Page 35 of The War of Wings
“Really. I didn’t have a guidebook. I had a general idea of what I was supposed to be doing, sure, and I had advisors. You don’t have a guidebook, either, but you have a general idea of what you’re supposed to be doing. And you may not have advisors, but you have…” I looked over to where Nell was screaming something at Whit, who’d thrown his arm over Miles’ shoulder only for it to be immediately batted away. “Well, you have us. Your Penumbra.”
Her eyes glistened, staring off into the vast darkness of the woods. “Sometimes I feel like I’m on top of the world, like triumph is possible. And other times it’s this bottomless sense of hopelessness and helplessness and confusion.”
I nodded. “Do you know why it feels like that?”
“Because I’m out of my depth.”
“No, because you care.” I hooked a thumb beneath her chin, pulling her to look at me. “You could’ve taken yourself out of the equation a long time ago, Petra. Malosym wants you gone, and you could’ve made that happen. You’re still here, stillfightingbecause you care. Because you care about the rest of the world and what you’ll leave behind.”
A fat tear slid down her cheek, her jaw tight. “He can’t win, Cal.”
“As long as you keep trying, he won’t. And I’ll be here every step of the way. Where you go, I go, remember?”
She closed her eyes and leaned against my shoulder again, and we stared into the darkness until the fires at camp began to burn low, until the guards changed shifts once, then again, until the sun broke through and split the darkness.
???
I’d been staring at the back of Petra’s head for hours as we made our way through the Onyx Pass. Even as we marched over dirt dappled in sunlight beneath a canopy of green trees and blue sky, it felt eerie. My eyes scanned the forest, my body on high alert since we’d broken down camp this morning. She wanted to be alone, and that was understandable. But I’d be damned if I wasn’t watching her back as she rode.
“How is she doing?” a voice asked from behind me, and I tensed when the figure appeared beside me atop their own horse.
Kauvras.
I swallowed hard, sucking my teeth for a moment in an attempt to keep my composure. “Last night frightened her.”
Kauvras grunted, nodding as he watched Petra. “She’s strong.”
“Strongest person I know.”
“She should hate me.”
“She won’t,” I answered quickly. Kauvras remained silent. “She’s forgiving of people who don’t deserve forgiveness.”I should know,I thought to myself.
He sniffed, mulling over my words. “Youshould hate me.”
“I do.”
I wasn’t like Petra. I couldn’t find forgiveness by looking at the root of the action against me, at the intentions. I hated Kauvras, and I wanted him to know it.
He didn’t protest. Didn’t try to state his case. He simply nodded. His breaths were measured, his eyes forward. Silence stretched between us, fragile and uncomfortable. I hated this. Iwanted to go back to the time when my father was a faceless enigma, existing only within the confines of my own mind like some sort of creature of myths.
“You left my mother,” I finally said, emotionless.
He sat silent for so long I thought maybe he hadn’t heard me. When he finally spoke, his words were small. They didn’t match his hulking frame and booming voice. “She was everything.”
My fists clenched on the reins. “But you left.”
One hand rubbed over the scruff on his jaw. “I wanted to keephimaway from her. My cause… It started off so simple. So many of us in Taitha were unhappy with the way the kingdom was being run. I just wanted Cabillia to have a better leader. And then Castemont got involved, and he got my blood somehow, and that was when it started to go wrong. That’s when the leechthorn started, and the…” He trailed off, bracing himself. “And the invasions of villages and towns. I thought I was going mad. He promised he would help me ascend to Sainthood, and I thought maybe if I did, it would cure the madness. It was bad enough he knew who she was. I didn’t need him getting his hands on her. And had he known about you…”
“But he did know about me.” Whether it was the day he met me in Eserene and recognized the blue of my eyes, the same blue of the man sitting beside me, or whether it was before that, he knew about me. He knew I was Kauvras’ son.
“I… I was scared. He’d used other peoples’ blood to do horrid, horrid things, Belin, and I couldn’t bear the thought of–”
“You have no right to call me by the name she gave me,” I snapped, louder than I’d intended. Petra’s posture suddenly stiffened. She didn’t turn to look back. She could probably guess exactly who I was talking to.
My mother called me Belin. People called me Belin when I ascended the throne of Widoras, but it felt less personal in such an official capacity. Hearing Kauvras speak my name like this, so personal, so…familiar, it rubbed me the wrong way.
“I’m sorry,” he breathed, his eyes on the ground. And there was such pain on his face, such anguish, it gave me pause.
