Page 85 of Children of Fallen Gods

Then, her eyes had snapped open, and she had jerked backwards. Before, she had addressed me with the reverent respect befitting of my station. But then, she had looked at me as if she had seen something terrible, somethingterrifying, within me.

“I didn’t know what it meant, at the time. She didn’t say anything to me, or to my mother. But she must have spoken to my father, because…”

Because that night, I had awoken to my father’s hands around my throat.

I forced myself to look at Caduan. I expected to see judgement. There was always some shade of judgement, after they knew. But not here. What was that? Gentleness? Pity?

“In the House of Stone,” he said, softly, “they kill Essneras.”

“Sometimes in the House of Obsidian, they do too.”

I didn’t fully remember that night. The memories were broken pieces that didn’t quite fit together. The sensation of my father’s hands around my throat. The razored edge of my terror. A light that spilled through the door — or perhaps I had imagined that, as I lost consciousness. I remembered begging. I remembered fading.

And when I opened my eyes again, my life had changed.

“My father spared me,” I said, at last. “But of course, I could not be the Teirness.”

Something I could not read crossed Caduan’s face.

“I’m sorry,” he said, softly, with a tenderness that I was not expecting. “I’m sorry that happened to you.”

I lifted one shoulder in a shrug, one that I hoped looked more nonchalant than I felt. “It is not up to me to judge the choices of the gods.”

The words felt ridiculous rolling off of my tongue. Caduan practically winced, as if they sounded that way to him, too.

He stood, pacing through the brush. Then he turned to me.

“I do not think you believe that. About the gods.”

I blinked. “What?”

“And I do not think you believe what you said this morning.”

“I—”

But his gaze bore into me, unrelenting. “Am I wrong?”

Mathira, I had always been so bad at lying. I said nothing, but my answer was written across my face.

“We have a chance at gettinganswers, Aefe,” he said. “Legitimate answers. Do you truly believe that we should abandon that in the name of—”

“It is the role of a Teirna to uphold our ways. What would you have him do?”

Understanding settled over Caduan’s face.

“The Teirna,” he said, softly. “So you were not giving me your opinion. You were giving me your father’s.”

“I am here as my father’s chosen. It doesn’t matter what I think.”

“I believe it does.”

“You say that as if I’m something other than a disgraced Blade,” I scoffed. “The truth is, Caduan, I am honored to hold this position. And I will not jeopardize it by telling my father to abandon his ideals.”

His lip curled. He began to pace. “Ideals are worth nothing to corpses. Not the one I had open on my table, and not the ones I crawled away from in my home. And you should know that more than anyone. You, of all people, should have no patience for their pointless games.”

What wasthatsupposed to mean?

“My father doesn’t play games,” I shot back. “And you should watch how you speak of him. He respects you.”

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