Page 156 of Tale of the Heart Queen

“If you’re feeling conflicted about going to hunt down your father to kill him, that would be understandable,” I say, and he looks at me as his shoulders slump.

Then he takes a few steps into the room, slowly surveying our surroundings. “It’s not that I feel conflicted, it’s just that . . . I’ve never really known a single thing about him.”

He spins around to face me, his arms spread out.

“What if there was a reason for all of it? I don’t want to make excuses—nothing can justify so many of the things he’s done—but what if, in his mind, he thought he was doing it for a reason? I’ve always assumed he just enjoys causing pain, but . . . all of this seems like a man who’s in pain.”

I say nothing, giving him a moment to gather his thoughts. He looks around the room as if weighing and cataloging every piece. I witness the storm clouds that pass behind his eyes.

“It doesn’t matter,” he says firmly. “I’ll probably never know, and it doesn’t matter. Nothing makes up for the things he’s done.”

With his jaw set, he stalks to the end of the room and starts sorting through the papers on his father’s desk. I let him work through whatever he needs to as I start on the papers strewn about the divan in front of the darkened fireplace, lying everywhere like giant snowflakes.

I understand Nadir’s conflict. No matter his faults, Rion is still his father, and I imagine that he always hoped that someday he’d turn out not to be the demon he thought. I watch him as he focuses intently on a journal, his eyes scanning the page.

A knock comes at the door, and Amya lets herself in.

“We’ve managed to move everyone out of this wing for now,” she says. “Father’s guards weren’t happy about it, but Mael suggested that maybe they should be out looking for him instead of waiting around with their thumbs up their bums.”

“I said ‘assholes!’ ” he calls from the hallway, where he’s standing watch.

She sits down next to me as she rolls her eyes.

“So he sent them into the Void to search.”

“What if they find him?” I ask.

“Then they’d kind of be doing us a favor.”

“Do you still think this might be a trap?” I ask.

“The more I learn, the less I think so. His attendants have reported that he’s been drinking heavily, and they’ve been replacing several empty bottles a day. He won’t let anyone touch this mess and has been holing himself in this room whenever he’s in the Keep.”

I exchange a glance with Nadir, who’s listening as Amya’s explanation confirms what he just said.

“But he seemed fine when we were here for Frostfire,” I say.

She nods. “Apparently, he’s been hiding it well.”

She swivels around to look at Nadir, who stands at the desk with a fistful of paper.

“Do you have any idea what could have him acting like this? It doesn’t seem like him, does it?”

“It doesn’t,” he agrees. “And none at all.”

Amya nods and then stands up.

“Here are the journals I mentioned,” she says. “We gathered all the ones we could find.”

She opens a trunk at the end of the table. Inside are dozens of leather-bound notebooks. Nadir crosses the room and picks up the top one, flipping it open.

He scans the page for a few seconds.

“Herric,” he says. “If these are real . . .”

“Whether they’re real or not, it seems Father believes they are.”

“So I guess we have some reading to do,” I say.