Page 55 of Kiss of Death
His face turned to stone, putting up invisible walls so I couldn’t get through. “I couldn’t ask her that, Lily.”
It was the first time I’d felt slapped by my father. “Not even for me?”
“For you, yes.But not for him.”
“Heisme.” Emotion started to wreak havoc on me, and my rage and pain mixed together to form a hurricane. “We are one person. He doesn’t deserve to be down there!”
“He’s there for a reason.”
“Fuck you, you don’t know him.” I cut my own father down with words I couldn’t control, exhausted by fighting for the honor of a man who had proven himself a million times. “I do.” I slammed my fist hard into my chest plate. “I know his soul, even if it’s hard to see because it’s rusted and warped by the darkness of the underworld. He’s a good man who sacrificed everything for me, and he doesn’t deserve to be down there. I’m your daughter, and I’m telling you this man is my husband, the father of my children, the man I want for an eternity—and you dismiss me? You say you would burn this world for me, and here I am asking for the torch, and you give me ice.”
“What you had wasn’t real.”
“It’s as real as what I have with you and Mom. It’s as real as your love for Khazmuda and my love for Zehemoth. I would marry him tomorrow if he were here. You believe in me enoughto hand me the kingdom, tell me I’m smart and I’m strong and everything you could ever want in a daughter, but my word suddenly isn’t enough for you. You dismiss me like a stupid teenager who’s foolishly given her heart to someone with bad intentions, not as the woman you constantly praise. I saved Riviana Star, I saved the Southern Isles, and I saved your life—but my word still isn’t good enough.”
He wore a tired expression, like he just wanted this conversation to end. Like my emotion didn’t provoke him the way it should. “Why is he down there?” he asked with borderline indifference.
“What?” It was such a change of direction that I felt like I was riding on the back of Khazmuda and he made a drastic turn the way we’d just come.
“He made a deal with Bahamut. What was the deal?”
“What does that matter?”
“Because only vengeful and violent men make those kinds of deals. They trade their soul to win wars and steal thrones. They’re greedy and sinister and the types of men that belong in the underworld. And you’re going to ask me to risk everyone I love for a man whochoseto be there?”
“You made a deal with Bahamut, Dad.”
“That applies to me as well. I deserve to be down there for everything I did to get my kingdom back.”
“Well, I don’t agree. Nor does Mom or Hawk.”
“You don’t know who I was,” he said with hardness in his gaze. “And if you knew all the atrocities I committed, you’d be ashamed to look at me.”
I gave a slight shake of my head. “Nothing could ever change the way I love you.” I didn’t care who he killed. I didn’t care who he deceived. It was blind, unconditional love that I would never extend to anyone else. The bond between us was just too strong.
His eyes softened, and he quickly dropped his chin in an attempt to hide the reaction. “What deal did he make, Lily?” He lifted his chin and looked at me again.
“I—I don’t know.” He’d never told me, just vague pieces of it. “Just said he did it for someone he loved.”
My father’s softness was completely gone now. “You ask me to bend over backward to rescue this man from the underworld, and you don’t even know why he’s there? You say you’d marry him tomorrow when you don’t even know who he really is?—”
“I do know who he is.”
“The motivation to strike a deal with an evil god encompasses all of who you are. It reflects him to his core, and he didn’t even share it with you. Lily, do you realize how ridiculous that is?”
“Just because he didn’t confide in me doesn’t mean I’m unworthy of his story. It just means it’s too hard for him to talk about. I can see the difference, so why can’t you? You’ve told Mom every single piece of your life.”
“I keep nothing from her.”
“But did you show her all of you in the first few months?”
His angry eyes flicked back and forth between mine. “No. But she knew all of me when I was taken to the underworld and she got me back. You can’t risk your life and your soul for a man who wouldn’t tell you his greatest shame.”
“He said he was different from the others down there because he made his deal out of love, not power. He sacrificed himself for this person he didn’t name, and because his soul is different from the monsters below, that soul has survived all this time. The specifics don’t matter. He shouldn’t be down there.”
“He made that decision of his own free will.”
“How can you say that?”
