Kallik had been in and out of various states of awareness, so Kade never knew exactly what to expect when he walked through the door. This time, Kallik was sitting up and seemed alert, though he looked gaunt and pallid. A smile crossed his lips as Kade stepped inside and settled into the armchair that was pushed right up to his father’s bedside, where Meriwa had been spending her days.
“Mom said you wanted to talk to me,” Kade prompted, and Kallik nodded slowly.
“I wanted to talk to you about the coronation ceremony,” he said, his voice raspy with disuse. Kade frowned—he had tried not to overthink what his father’s final words to him would be, but this was entirely unexpected. They had already discussed the ceremony; he hadn’t realized there was more. He didn’t respond, only waited for his father to continue.
“The ceremony,” Kallik repeated, looking at Kade, then glancing away. “When I did it, my father… he told me this, too. That there’s no shame in finding somewhere to hunker down and wait it out. No one will know. The forest is yours during the ceremony. He told me he found a place to scatter all his father’s ashes all at once and waited there the rest of the day and night until he could return home.”
Kade blinked, absorbing the words. Wasn’t the point of the ceremony to prove his strength, his worthiness? His ability to defend the village all on his own, in the form given to them by their god? And to give the ashes back to the territory, so the spirit could continue to protect it?
“Is that what you did?” he asked tentatively. His father’s gaze slid away from him again, eyes pinching together with... something. Pain, grief, maybe both.
“Yes,” Kallik replied, but the answer was tinged with emotion, a long-held confession. “Kade. I wish I hadn’t. I wish I had been brave. You...” His voice became choked, and he coughed. Kade reached for him, but his father waved him off.
“This is hurting you,” Kade said softly. “Why are you telling me this?”
Kallik was silent for a long moment, staring at the opposite wall. His pale eyes were seeing something far away, something long gone. But Kade waited silently, knowing his father was like him: he needed to know exactly what he was going to say before he said it, especially when it was something important.
“Sometimes I think,” Kallik said slowly, shaking his head, “I could have been so much braver. All my life. With the ceremony, with... Wolf-god, with Jerah. I could have done so much more to help him. With everything. I thought I was the voice of reason, tempering that fae impulse, but... Was I too timid? Did everyone see me as a pushover? Even if they didn’t know I curled up in a snowbank and waited out the night, the wolf-god knows. But you...”
He reached for Kade’s hand, squeezing it as tightly as his failing muscles would allow. His father’s hand felt bony and cold in Kade’s grasp.
“You’re already so much stronger than I ever was,” Kallik said, his eyes squeezing shut. “Don’t take the easy way out, Kade. You’ve already ventured into the Blight. You and Florian have the Golden Arrows. You might actually...” He trailed off, as if too afraid to even say it out loud—and Kade could sense the despair his father felt knowing he would not live to see a Veil without the Nova Blight. “No. You’re strong and brave. I know you can do it. And your reign will bring prosperity, far more than mine ever did.”
Kade was silent for a long moment, considering everything his father had told him. He didn’t feel any braver or stronger than his father—it was hard to imagine Kallik seeing him that way. He had just always done what needed doing, what honor and duty dictated he would do. Even with Florian, they were following the clues left behind by Jerah. His father had no such roadmap when accompanying Jerah, so his restraint only made sense.
But he knew regrets were regrets, and there was nothing he could do at this point to assuage his father’s feelings about the past. All he could do was keep doing what honor bound him to.
“I’ll do it,” Kade said, gently squeezing his father’s hand. “The ceremony. I won’t wait it out. I’ll mark the perimeter and keep watch. I promise.”
A small, shaky smile flashed across Kallik’s face.
“I know you will,” he replied, his voice raspy again. “And when your time comes, Kade, don’t let your heir take the easy way out, either. We’ll need brave wolves in the future, who can lead the pack into the unknown.”
Kade nodded slowly.
“I will,” he repeated. “I promise.”
Kade was sitting down for breakfast with his siblings when it happened, just over a week after his conversation with Kallik, the last one they would have alone.
When Meriwa came hurrying into the dining room, her face flushed and streaked with tears, Kade’s stomach grew cold. Was he already gone?
“The doctor says it’s soon,” she said, her voice rough with the effort of holding back tears. “A few hours at most. Come sit with us.”
Kade stood without a word, but his mother grabbed his arm as he walked by. He could feel her body sag against him, as if she couldn’t bear her own weight, and gingerly he helped hold her steady.
“You can do this,” he murmured softly, and she made a choked, pained sound. “We’re here. It’s okay.”
She nodded. Behind him, Kade could hear the clatter of dishes, Bowen speaking in a hushed voice as Yuka began to cry. He couldn’t bring himself to look back, but their noise followed him as he helped his mother through the hallway to his parents’ room.
The room was empty save for his father, laying on the bed with his breaths wheezing out of him after each shallow, laborious inhale. The doctor had been generous in his estimation of a few hours, Kade thought—from the way his father struggled to breathe, he might not last more than thirty minutes. His face was pallid and covered in a thin sheen of sweat, his lips chapped and eyelids fluttering. He looked nothing like the strong, warm man Kade remembered, the father who had lifted him up onto his shoulders when they walked, the man who had taught him to fight with his sword…
He had stopped in the doorway, Kade realized, as Meriwa stumbled out of his grasp and his siblings pushed their way around him into the room. His mother took up her seat beside Kallik, grasping one thin, unmoving hand in both of hers; Amka and Yuka went around to the other side of the bed. Amka crawled in next to him with no reservation to throw her arms around him and press her face into his shoulder, while Yuka grasped his free hand and tried to stifle his cries. Slowly, Bowen sat down at the end of the bed beside Yuka: one hand pressed to his father’s leg, and the other rubbing their younger brother’s back.
Kade stood in the doorway, his feet suddenly pinned to the floor. What was he supposed to do? How could he comfort them, any of them? Part of him felt like he had no place with them there–that he hadn’t been around enough in the past years to justify being here. What could he do now?
“Kade,” his mother called, breaking him from his thoughts. She reached out one hand and gestured for him to come sit by her. “Come here.”
Dread welled in his chest; but he obeyed, first walking stiltedly to her side, then kneeling next to her with his hands on the bed sheets. For a long while, the only sound in the room was his father’s labored breathing, occasionally interrupted with a sniffle or soft cry.
