“I hate that I can’t just ask you to spit out the information we need,” I grumbled.
“Trust me, I hate it more. I don’t even remember reading this stuff, it just pours out of me.” Dax rolled his wrist, but kept on writing. “If you don’t even know the clue Uncle Alaric wanted you to find, how can I?”
A jolt of pain stabbed me at the sound of his name. It always did. I kicked off my shoes and tucked my feet under me, trying to make it look as casual as possible. Most days, I still wanted nothing more than to roll myself into a ball and roll into eternity with nothing and nobody stopping me. Especially today.
“I doubt even he knew,” I said. “Just that something was wrong.”
“You know what’s strange?” Dax’s brows furrowed. “It never felt like our vaults were empty.”
“I know. If my father hadn’t asked me to look, I wouldn’t have had any idea. And it still doesn’t make any sense. The Protectorate was never extravagant.”
A rule which Dria Vegheara herself had imposed from the first days of our Clan. We consumed only what we needed, and saved the rest for the days when a single coin could make a difference between survival and death.
But there were no saved coins, not anymore.
I’d seen the empty, cavernous vaults myself.
Remembered their sound when I’d walked inside, shocked.
Nothing.
“Maybe Alaric sensed Silas was up to something,” Dax said.
I hesitated. “Maybe.”
Silas was involved. Of course he was, gold didn’t just vanish overnight. But if my father had truly suspected his brother, he wouldn’t have tried so hard to involve him in our secret meetings instead of letting him laze around.
I’d always blamed brotherly love and misplaced hope, but it could have been part of a bigger plan my father hadn’t shared. It wouldn’t have been the first time.
Those same waves of disappointment crashed into me, like on the day I found out he’d offered the throne back to Evie. Without so much as consulting me.
Maybe he’d known the crown wouldn’t accept me.
I squirmed in the chair, feeling smaller by the second.
My father was dead, I shouldn’t have been criticizing his decisions. He’d done his best.
And now you’re left to untangle the mess he left behind, a voice hissed in my thought.
I shook my head and frowned harder at the parchment.
Dresses, a suckling pig, more fish–Tanthe Issa, may the gods have mercy on her rebellious soul, had loved everything that had ever touched the seas, from sailor to pearls–flowers, leather shoes–
My heart trembled.
There it was, right next to Tanthe Issa. My father’s name.
It was the first time since Sanctua Sirena that I saw any written mention of him. The more I reread it, the harder it hurt. It felt definitive in each sweep of the letters. Immortalized in such a small, warm way.
He’d bought a pair of shoes. The same pair he bought exactly once every ten years. In between, he’d take it to the cobbler and wore it until the soles fell off. Always leather, always from the same shop, always the same shape and shade. My father had been a creature of precise habits.
We’d even argued over these shoes, back when the last pair’s tips had faded to the point of unstitching from the soles. I’d insisted a Clan leader shouldn’t be set in their ways. To at least change them when the heel turned crusty and painful.
He’d reminded me of Dria Vegheara surviving on morning dew and spring roots.
By the end of it, I’d left him alone with his ideas, grumbling about stubbornness.
I could have lingered. I could have spent the afternoon talking about anything other than his curious preferences.
