AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Eyes stinging, I smiled. “He does. I only just found out.” I paused, then asked, “Would you like to meet him?”
Liam nodded enthusiastically.
“Good.” I smoothed down his mussed hair. “He’s coming to stay at the castle. He’ll be here tomorrow.”
“To be your husband?”
My eyes bulged, and I choked on a laugh. “I don’t know about that. Much has changed for us both in the years since we were together, but nothing will change the fact that he is your father.” I pulled Liam in for another hug. “Let’s take everything else one day at a time.”
* * *
Liam was wired after the revelation about his true father. I lay beside him and answered every single one of his questions about Fin until his eyes drooped and his words slurred. Even after Liam was asleep, I continued to lie beside him, one of his hands grasped loosely in mine, and watched him. His mind filled with dreams of his father—the man he had yet to meet, not the man he had hated.
I was exhausted, but my mind wouldn’t rest. Thoughts raced through my head—about Fin and Liam, about Jake and prophecies and the last raven falling, about the Sierra Kingdom and war and the wasting sickness and . . .
It was too much.
Mother would have known what to do. She would have been able to see all the possibilities laid out before her so clearly and picked a path forward that served the greater good. She wouldn’t have waffled, torn between committing to military defense and seeking an alternative solution steeped in vague and cryptic visions of the future.
I was far too restless to sleep. Moving slowly and quietly, I released Liam’s hand and scooted to the edge of his bed. I paused in the doorway and peered back at him, ensuring he was sound asleep. I had promised him I would stay with him through the night, but he had always been a sound sleeper, and it was unlikely he would wake before morning. So long as I returned within a few hours, he would never know I had left him at all.
I nodded to the guards posted in the corridor outside Liam’s rooms, then wandered down the hallway to Mother’s private chambers. I paused at her door, preparing myself for her absence in a space that had always been so full of her weighty presence. I hadn’t been back to these rooms since her body was taken away. In my mind, she was still in there, lying on the bed, struggling for each breath.
I pulled the keyring from my belt, quickly found the right key, and unlocked the door. I pushed the door open before I could lose my nerve and stepped into the dark sitting room.
No lights were on, and no embers burned in the fireplace. The space felt more than empty. It felt like a void, vacuous and greedy.
I crossed the sitting room, slowly making my way to the doorway of the bedchamber. In the silver moonlight, I could see that Mother’s bed was made, not even an indent on the pillows from her head. My chair had been moved back into the corner.
I started for the chair but realized halfway across the room that there was no need for the chair when the bed was unoccupied. Changing trajectory, I headed directly for the bed and hesitated only for a moment before easing down to sit on the edge of the mattress.
But compulsion gripped me, and I didn’t stop there. I scooted back on the bed and lifted my legs, laying where Mother had spent most of the past few months. My eyes drifted shut, and I rested my hands on my chest, opening myself up to my empathic senses.
Most Empaths’ gifts were fairly straightforward—they looked at someone and felt their target’s emotions, often seeing some of their surface thoughts as well. Some Empaths, like Alastor, learned to weaponize their gift, using their connection to another’s mind to hurt that person, like a psychic sucker punch. Others, like me, required touch to sense anything, but often that limitation came with unique advantages. I wasn’t limited to human minds. I could also sense impressions from most animals, so long as I was touching them.
Sometimes the resonance was simply an emotion—a sense of dread or hope or longing. But other times, when an object was extremely significant to a person, it was as though they imbued the object with pieces of themselves. Then, entire scenes from another’s life would flit through my mind, and for a short time, it would be as if I hadbecomethat person.
That was what I sought now. I wanted to feel what Mother had felt. I needed to be inside her head, just for a little while, to help me understand what she would have done in my shoes. Chase the prophecy, or make a stand. Cure the people, or prepare to fight the enemy. Or perhaps there was some other path forward—something I couldn’t see but that would have been so obvious to her ruthless strategist’s mind.
I sensed nothing of Mother as I lay on her deathbed, which struck me as odd. Usually, the things touching a person when they died held the strongest resonances, as if some of the deceased’s essence soaked into those things when they passed. But not this time. Not with Mother.
Frustrated, I blew out a breath and opened my eyes. Maybe her clothes would work better? I pictured Mother in my mind’s eye, recalling what she had been wearing when she drew her last breath.
I could see her so clearly, wrinkled and wasted, her sunken eyes closed and her lips parted. The fingers of one hand had been curled around her silver raven pendant, like always.
I sat bolt upright. The raven pendant. My gut told me it was significant.
I scooted off the bed and hurried out of Mother’s rooms and nearly screamed when I opened the door from the sitting room to find Garath standing in the corridor, leaning back against the opposite wall, his arms crossed over his chest.
“Garath!” I stumbled backward a step and clutched my hands to my chest, like doing so might slow my racing heart. “You startled me!”
Garath appeared unperturbed by my admonition. “You promised to stay in Liam’s rooms.”
My shoulders slumped, and I lowered my hands. “I know, I just—” I shook my head, my brow furrowing. “I needed Mother’s guidance.”
“I see.” He relaxed his arms and stepped away from the wall. “Did you find what you were looking for?”
I shook my head. “Come on.” I passed through the doorway and started down the corridor, heading away from Liam’s rooms. “I have an idea.”
