I try to understand the exact composition of the awful swell of emotion inside me. I’m still furious at our father. But there’s something else beneath it, watching them together.
It glints like fresh snow. There’s potential. There’s weight. There’s beauty. There’s quiet.
Saela’s never truly experienced a parent’s undivided attention and interest. Our mother’s mental illness prevented Saela from forming the kind of maternal bond I shared with Mother when I was young, before it all changed. She could never trust our mother and gradually learned to stop going to her for much of anything.
And I tried, but…
It’s just good, seeing this. She’s happy, and it’s my job to protect that, even if it also makes my heart heavy.
There’s a shuffling sound, and I glance over to find Noemi passing by. She notes what I’m observing and says dryly, “Fathers, am I right?”
I let out a tight laugh.
She bites her lip in hesitation and then says, “Look, we don’t know each other well. But from one damaged daughter to another, I can tell that your father is trying. Don’t forgive him if you can’t, but just… keep that in mind.”
Her counsel loosens something inside me.
As Noemi walks away, Saela notices me watching them, and her expression instantly closes off. Her shoulders lift, she ducks her head, and she scoots away from Fredrich as if she were caught doing something forbidden.
It hurts. I don’t want her to feel guilty for finding happiness, regardless of my own complicated relationship with him. It isn’t about me.
“I’m going to see if the wolves want to be brushed,” Saela says to the ground.
They really,reallydo not. But remarkably, both Anassa and Cratos have given in to Saela’s adoring ministrations. Saela has taken to brushing them daily with horse-grooming tools she snagged from one of the outposts, and so far neither of them has bitten off her hand.
“Primping time,” I warn Anassa, and she growls in my head.
“I shall let Cratos know to go for a run. His patience for this has disappeared. She tried to tie a ribbon on him yesterday.”
As Saela heads off to find Anassa, I move swiftly toward my father. “I’m going to ask you a question, and you’re going to answer honestly.”
“Of course I will,” Fredrich says with a softness that pisses me off more.
I run my fingers through my hair and stare down at my boots. “Is there any possibility, any procedure or magic, that could reverse what’s happened to her? Could Saela ever be human again?”
Even as I ask the question, I know its answer. But a part of me just needs to hear it.
For the vibrations of the spoken words to shatter the resistance in my soul.
“I thought that… maybe in Astreona, where Siphons originated, there could be some unknown cure,” I say.
He’s silent. I know what I’ll see, but I lift my eyes anyway. And at the sight of him, my last fragile thread of hope snaps. It’s genuine, unfettered sorrow in his eyes.
“No,” he says. He shakes his head. “No, there’s no way to reverse the transformation. Once you’re turned, it’s permanent and complete. I… searched.”
I shut my eyes and let it kill me a little inside. Just for a few breaths.
And then, because I want to dig a knife into him, I say, “Perhaps you didn’t search hard enough.”
When I walk away, the pounding of my heart in my ears almost drowns out the ache in my chest.
The next day, we finally arrive at the city of Brightbane.
We crest the last hill, and immediately our party stops moving, halting in stunned appreciation.
Brightbane rises from the valley floor like something from a dream, constructed primarily of a distinctive pink-white stone that seems to glow in the sunlight.
Unlike the practical, dark buildings of Sturmfrost meant to keep out the cold and cling to what little sunlight we get, this city features sweeping arches, delicate spires, and ornate facades.
