Chapter 49

Evie

It was dark.

A fitting scene for confronting what was arguably the ugliest part of humanity: betrayal.

The first night after her father had been imprisoned in the dungeons below the manor, she had been too grief-stricken by the boss being taken, had been aching with despair and a worry so pervasive that she hadn't slept well since. She'd imagined what they were doing to him, how they were hurting him, and it had nearly killed her. She'd thrown herself headfirst into planning his rescue just to survive it, hadn't wasted time on anything else. She had made sure everything was executed down to the last detail.

But Trystan was back, she'd succeeded, and now it was time to face the music.

Hurt tugged her heart into two mangled pieces as she walked down the dimly lit corridor beyond the cellar door. It was dirty, dark, and cold—an apt place for her father—but she railed against the twinge of pity she felt nevertheless. Love shriveled and disappeared differently, sometimes slowly, sometimes quickly, but she realized now that it was the most brutal, the most painful , when it was abandoned.

Her love was too big, and it had been given too freely to people who didn't deserve it.

She swallowed as she approached his cell, where he was kept isolated from the other Valiant Guards in their custody. The Malevolent Guards had left for their rotation, and the boss was keeping the next group from coming down until she was through.

As she passed the single torch hung on the wall, she saw a silhouette of a man sitting on the floor of his cell, knees pulled inward. She was cloaked in shadow, so he didn't see Evie when she first approached—not until she tripped over an uneven slab of cement, knocking into a table with a metal tray atop it. The leftovers from his latest meal.

Griffin's head snapped up, but his body remained still, until he saw that it wasn't another Malevolent Guard. She dug her nails into her hands, placing them quickly behind her back so he wouldn't see her discomfort and use it against her.

"Hello, Papa." She sounded stronger than she felt, and she kept the point of her chin angled upward so that he might see that she was looking above him, beyond.

His face was the first thing to hit the light when he walked closer to the torch. The sight of it, which had once been a comfort, now only brought stinging pain. His laugh lines were so deep, one might look upon him and think he'd spent his life in constant humor. No one could have guessed that that humor was merely a distraction from his cruelty.

He looked surprised but oddly healthy. His complexion had more color than it had in the last few years, when he had been doing everything possible to convince Evie that he had caught the Mystic Illness to hide his involvement with the king.

He looked like a deception, a lie. It made her wonder what he saw when he looked at her—if she seemed changed, too, with her unbound hair tucked behind her ears, her loose trousers tapering down into her boots, her mother's rouge on her cheeks and lips.

If he saw the changes, he didn't acknowledge them. "Ah. So my daughter finally deigns to grace me with her presence."

Sharp. There was a sharp feeling in her gut—not at the fact that she was finally facing him or that he had caused so much hurt, but because he didn't seem at all remorseful. Worse still, he looked smug.

She was unable to pretend. Her face reflected her anger. Ice was flowing through her bloodstream, chipping away at the torn pieces of her heart until nothing remained. With her chin high, her heartbeat steady in her chest, she took one step toward him and responded, "And how little you deserve it."

Scoffing, her father shook his head. "And yet here you are. I thought you were resolved to leave me below to rot."

Evie's mouth stayed in a flat line. "I think we both know you were rotted well before you got here."

He rolled his green eyes, infuriating her, thawing the ice into a boiling rage. "Now, Evangelina, really. The dramatics. I truly thought having you find employment for the family would lead you well into adulthood, but even now, you act with such immaturity."

Don't , she warned herself. It's what he wants. Someone in his position didn't want to hear reason, just emotion. He wanted to know he had affected her. But he did not control her. He couldn't. Not anymore.

"I have questions for you, and I will have answers," she said. "But I will be gracious and give you options." Stepping closer to the cell, she let one hand fall to her side, the other remaining behind her back. "You can either tell me here and now—"

Her hidden hand whipped around while the other grabbed for his dirtied shirt, and she yanked him forward hard enough that the sharp edge of the dagger dug against his throat. The skin there bobbed against the hard metal.

It was a point of satisfaction that made her drunk with power. "Or you can take a visit to our lovely torture chambers. It is, of course, included in your stay with us. We're known for our… amenities. "

Griffin's mouth pulled into a sneer, but there was a smidge of fear in his eyes. She was getting to him. A point for her.

"What do you want to know?" he asked.

She pressed the dagger closer, trying not to feel satisfaction when a drop of blood slid down the side of his neck. She was a little alarmed by the feeling—and by how difficult it was to ignore. "The painting of the two little girls that Mama had before she disappeared. One of them was clearly her. Who was the other girl? Where was it painted?"

Astonishment shot through him, and he jolted against her blade. "How did you—"

"Tell me," she commanded, her dagger humming in her hand, the scar on her shoulder answering with a tingling sensation.

He narrowed his eyes. "Your mother didn't have many friends. I don't recall any painting."

