My mother had called him a monster.
He had not raised a hand toward me when I attacked him, and I had come dangerously close to putting a blade through his stomach.
Fear looked a bit uncertain, which was a rarity; he overcame it quickly. He wiped his bloody mouth with the back of his hand.
“Cara, I’d like you to meet Corbyn. He’s a dragon shifter who used to serve the queen but came to his senses. Corbyn, this is Cara. A most extraordinary mortal.”
“Fuck off, Fear,” Corbyn said, exactly the way I often wanted to.
And that sealed it for me.
“You’re my father.” The words came out blunt, harsh. I couldn’t manage them any other way.
“Yes.” His voice had gone rough. “Your mother was my Maris.”
My Maris. She didn’t see herself that way.
I took a breath, hoping that the world would resolve into something that made sense. I used that breath to carefully, finally, sheathe my knives.
“She remarried after you. Or married again?” I knew nothing. It was alarming.
“Good.” He said it too quickly. “Is she happy?”
Memories of my mother flashed through my head. “Not particularly.”
His face shifted.
“I’m not Lightbringer.” My voice was filled with scorn.
“No, of course not,” he agreed, his gaze still filled with wonder. “I’m sorry.”
The immediate apology felt unsatisfying when I was still bristling.
He glanced at Fear—a distinctly murderous look that I wondered if I had inherited—before he added, “Fear should have told you about me.”
“He did.” The words came short and harsh. “I’m not ready to know you.”
Corbyn looked stunned. “He told you?”
“I am in the midst of many things.” I waved my hand to encompass all of this—the Trials, the Fae, Lightbringer. “I don’t have time for angst about my first father. I did that already. For twenty years. I am done.”
His lips parted; this man who looked as if he had never doubted himself in his life gaped at me. “You can’t mean that.”
“She does.” Fear’s fingers slipped against mine, and I grabbed his hand as if it was an anchor. “There will be time, Corbyn. But the right time is not today.”
I looked up at Fear, and he gave me an encouraging squeeze of his fingers. There was no judgment in his face.
Some of the tension I was choking on relaxed.
“We could sit down for a few minutes. I would like to hear the story of what happened with you and…Maris.” It felt strange to call my mother by her given name. “But I don’t want anything else. Not yet.”
“Not yet,” he said, as if that meant something to him. He nodded. “I’ll tell you about Maris.”
We moved to a garden nearby. Corbyn looked at Fear as if he wished he would go away, but Fear only looked at me, and I was not ready to be alone with Corbyn.
It felt to me as if I could barely absorb any of it. The words washed over me.
“I fell in love with Maris in the castle. She was one of the many servants who attempted to take care of Fieran. He was unruly then too.” He glanced at Fear.
