Page 108 of Between Despair and Hope

“I know it makes no sense. Anything and everything good in my life became corrupted. I thought the best way to protect you and Lavenia was to distance myself, controlling your lives from afar. Soren allowed me to make many choices regarding how you were raised only because of my detachment. But I think I did you a disservice. Didusa disservice.”

I took a moment to mull over her words. “He didn’t want you close to us?”

“He wanted to raise you both a certain way. He—his life wasn’t easy either. I think it was his own way of protecting you. The rotating tutors and maids, never having a constant in your life. He wanted to prepareyou, especially. He viewed attachments and affection as weakness.”

I snorted. My love for my girls, my reliance on my friendships? Those were the strongest parts of me.

“I’m sorry, Rainier. I have always wanted what was best for you. I thought surely she would have told you before now, and it seemed like treachery to me. You send that message and then disappear?”

“Emma would never do anything to harm me.” A vivid image of her sinking her blade into my stomach came back to me, a phantom twinge of pain just next to my navel. “Nothing she couldn’t heal, anyway. And she wouldn’t do that to Elora.”

“I know that now. I do. She—she is a better mother than I am.”

“Yes.”

I hadn’t intended to say it out loud, but the word struck a blow with her, physically knocking her back into her seat. After a quiet moment, she started laughing to herself, and I wondered if she was having a mental break.

“She threw a dagger at Soren,” she chuckled, eyes closed. “And I was too afraid to start a war.”

“Well, to be fair, those are two vastly different things.”

“I’m still shocked your father didn’t kill her. You’re the only reason he didn’t.”

Remembering the words he’d said to me that day had rage bubbling beneath my skin.

Is her cunt that sweet?

And then worse, what he’d unknowingly said to Em about his own kin.

Pray to the gods the dark prince thinks the same about your daughter.

“You mean he only spared her because he didn’t want to have to kill me too.”

“No.” She shook her head. “He said little those last days, but he said he was scared for you.”

“Scared?”

“‘Love will be his greatest punishment,’ he said. ‘I’m scared he won’t survive it.’”

Frozen, I watched her as her eyes lifted to mine, curious whether I’d see her shed tears over the man who sired me. I certainly hadn’t.

“Was it that much torment for him to love you?” I chided, but I wanted to change the topic. I wasn’t ready to think about how fucked my relationship with my father was. At my comment though, my mother threw her head back and laughed.

Boisterous, she went on for several moments before finally catching her breath. Wiping away tears from her eyes, she struggled to get out her words. “Soren has only loved one woman his entire life, and she is long dead.”

“Larke.”

“Yes. Larke. And supposedly he killed her, so when he said that love is punishment, take it with a grain of salt. He was the one doling it out.” All I could do was nod. Gods, I envied Em sometimes. Her father was just shy of his seventieth year. She didn’t have to sift through centuries of history to learn about him.

“My point was, Rainier, that Emmeline threw a dagger at Soren over an untoward comment. I can only imagine what she would have done if he hadn’t called off his order. And yet, I sat here and weighed the merits of sending an army after you. She set Darkhold on fire for you. She would’ve set theworldon fire for Elora.”

“You’re not wrong.” Em was a gods damn force to be reckoned with. I was fully convinced that if she didn’t have Elora to think about, she would have been in Darkhold with or without an army days after I was taken.

“I hope I haven’t ruined things irreparably with her and Elora,” she said.

“It is time for new beginnings in Vesta. You can be part of that. It won’t hurt to try, anyway.”

“Speaking of new beginnings.” She inhaled. “Coronation.”

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