Page 63 of Kiss of Death
A knock sounded on the door, and the guard spoke. “General Hawk is here to see you.”
My son was a general and my daughter was a queen—and I still saw them as children. “Let him in,” I said without turning around.
My son walked in a moment later, dressed in his casual attire instead of the heavy armor that Khazmuda had loaned his scales to build. Hawk approached the dining table, and Calista rose to hug and kiss him like she hadn’t just seen him yesterday.
I didn’t rise out of my chair, too weak to do much and too sour to show affection. “Your sister still gone?”
“Yeah, she hasn’t returned from Riviana Star. Movack said she’s still in the forest.”
I was relieved that she wasn’t stupid enough to give her soul to free his. So she could do whatever else she wanted, recruit people to help her free an evil god from the underworld. No one would help her, and she would eventually give up and move on with her life…I hoped.
“Can I speak to Dad in private?” Hawk asked Calista.
“Of course.” She rubbed his shoulder before she left the royal chambers, probably going to the library to pass the time. I’d been as cold and distant with her as I’d been with Lily because I was so upset, and the only reason Calista tolerated it was because I’d been dead for the last few months. She was just happy to have a piece of me at this point. It was wrong to take advantage of that, but it’d been a long time since I’d drowned emotionally like this.
Hawk took her chair across from me and got comfortable, slouching with his eyes elsewhere like he didn’t want to face the wrath I’d already shown his sister.
I felt my own hostility burst from my skin like flames. It burned everything in sight, even those who hadn’t lit the match. “Everything okay, son?” I’d been so focused on my issues with Lily that I hadn’t been present for my son at all, and that made me feel like a lousy father.
“Yeah…no…I don’t know.” His eyes lifted to mine.
My gaze narrowed on his face.
“I just thought you should know that…I met him.”
“Met whom?”
“Wrath.” He swallowed. “A couple of times.”
I didn’t have a face to put to the name, but the hazy image of the stranger that came to mind always made me angry. He was the reason there was turmoil in my family, when we should all be happy. It was like Bahamut was still toying with me, even beyond the horizon of existence. “With Lily?”
“No, he came to me when she wasn’t around. Told me things he asked me to keep to myself.”
“Such as?”
“Well…” His eyes dropped again. “In the beginning of all this, I wasn’t exactly happy that she was chosen to rule instead of me. I was angry and resentful about it…and I gave Lily a hard time. I’m ashamed of how I acted.” He kept his eyes averted for several seconds before he looked at me again. “Lily and I had a fight, and he came to me afterward. Told me that you had chosen her to lead, and I should be an honorable man and accept that. That I should serve admirably as her general and assist her in whatever way I could. At the time, I was suspicious of why he was helping her if she didn’t give him her soul in return, but the more I pried, the more he deflected. But he defended her, even against her own brother.”
“What did he look like?”
“Dark hair, dark eyes, tall…good-looking.”
So he looked nothing like Bahamut. And he appeared human.
“And then I confronted Lily about the truth of their relationship again, and she sidestepped everything I asked. That was when he came to me again, and he basically recited a book-length poem about how much he loves her. That he would do anything for her without hesitation. That he would kill anyone who stood in her way to victory. That his entire purpose…was to serve her. I can’t remember exactly what he said now, but it seemed genuine.” He crossed his arms over his chest as he looked at me.
I didn’t know what to say to that. Didn’t know how to react to it.
“I just thought you should know.”
“You think I should help your sister get him back.” I’d noticed the change in their relationship since I’d woken up. The differences were subtle, but they were there. Like they were friends instead of distant siblings.
He paused, carefully crafting his next words before he said them. “I don’t know what should be done about that. But I just wanted you to know that from what I witnessed with my own eyes, it seemed real. It didn’t feel right to keep it from you.”
“Perhaps it was a trick, Hawk.”
“He never asked me for anything. We didn’t interact outside of those conversations. But I watched my sister have unparalleled powers, watched her move pieces across the board because she knew what the enemy was up to, watched her have eyes in the back of her head in battle, like someone was always watching out for her. Do I like the fact that my sister is involved with someone who’s not really here? No. But I’m not here to have an opinion on her relationship. I’m just here to tell you what I saw.”
17
