He had to battle back a sneer. “They’ve had plenty of opportunity, all these years.”
“And is Dania not worthy of it, as an example? Her brother Sven? Laila and Magnus? Would you strip the rights of those people who declared they would fight for the thanes?”
Would he? Not them, particularly. Not having met them, having seen with his own eyes and heard with his own ears their vision for the future. But if he hadn’t been in that meeting Kyrja called? Would he have been the sort of king who’d made broad, sweeping regulations to take from the oppressors and turn them into the oppressed, heedless of the good individuals that got crushed in the process?
Clearly he would have been, if Kyrja would have been rising up to Challenge Nik, if things had gone differently.
The thought made a burning coal settle in his chest. “I would have been a bad king. A tyrant no better than Axel or Isidor.”
“Then perhaps you made the better choice, hiding in Helviti all these years. Perhaps now you have the chance to live a story that will give you a different legacy. A better one.” A big hand clapped his shoulder. “Your queen needs you. Now, today. If you truly want a fair and equitable Fjordlandi, then give her and Nik your allegiance and your aid, not just lip service.”
His father’s tone had gone urgent, and the untethered feeling Daemon had been struggling with blew away like the clouds inhis father’s wind. The wick inside him lit. “What do I need to do?”
Fodur motioned to the city. “She needs her High Council to fully take the reins while she settles things with her father, and the Great Council to keep the people in order.”
Daemon frowned. “She doesn’t have a full High Council.”
“And that’s the problem. She has you, though.”
“I can’t take her reins.”
Fodur lifted those brows again. “You know very well who can, Sig. You’re the current First Seat of the High Council. Go appoint those Blessed who have been helping her as interim members so they have the authority to do more. Step up. And be ready.”
Though already drawing his legs up to lever himself to his feet, Daemon paused, feet under him but knees still bent. “Ready for what?”
His father chuckled and stood with him. “Oh, don’t worry, son. You’ll know.” He turned toward the plains, straightening in a way that made it look as though he meant to leap from the ridge and…what? Fly?
Maybe so. A thought which strangled him in a way Daemon didn’t even know how to define. Made questions spark, ignite. “Fodur.”
“Mm?” Fodur turned his face toward Daemon without shifting otherwise. His muscles looked coiled, ready to spring.
Daemon glanced behind him, into Helviti’s gaping mouth. “If you’ve been alive all this time—why only now do you come to find me? I thought…”
“You thought I was long dead. You thought yourself a daemon. You thought, even after Queen Arden’s daughter arrived with understanding of who we are, that she was wrong. That you couldn’t be half-seraph, not like Daryatla’s queen. Because you are no king.”
Daemon clenched his jaw. On the one hand, he appreciated that his father could see him, know him so well. On the other, he put words to things Daemon would have preferred to keep on denying.
Fodur turned to face him, clasped Daemon’s shoulders in his enormous hands. “Sigmann, hear me. I know you always felt as though you were passed over. Your mother died, I was there so rarely, your brother made a family of his own, Tuva chose hardship to provide for her family instead of building a life with you. Elianne clung to her memories, and now to her son.”
More truths that made him look away, reduced him to ash. Or worse, back to that man-child he was so long ago. Sigmann, chosen by no one. Sigmann, unwanted and unloved.
Fodur’s fingers dug into his shoulders. “Elyon loves you with a soul-deep love. He loves you enough that he has sacrificed his only-born for you. He loves you enough that he let you choose whether to follow him, whether to believe, whether to put your hand in his—even you, who have so much raw potential in your veins. Even you, who could do such harm if you turned away from what is good and holy.”
His father shifted to intercept his gaze. “I could not be there often when you were young, not because I didn’t want to be, but because taking this form is not easy, and holding it for long is impossible. But every time Elyon bade me come, I came with the deepest joy. You and Thorin—you showed me a new dimension to love, one I’d only witnessed until then, never experienced. What a profound honor it was, to get to be your father. To watch you grow and know you are part of me, something so few of my kind ever experience. To feel this love and partake, for the first time, in that very love between Elyon and his only-born, a love so fierce that all creation flowed from it. You are the most amazing gift.”
Daemon had to work to swallow. “Then why do you only come now? Why didn’t you find me years ago, to tell me what I was? And what I wasn’t.”
“I was not given leave to come to you before now.” Fodur’s hands squeezed his shoulders. “Because as long as you chose slavery inside that volcano, you were not ready to hear anything I had to say.”
“I did notchooseslavery.” Fire swept through his veins, and he let it erupt over his skin.
Fodur, of course, didn’t flinch away. Didn’t even seem to feel it. “Of course you did. You could have broken free at any time. What is a wall of ice in the face of your fire?”
“If I’d tried it, he’d have taken it out on the other thanes. He’d have—”
“Maybe. And so, you chose. I didn’t say you made a bad choice. But it was a choice.” Fodur let his hands fall back to his sides. “More choices lie before you now. Many of them. There are countless paths you could take—nearly all will lead you to the same place. Elyon wills a bright future for you, Sigmann. A future with the one who has already chosen you. With a family of your own.”
He blinked. “No one has chosen me. Elianne—”
