‘Who was she?’ I repeated.
Once more he ignored me and stared at the glass in his hand. The tension in his jaw told me everything. He was hiding something, and it terrified me to think I already knew what.
Physically the woman looked fine, but her eyes revealed too much pain and anguish for a sound mind. No one could fake that much grief. But she was supposed to be dead…
‘Why do you ask?’
‘Why don’t you want to answer?’ I pressed. This was too important. More than one life could be changed if my theory proved true.
Being blunt was my only option. These men only responded to roughness. ‘Was that the Queen of Fire?’
He wouldn’t look at me. ‘Fire Kingdom doesn’t have a queen.’
Mother-fucker. ‘Was that the former Queen of Fire?’
Downing his liquor in one go, my father finally admitted, ‘It was.’
The air left my lungs. I asked for confirmation, but hearing it felt like a blade sliding between my ribs.
My voice quavered as my knees gave out and I fell into the same chair I had first been forced into when I met him. ‘What is she doing here? I thought she was dead.’
A moment of silence stretched for an eternity before he explained, ‘We all do things we regret, Ava. Unfortunately, sometimes once you make that step, there’s no coming back.’
His sorrow meant nothing as the horror of the situation dawned on me. ‘What does that mean? Is she here against her will?’
I watched his throat bob as he slouched forward. ‘Yes.’
‘Why?!’
‘There isn’t an answer to that question that will satisfy you,’ he muttered.
A sudden urge to slap him rose in my chest, his sadness only feeding my anger. What did he have to be sad about? ‘I don’t care. Tell me.’
‘She’s beautiful. I wanted her.’ The words struck like a physical blow.
‘You captured the former Queen of Fire Kingdom because she’s beautiful?’ I repeated, trying to process the words that threatened to shift my entire worldview. ‘Do they even know that she’s out there somewhere?’
Silence. They didn’t know she was alive. River, Michael, the former king, none of them knew that the woman they’d grieved had never passed away.
Unable to look at him any longer, I left, letting the door slam shut behind me.
Yet again, an inkling of trust had steered me in the wrong direction. Hours earlier I felt connected to my father in ways I cherished and revered; now he was a stranger again.
To kidnap a woman because he desired her? Nobody sane did that. To be viewed as an object, a possession to move wherever they pleased, was that how fae men viewed women?
Not once but twice I’d been captured myself. Was that their solution to everything, limiting a woman’s freedom until she bent?
Shaken and enraged, my afternoon passed in a blur of pacing around my bedroom and trying to come up with a plan. Beyond getting abducted, it was what I spent most of my time doing lately. Every plan ended the same way, at the invisible wall of this isle.
The last connection with the land itself had shown me much; it had shared secrets I suspected few ever glimpsed. But it did nothing to grow my shadows. The one power necessary to portal the former queen back to Fogoya was still out of reach.
Dinner smelled of burnt meat and tension. The grave atmosphere between my father and me seemed to seep into the dining room itself, forging a deepening scowl on Alec's and Miriam’s faces. Neither could understand the mood shift, and neither of us cared to explain, apart from exchanging loaded glares.
The dinner stretched for an eternity, letting my skin burn from the inside out as I dared not become complacent about the woman’s imprisonment. Each time I decidedto barter for her release, my thoughts circled back to what I would do if he refused. It was an endless loop of hopelessness.
Miriam couldn’t bear it any longer. ‘Can we address the elephant in the room?’
Digging into the steamed vegetables that had long gone cold on my untouched plate, I swirled them around, unsure how to begin.
