Page 47 of Children of Fallen Gods

I cleared my throat. “It is a great honor to serve them. A great, great honor. Thank you.”

My father glanced at me, and I could have sworn that I saw a flicker of pity in his gaze. “Contrary to what you might think, Aefe, I do believe you have… potential.” His stare fell to my exposed forearm, and the topography of dark X’s. “You just fail to utilize it.”

“Do you ever think that things could be different?” I asked, quietly. “Do you ever imagine what it would be like if they were?”

I cringed as soon as I spoke. As always, I had asked a question I shouldn’t have, and I knew the answer would hurt.

“There is no use in dreaming of realities that do not exist.”

“I am still yourdaughter.” I wrenched my sleeve up on my right arm, the one covered not with X’s but ink and raised scars that told the stories of my ancestry. “I wear your stories on my skin just as they are in my blood.”

“If only that was the only thing your blood carried.”

I flinched. There it was. Just as I knew it would, just as it did every time, it hurt.

But only because it would always be true.

My father turned to me. There was an odd expression on his face, something I could barely read but was so much deeper than his typical cold dismissal. If I didn’t know better, I might have thought it was affection. Or… regret.

“I do wish that things weren’t as they are,” he said. “But the gods have tainted you. You know why you cannot be the Teirness—”

“I do not want to be the Teirness,” I whispered. “I want to be your daughter.”

My father looked away, as if my words had encroached on something too personal, and I regretted them immediately. When he spoke again, his voice was measured and distant, and I hated my honesty for shortening that brief moment of connection.

“We stand at an important juncture, Aefe,” he said. “The crossroads of so many bloody pathways. Your mission is important, and it will decide whether this one leads to blood. I do not trust the Wyshraj. Watch them. And beyond that, watch for the truth. The Sidnee are relying on you.” He paused, then added, “Iam relying on you.”

I couldn’t help but savor those words. I never thought I would hear them.

He placed a steadying hand on my shoulder. “Show me all that you could be, my daughter.”

Maybe it was the alcohol. Maybe it was the heady excitement of the day. Maybe it was the rush of his hand on my shoulder, the kind of familial touch I had not felt in so long. But I found myself fighting tears.

“Yes,” I choked out. “I will. I will.”

Chapter Fourteen

Tisaanah

“That,” Zeryth said, “was not what I had commanded you to do.”

He was pacing the length of his office. This seemed unusual. Zeryth was not the type to pace. I stood there in my soiled clothes, my jacket stained red, Il’Sahaj still in my hands. I had been summoned straight here from the battlefield.

“I did exactly what you commanded me to do,” I said. “You wanted victory, and I gave it to you.”

“Youlet them retreat.” Zeryth whirled to face me. Dark circles hung beneath his eyes. The look that glinted there reminded me of an edge of broken glass. Rawer than I’d ever seen them before. Stranger.

“Did youwantme to kill all of those people, Zeryth?”

“They need to understand the consequences of what they’ve done.”

“They were certainly afraid.”

“Not afraid enough.”

The pacing resumed.

I watched him carefully. This was not the behavior of a man in control of the situation.

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