Page 46 of The Stone Survival
The way he was looking at her, devouring her with his gaze… “How well did you know each other?”
“Lionel was in love with me,” Melanie said.
“I was,” Lionel said. “But you never felt the same way.”
“Is that why you kept tabs on me? Watched me? Is that how you found out about my liaison with Ivor?”
Lionel closed his eyes and exhaled. “I had you watched to keep you safe.”
“From what? Life?”
He looked uncomfortable. “Maybe my motives were selfish. I wanted to know what you were doing…How you were doing when not…not with me. I knew I couldn’t have you, but I needed you to be happy. Safe. When the pictures came in and I saw Ivor, I reached out to you.”
Melanie looked at me. “He came to see me. I thought it was a friendly visit, inquiring about my life. I thought we were friends.” This she aimed at Lionel. “I see now you wanted to get close to Ivor. Except Ivor was gone by then. You continued to keep me under surveillance, didn’t you?” She flickered and appeared closer to him. “You found out I was pregnant.” Another flicker and she was standing right next to him. “Then you took my baby!” she screamed in his face, her visage distorting for a moment, eye sockets darkening and maw elongating.
“Don’t!” I reached for her, but my fingers passed through her icy spectral form. “Don’t lose yourself, Mum.”
Her face morphed back to normal, and she looked at me in awe. “You called me mum…”
I swallowed past the lump in my throat. “I did. Because you are. And I’m so fucking sorry you didn’t get to raise me. So sorry for what happened, and I don’t think I’ll ever be able to forgive Lionel for what he did to you, but I don’t want you to suffer any more for it. I don’t want you to lose yourself to vengeance.”
She pulled away from him, her ghostly form flickering. “I won’t. I swear it.”
“I was trying to save you,” Lionel said to Melanie. “Save you from the monster that killed my mother and from the abomination that I thought might be growing in your belly.”
“You could have spoken to me,” she said. “Told me the truth.”
“I didn’t know what kind of holdhemight have on you. I made a choice. I realize now it was the wrong choice becauseCameron is an amazing woman. I’m sorry, so sorry for taking her away from you.”
Melanie vanished then reappeared by the island again. “Keep her safe. Keep her alive, and I might find my way to forgiving you…eventually.”
Lionel’s shoulders sagged. “Yes, I can do that. Iwantto do that.”
Melanie nodded before misting into nothing, her energy to manifest spent for now. But she was still in the room with us, I could feel her, and I had more questions, answers to which I was sure Melanie would be interested in.
“Who was the woman you had raise me?”
“An old lover. A good friend. She’d lost her husband and child in an accident, and you were a blessing to her. When she died, I didn’t want you to be without family, and so I sent Romi to find you, although he never realized I’d orchestrated it. I took you from your mother because I thought you might be a graynite, but you weren’t. You were human and goyle. A miracle that shouldn’t have existed because it’s impossible for a graynite to procreate with a human. So I kept you hidden from the council. I was afraid if they discovered your existence, they might experiment on you.”
“But Iamdifferent. I’ve changed, and it’s because of the fae blood I got from my mother.”
Lionel exhaled heavily. “So that’s why he was able to procreate with Melanie.” His lips turned down. “He beguiled Melanie. And I wager he’s done the same to you too, Cameron. Whatever he’s said, it’s a lie. He’s a murderer and?—”
“No, Lionel. Everythingyou’vebeen told about what happened back then is a lie.”
He opened his mouth to argue.
“Listen to her,” Serath snapped.
Lionel sat back with a sigh and a nod.
I told him about the curse, about the sacrifice his parents made for the greater good. I told him about the shedim and how they were allies until the faction rose to discredit them. “The war we’ve been waging is a lie. The faction is our true enemy, and they’re preparing to open the rift. We’ve got to stop them.” I explained how Serath was vital to the faction’s plot and how we hoped to lure them out. Finally, I looked to Selas to tell her part. She did so, her tone weary and weak.
Lionel listened intently, absorbing everything.
Finally, we were done. He had all the information that we did, and I was talked out.
“We were told about the curse,” Lionel said. “That it was cast to help us fight the gray. We were told the graynites came from that curse—gargoyles who lost their souls. We were told that once the rift was closed, the graynites turned on us. All this time, I thought my father killed my motherafterlosing his soul. That he remained him, just without any sense of morality or empathy. I never realized killing her was a sacrifice theybothmade to initiate the curse. The same sacrifice that took his soul from him. I never realized that this powerful force they made a deal with were the shedim. My father is truly dead…”