She pressed once more with the dagger. "I'm sure it was hard to keep good company with a belittling ass for a husband."

"The apple didn't fall far, did it?" Griffin Sage smirked, eyes on the knife at his neck. "Despite my best efforts, you turned out much the same as her."

The accusation was too close to her deepest fears—that she, too, would break, that she, too, would destroy the lives of the people she loved. And to have the accusation made by the person who'd hurt her the most, who'd left scars on her soul that would never heal… She did exactly what her father had just accused her of.

She snapped.

The dagger thrummed in her hand, and then she buried it in his thigh.

"Son of a bitch!" he screamed, clutching the bleeding wound as she removed the weapon swiftly. She was torn between her empathy and her satisfaction that the man who'd caused her so much pain was hurting, too, as he fell to the ground, holding both hands to his leg to try to stop the blood.

She pulled the cell door keys from her pocket, then pulled open the door and slipped inside. Her father began to crawl away from her. She'd spent years of her life minding his health, caring for him in the way only a child could; that feeling didn't leave so easily, but neither did her spiraling anger or yawning hurt.

"Oh, don't leave so soon. Please stay awhile." She laid her heel against his hand and listened with quiet gratification to the scream that tore through him. It reminded her of the sound of one of the animals he'd slaughtered for the butchery when she was a child. A memory flashed of her father then. How he'd held her while she cried for the animals, how he'd carried her on his shoulders the whole way home.

She removed her heel so fast she almost fell over, gripping her chest, breathing heavily in alarm at her sudden cruelty. He deserved it, but…he didn't deserve the power to change her this way.

He sat up, and she helped him, lifting his shoulders until he was sitting against the wall, his blood smearing across her clothes. "What do you want?" he asked warily.

Evie hardened her voice. "I want you to tell me what you were doing with my mother. I want you to tell me what you and the king did to her magic, and more than anything, I'd like to know why the gods cursed me with someone like you for a father." She removed her hand from his shoulder, watching warily as Griffin backed himself to the wall on the other side, far away from her, hands returning to the wound.

He closed his eyes tightly before opening them once more, a tired resolve in their depths. "The little girl in the portrait was your mother's childhood best friend, Renna Fortis."

This surprised her. "Renna Fortis? As in the Fortis family?" The Fortis family was well known throughout the kingdom as warriors of valor, and a line that dated back to the very beginnings of Rennedawn. It was said that the land their fortress resided on was so magically touched that even the plants came alive. Evie had had a meager education, but even she knew them well; they were the stuff of legend.

Griffin looked pale, as if his false sickness had become real—probably from the blood loss. She'd ask Tatianna to do her best to repair the damage she'd done, but Evie would take her time. She had the information she wanted, a steady lead, and a damn good chance of finding her mother with the most noble family in Rennedawn—not by blood, but by honor.

But she wasn't done. There was more to what happened to her mother all those years ago, more to the power that had nearly overtaken her, and one of the only people with the answers she needed was bleeding out in front of her.

He looked so weak. "Have mercy upon me, Evie. I am your father. That should still mean something to you." He was apparently under the impression that he could have Evie play into his hands, but she would not be manipulated any longer.

"What did you and the king do to my mother?" She stepped closer, standing over him, the bloodstained dagger dripping at her side.

Griffin's eyes were on his hands, and they stayed there as he replied, "I did what I thought was right." It was the truth. She wasn't certain how she knew, but she could feel it in the shame now creeping into his expression.

"You destroyed her," she replied, feeling hollow.

He looked up at her. She didn't think it was possible for him to sink lower in her esteem, but then he whispered, "I didn't mean to."

The words made her heart drop to her stomach, because this wasn't a lie either; she knew he meant it, as useless as it was now.

Suddenly, she was through with the conversation, through with him, and uncomfortable with how strongly she wanted to hurt him the way he'd hurt her. But it would get her nowhere. There was nothing he could give her now but sorrow.

"You won't see me ever again," she said coldly. "I will forget about you. I will move on and be happy, and you will be here. Rotting, weak, and alone, with only your valiant honor to keep you warm." She shook her head. He looked so small, this man who had once been a mountain in her eyes. "I hope it was worth it."

Blood from the tip of her dagger dripped onto her boot. The cell gate creaked as she pulled it back open, almost gone, almost away from him, almost escaping the torment. But his next words halted her, cooled her ire into something new—an almost unrecognizable feeling, like she was watching an atrocity be committed upon her open heart with no means to stop it.

She'd only dropped her guard for a moment, but it was too late.

"If you'd like answers to what the king and I did to your mother's magic…" Her father paused, like a fist slowly pulling back for a great blow.

Her eyes were wide, unguarded, and Griffin Sage looked as though he couldn't wait to say, with a sickening grin: "Perhaps you should ask your brother."