were so determined to help.”
My eyes are stinging. I don’t want to cry. I don’t want to feel this way.
“Then the very next day you caught a tiny rabbit in your snare. But you couldn’t bring yourself to kill it. You begged me to release the little creature. Said you couldn’t see the point in hurting something so beautiful and young.”
The memory sears through me like a fire in my chest.Goddess, I forgot this part until now. Blocked out the full truth of this moment when I thought back on him.
I wanted to remember only the good parts, the father who spent special time alone with me and made sure I was fed.
“You told me I needed to toughen up,” I grind out. “To become realistic about the world. You snapped its neck.”
He smiles lightly at that. “We had rabbit stew, and your mother turned its pelt into a warm hat for you.”
A shudder passes through me. My memories of him had become glossy, sanitized. With a mother as sick as mine, the good moments with Father grew and blossomed until they blocked out the bad. He became a hero in my mind.
I tighten my grip on my blade and refuse to drop it. But I speak coldly and calmly now, no longer desperate to tear him apart. More intent on getting answers.
“The story’s true, but the merciful, innocent girl you remember died when her father did.”
He sighs, running a hand through his hair.
“That child was replaced by someone who had to grow hard to survive. So I guess in a way, you got what you wanted.” I look at my dagger pointedly, as if to say,I’d kill the rabbit now. I’ll kill you now. “You might not like whom I’ve become.”
Then I step back and let my anger run free. My shadows surge forward. They take hold of his limbs and force him back, seeming to read my intention. He doesn’t fight it as the dark tendrils shove him into the stone chair behind him and restrain him with tendrils of darkness.
Good. He’ll be under my control if he wants to talk. Anassa rumbles approvingly, moving forward to stand at my side.
“If you’ve been alive this entire time, where have you been for the past eleven years? Why did you never return to us?” My dagger is still in my hand. I can’t let go of it. But I let my other hand come up to wind through strands of Anassa’s fur.
“My battalion was ambushed, and I was critically wounded. They left me to die on the battlefield. But—” he glances down at my magic, swallows, then meets my eyes “—Ruby found me. She offered me transformation instead of death. And I was in so much pain and so afraid. I know fathers aren’t supposed to admit it, but I wasafraid. And I accepted.”
A missing father. A terrified man. An unwanted Siphon. Nothing feels real.
“I believed I was protecting you by staying away, that returning to Nocturna as a Siphon would have put a target on your backs. And truth be told, I found the idea of leaving my sire to be… unwelcome.”
