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I thought of Excalibur and the grail, which had been sent to Arthur from Gorlois’s court. A poisoned gift. Did my father realize I had two of the objects now in my grasp? Why had he ever let either of them go in the first place?
“You need me,” I said softly. “But why? Why do you need me so badly? You have other children. Orcades... You had Orcades...” Too late, I stopped.
My father’s eyes flashed. “Orcades? You know of your sister?” His eyes narrowed. “You saw her? Where did the two of you meet?”
He didn’t know. Didn’t know his daughter was dead. Or that she had died trying to undo everything he stood for. Right down to giving birth to a child she hoped would be his undoing.
But I would never let this man know Medra even existed. I would keep her far away from her grandfather, no matter what it took.
My father took a step towards me. “Where are you? Tell me, Daughter. Enough games. Tell me where you are.” The voice was ancient and primeval. I sensed the compulsion there. My father was powerful, far more powerful than Fenyx. And yet the compulsion was a cloud of smoke, and in my mind, I pushed it away and saw it evaporate.
His face clouded with impatient fury, and he took another step, then another.
I backed away, matching him step for step, but he paced on.
“I love you, Daughter. As I love all my children.”
Yet I knew it for a lie.
I shook my head. “Your love is a disease.”
He frowned. “That stings, Daughter. Let me teach you true love. The way your mother never did. Let me teach you the ways of your people, the ways of the fae. You have grown up soft and weak and mortal.” He said the words with such derision. “For surely she hid you in some mortal lands. With a farmer perhaps? Or a shepherd? Did you grow up smelling the scent of manure on your straw-filled pillow at night? Come with me, and you will never face hardship again. Come with me to a place where perfumes and silks will delight you and where all around you will worship at your feet.”
He paused. “Your brothers and sisters will welcome you, Daughter.”
I caught my breath and he pounced as if knowing how his words had caught my attention. The knowledge that I had other, living siblings. And the awareness that this man standing before me represented what might be my only chance to ever know them.
“How they would welcome you, Daughter,” he murmured intoxicatingly. “With feasts and with songs. With banquets and celebrations. The long-lost sister they hardly knew. You were a mere babe when your mother stole you away from us. Return to your family, Daughter. Return to us.”
He snatched a hand out towards me.
I was caught by the arm.
A loud clash erupted around us as if lightning had struck the spot where we stood.
I screamed, and as if from a distance, heard my father shouting.
Then he was in my mind. Not merely inside my dream. But my inner mind.
But so, too, was I in his.
I saw a corrupt Valtain court. The air was heavy and sweet with spilled ambrosial wine. Indulgent feasts stretched out on tables, filled with decadent offerings, some so terrible, my mind could not fathom them. My brothers and sisters entwined in lascivious dances, draped in exquisite garments adorned with gemstones that sparkled like corrupted stars. Their laughter was a discordant symphony that echoed through the twisted corridors of my memory. I saw two men, my brothers, struggling over a beautiful mortal woman. And when they could not agree on who would possess her, one slid a sword from his belt and sliced her in half. They laughed. How they laughed then, drunkenly sliding in the pool of her blood.
Nearby, my father sat on his throne and looked on, bored and indulgent.
I looked further.
I saw my father, drained of his power and weakened in a great battle centuries before. His court had fallen. His children were dead or scattered. His vast empire was destroyed.
I saw him striving to regain what he had lost in any way he could. Forced to face off with Myntra one hundred and fifty years ago, he avoided another battle like the one he had lost, tricking them into their self-imposed curse of barrenness and taking the power he gained from sacrificing Valtain’s children. He wrapped their souls like a precious newborn, carrying his newfound power to a mountain stronghold, so near to the clouds, it might have been the heavens. A palace so near the stars that they seemed touchable.
I saw darkness stretching like tendrils over Aercanum. The darkness of my father’s designs. First Eskira, then Myntra, and then all of Aercanum, until all fae and mortals were under his dominion and all lesser creatures were slaughtered or enslaved.
I saw a future of my father’s making. The one he dreamed about. A world awash in blood. I saw my friends slaughtered and dying. I saw my mate’s face drenched in gore.
I saw and I saw and I saw until I wished to see no more. I pushed and I shoved, then I screamed and stabbed and cut and tore until my hands were claws and knives, scrabbling at my own mind to get the things I had seen out, to get him out, for he was scanning and searching, and I knew once he had found me, he would take and take and never stop taking.
But no matter how I slashed and scratched, the thunderous, baleful presence that was my father would not withdraw from that place he had no right to be.
