Page 163 of Eldritch
“He’s your father,” Zevander finally said, dragging me out of my head.
“I thought he was dead. We were told he’d perished months ago.” I reached for a jar of apples, my grip faltering, and it slipped from my hand.
Zevander snatched it mid-fall and tucked it into his cloak. “And the other?”
“Just someone I knew.” Frowning, I stared down at my trembling hand, the words I wanted to say jumbled in my head. “You were someone I knew, as well.”
“Yes.”
My mind took me back to those endless days and nights, when trapped in the cold and dark, and I winced. The images I’d long tucked away still held so much clarity. “Have you known this whole time? Since the beginning?”
“No. I lost those memories, somehow.” He sighed, piling another jar into his cloak. “I felt a familiarity around you, a comfort. But I couldn’t pinpoint why.”
“The day on the path. When the soldier punished me.” A flush of humiliation warmed my cheeks, as I imagined him invisibly witnessing each strike of that whip. “You were there, as well.”
“Yes.”
“Were you always with me back then?”
“Not always, no. I saw glimpses of your life. Moments when I would slip into Caligorya.”
“What made you slip into Caligorya?”
His brows pulled tight, and he stared down at the jars captured in his cloak. “This should be plenty for our travels,” he said, swiping up some of my jars. “Let’s head back. I think all of us could use some rest.”
Both of us exited the pantry and started back toward the upper level at an unhurried pace, but it hadn’t escaped my notice that he’d avoided my question.
“You don’t have to tell me,” I said over the soft clanking of glass, as I held the small bundle tucked in the skirt of my dress. We passed the cell which housed the dead children, and I couldn’t bring myself to look in at the teddy bear I knew to be there.
“Seeing you was the only thing that kept me going.” His voice was flat and toneless, not displaying the emotion I could see in the tight clench of his jaw. “When I lost sight of you, when I could no longer remember you, I lost myself.”
It was strange how intimately I knew that feeling. How much darker and colder my punishment had felt when I could no longer hear his voice. I was certain The Red God had forsaken me then. Left me to suffer for my sins. “They wanted to burn me for what happened to Lilleven.”
He ground to a halt and reached into the bundle I carried, stuffing my remaining jars into his cloak.
“It’s okay, I can carry some of them.”
“I’d prefer you didn’t have a sack full of glass in your hands, if you insist on talking the whole way back.”
“Is there something that you anticipate will anger me?”
He didn’t answer at first, his naturally angry face unwavering. “What happened wasn’t your fault. I’m the one who willed her death. The moment you spoke those words, I longed to see her trampled, as well.”
“What?”
Instead of acknowledging me, he hoisted the much heavier sack over his shoulder, while I mentally chewed on his confession.
“Youkilled Lilleven?”
“I didn’t want any of this for you. I was merely an observer, and you were supposed to be nothing more than a hypothetical. But the more I watched, the more I felt for you. Seeing them treat you like an outcast enraged me.”
I mindlessly blinked up at him, searching for clarity in his eyes. Instead, I found nothing more than staunch resolution, and when he urged me up the staircase, I refused to move. Not before he answered my question.
“Lilleven’s murder had nothing to do with me?” I needed to hear his response. My heart and conscience longed to know that I wasn’t responsible for her death.
“No. I broke a very sacred rule and intervened.”
My breath hitched, and I stood silent for a moment. Relieved? I couldn’t properly label the feeling that moved through me.
