But it washim.
His cold eyes cut through me, each word an icy shard in my heart.
“I would have let her go. It would have been a burden off my shoulders, truly. But she took you—my heir. That, I couldn’t forgive. So I came for you. To bring you home.”
“You told me it was Arbinj,” I seethe, tears blurring my vision.
A casual fucking shrug even as his voice hardens. “Arbinj has harmed our women before. Our wives. Daughters.Mothers. They will do so again.” I know he’s thinking of the shell of a woman who raised him.
Tides, what if Varad had been telling the truth about Turmah? What if she’d wanted to remain in Arbinj with her husband? I can’t trust anything my father has told me.
My head spins. Bile churns in my gut. “And all the storms?” My voice cracks. “Why? Why put me through that?”
His lip curls with disdain. “I couldn’t stomach the fear the … experience left in you. I wanted to rid you of your weakness. I wanted tohelpyou.”
Everything I’ve ever believed was a lie.
Thisis the man I spent my life trying to make proud.
This liar.
This murderer.
The fissure in my heart splinters wider and wider, and fury keeps gushing from the angry wound.
My hands rise of their own accord.
Fathertsks. “Accomplished wielder, you may be, but you’d be a fool to challenge us all.” He casts his gaze around the camp, at the warriors standing ready, at Sorka also watching, his eyes dimmed with a quiet sadness.
In my tent, Vy peers through the flaps.
My murdering father is right.
I can’t take on all these warriors.
At least not alone.
Father must read the intention in my eyes.
“Mayah, no—”
But he’s too late.
I’m already on the platform, thin ribbons of water snaking into the keyholes of his iron collar and cuffs. Lock-picking with ice—a skill Daak reluctantly taught me years ago.
The ironclanks as it hits the ground.
Zev falls to his knees with a dull thud.
My body moves before my mind can catch up.
I whirl to face my mother’s murderer.
A scream tears from my throat.
I attack.
Chapter Sixty-Five
