Outside, my father is waiting. “Everything all right? Was there some kind of problem?"
"Fine," I say, rolling down my sleeve.
“You knew,” I say. “Youknewshe wouldn’t survive giving birth. But you—youforcedher anyway, and then you let me think it was my fault that she died. You held that over my head for myentire life!”
“She understood the risks,” he snaps. “She made her choice.”
“Did she?” I all but scream. “Or did you make it for her?”
My grasp on control is breaking. Around us, the wind gusts. Painful cold. And in the distant corner, I see Kai emerging with another figure from under the sodium lamp.
"She died so you could live. So you could achieve this. So we could?—”
"I'm not achieving anything," I say. "No."
"Don't make a mistake, Kingston."
"Kingston," I hear Lanz from behind me. "King?—”
“Get back," I yell. I'm still holding my foil, I realize, and I levy it carefully at my father. "We are leaving," I say, as evenly as I possibly can. "Now. And if you are going to try and stop us?—”
Even in the dark early morning, I can see my father's face go brilliant with fury.
"You idiot,” he spits. "You pathetic?—”
I lunge at him, not hard enough to seriously wound. Just a flick right at his cheek, enough to draw blood.
"Don't make me," I say, voice carrying on the wind. “Don’t make me. Because I will.”
His mouth falls open in disbelief. "My own son," he says, almost absently. “My own blood." He touches his cheek, fingertips coming off, stained. And then, in one single, terrible, fluid motion, reaches in his coat and brandishes a weapon. A rapier.
He must have had it this whole time.
Luther Pendragon’s no fool.
"You will not leave with her," he says. “If she is what you say, then this has immediately become the Consistory's jurisdiction. If you leave, you are in flagrant violation of every oath you've ever?—“
I don't wait for him to stop. I flèche forward, blade extended, and beating the base of his weapon with my own.
Steel on steel rings out across the airstrip.
My father is older, but he’s still fast. He beats my blade aside and ripostes at my chest. I parry—barely—and retreat. The snow is treacherous underfoot. My boots slip, and I have to adjust, widen my stance.
"They'll take her anyway, you know," my father says, his voice eerily calm even as he attacks. "The Consistory will never stop. You think you can hide from them? From this?"
I don't answer. Can't afford to. He's trying to distract me, get inside my head.
It's what he always does. How he trained me.
I lunge, a feint to the face—he parries. I disengage, cut at his flank. He barely gets his blade around in time. The tip of my foil catches his coat, tears through the fabric.
His eye widens. Just a fraction. Surprise that I got that close.
"All those years," he continues, circling now. "All that training. Everything I gave you. And this is how you repay me?"
"You gave me nothing," I snarl. I advance, a series of quick attacks—high, low, high again. He parries each one, but he's moving back, back toward the plane. "You took everything from me. My mother. My childhood. Any chance at a normal?—"
I cut myself off. I'm doing exactly what he wants. Talking. Getting emotional.
