AllFreeNovel
Share Us
My father whirls back to the window. His breathing is so loud I think all of Nolderan will hear it. If he spends another moment looking at me, he’ll probably kill me.
He can lecture me about losing my temper, but he’s no better himself.
“You don’t care at all, do you?”
“I don’t care about what, Father?”
“About our family. About being an Ashbourne. Is becoming a mage another joke to you, Reyna?”
I throw back my head and let out a hysterical laugh. “Now you’re saying that because I love Arluin, I don’t give a damn about our family? About graduating from the Arcanium? Maybe I will fail on purpose. Just for you.”
His shoulders quake with rage, like a volcano moments away from eruption. It’s a wonder the entire room hasn’t yet exploded into flames. From either of us.
“What did I do to deserve such a disgraceful daughter?” he mutters, asking the waves far beyond that question. Not me.
I answer, anyway.
“Then don’t let me disgrace you any longer, Father. Disown me. I know you’re considering it, so go ahead and do it.”
I don’t know why I said any of that. I don’t actually want him to disown me. Maybe that’s why I said it, because I want to hear him say he won’t. That however disgraceful I may be, he won’t disown his only daughter.
“Is that...” he begins, but the words extinguish in his throat. “Is that what you want, Reyna?”
There’s pain in his voice, and I hate hearing it. I already regret my words.
He turns to look at me, but now it is I who cannot face him. My gaze falls to the carpet. “Of course it’s not what I want,” I mumble.
“Then why would you say it?” he asks, his voice softening.
“Because that’s what you want.”
He draws out a long sigh. “It isn’t what I want.”
“It’s not?”
“No, it’s not.”
We descend into silence. Both our tempers no longer blaze, but smolder quietly like embers.
“Then what do you want?” I ask. My voice is hushed, not daring to disturb the tentative peace budding between us.
“I want you to graduate from the Arcanium.”
“And you don’t want me to marry Arluin?”
“I never said I don’t want you to marry him.”
“But you don’t, do you? You don’t want me to marry the son of the man you exiled. Like everyone else, you misjudge him for his father.”
Again, I hate what Arluin admitted. I fear it makes me a liar.
But it isn’t Arluin’s fault his father led him astray. He was young. How can he be blamed?
I will never tell my father the truth. I will take his secret to my grave. Arluin doesn’t deserve banishment. Nor death.
“No, Reyna, this has nothing to do with Arluin’s father. I would say the same regardless of whom you’re planning to marry. You are too young, and marriage will only serve to distract you from your studies.”
“I never said that Arluin and I are getting married soon. We might have promised to marry each other, but he insisted we marry after I graduate from the Arcanium.”
