Page 166 of A Dagger of Ice and Intrigue
Not here.
Not with this.
“Start talking,” I bit out, even as my heart cracked once more.
“How do you think you got off Sanctua Sirena and onto the Blood Brotherhood ship?” The words tumbled out of his mouth.
I’d been so confused on where I’d ended up, I hadn’t paid much mind tohow.
But now that I was faced with it, it was so obvious.
The revelation took the air from my lungs. He’d seen me, then, in the middle of the labyrinth, on the worst day of my life, crying, torn, and lost.
“You–you took me from the island yourself?” Good fucking luck for these sturdy walls, because I swayed on the spot and placed a hand onto the cold stone to keep myself upright.
He nodded. “Evie agreed to marry The Dragon if he agreed her cousins would be safe–”
I shuddered a breath. Evie truly was too pure for this Clan world.
“–and it was obvious Sanctua Sirena was dangerous for you all. I found you with your father and carried you out of there. I doubted the decision then, but time has proven you are safest here. That’s when I saw him. You were cradling him in your arms and he was already dead.”
Dead.
That lone word still stung, despite the reality.
But the confession released the tightness building up inside me.
He’d already been gone when Ryker had seen him.
I sighed, chest caving in on itself. I didn’t know what I feared–something awful and heinous I couldn’t have lived with.
A grim question instantly sprung in my mind.
“What–” The words crawled up my throat, but refused to spill past my lips. Too raw, too painful. “Did you–his body–I–”
Ryker’s face softened as his gaze fell down from mine. “I carried you both from underneath the olive tree. I feared the mist might…affect his body. I laid him down on the castle terrace, right in front of the doors, facing the sky. Your Clan couldn’t have missed him.”
Facing the sky. So my father could always see the stars.
This time, I couldn’t stop the tears. My legs had already been shaking, but now my spine felt hollow and breakable.
Standing here, among so many families and loved ones lost, it struck me like a dagger that I hadn’t cried at my father’s grave.
Would probably never get a chance to.
He was gone from me, in this lifetime and the next.
“Thank you,” I managed to say, tears soaking my cracking voice. “Thank you for not leaving him there.”
I couldn’t imagine what that blasted mist would have done to him.
I didn’t want to.
My father deserved to be remembered as he was in his life, not in death. Snuck up on, stabbed in the back by acoward. A fucking coward had taken him from me.
“I miss him so much.” I breathed out. My palms flew to my chest, as if that touch could soothe the pain trying to rupture out of me. “It hurts so fucking much.”
“I know.” Ryker took another careful step toward me. This time, I didn’t retreat.
