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A faint scoff is my answer. “Of course,” he says. “Like father like daughter, as the human saying goes.”
He’s picking up more of our expressions of late, since he reads the old books with me before the Quiet. Sometimes he lets me read them to him.
“I’m a kinta,” I correct him.
“And a Halfling.” His tone is stern enough to ward off any playful disagreements, so I fall silent. He isn’t pleased about this news.
I know what he means for her future. To marry one of her cousins, ease her way into royalty, and become a princess—a title that was stripped from her by the matter of her birth and Daein’s sacrifices. He wants her to marry a dokkalf prince.
“It’s just a crush,” I tell him, dismissing it as best as I can. “Besides, he’s a few years older than her, and I doubt he even knows she exists.”
“Do you miss her?”
His question has me blinking, confused, then I turn to frown at him. “What?”
He stares straight ahead at the ghostly appearance of the mountains. “Your beloved friend. Terry. Do you miss her?”
“Every day.”
“You are alone here,” he decides, finally cutting his sharp gaze to me. It softens once it lands on my eyes, his grip on my hand tightening, as though he might never let me go. “You make no friends outside of this castle, so you cling to our daughter and the threads of her life, you wander the halls with no direction, and you sometimes fancy yourself in love with me as I’m all that you have to offer you the attention you crave.”
My lashes flutter as my face slackens.
I wasn’t expecting him to dissect my mind in any way at all, never mind so suddenly or callously.
“You do not love me, April.” A touch of sadness darkens his eyes into shadows. “You will forever yearn to be free from me, but never our child. She is your light—just as you are mine.”
“What are you telling me, Daein?” I whisper softly.
“You need more light in your life. Friendships, joy—find these outside of our child and the halls you wander. There are many Halflings and humans in the Court now, there are many who understand you and your situation. Coralie, Vale, Callie—any one of the kuris, the humans, the Halflings. Terry does not have to be the only friend you have ever had.”
“She’ll be dead now, you know,” I murmur and lean into him, resting my temple on his hard shoulder. “With the time shifts between the worlds. She’ll be gone, or at leastveryold.”
“You do not wish to replace her,” he says after a moment. “Or you do not wish to allow yourself to be happy?”
“Can it be both?”
“You make yourself suffer,” he tells me. “You close yourself off to happiness and paint me your monster.”
I smile, still resting against his shoulder. Bringing my free hand up, I stroke my fingertips down his rippling chest muscles.
“I will always be your captive.” My voice is soft. “And you will always be my villain, Daein.”
