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She sighed and frowned. “As long ago as it was, I can scarcely recall.”
“Did you love him?”
“In so much as one could love a flower before tasting its poison. He was handsome. Charming. All things necessary to lure the unwitting. I was naive.”
Poison was right. He’d proven to be toxic to his mother’s health over the years. The very thought churned a sick gurgling in the baron’s gut. “He never cared for me, either. Why? If I am his heir. Born of his blood. Why does he shun me?”
Her expression didn’t soften with sympathy, but remained impassive and cold. “He does not look upon you as a son, but a threat. Perhaps the only true threat he will ever know.”
“What kept him from killing me? What keeps him from killing me now?”
“He can’t. His blood runs through you and is cursed.That which is made to suffer, so too, shall suffer in return. If he kills you, he kills himself.”
“Cursed?” It was strange, the way his mother spoke the word so freely, when the idea was too closely associated with witchcraft--a charge punishable by death, according to the church.
“Yes. Nature has a way of protecting life.” A devilish glint in her eyes told him nature had little to do with it.
Just like that, all made sense. The baron could never quite grasp what had kept his father, who’d made it perfectly clear his entire life how much he loathed him, from ultimately driving a blade through his flesh. “Does that go both ways?”
“No. It is only passed from father to child. In addition, you are not yet in tune to the fact that you have instincts, my son.” She reached forward and set her hand over his, where it rested against his knee. “They areuniqueinstincts that I have gifted you, and so long as my blood runs through you, they will protect you. With them, you pose the most significant threat to your father. But you must learn to control your compulsions, or you will put others at risk.”
“Why are you opposed to destroying him? If I am capable, why not rid the world of such evil?”
With what the baron surmised as a look of intrigue, she sat back on the bench. “You would kill your own father?”
“If it meant saving you, yes.”
“The evil in this world does not end with one man. It is constant and ever-changing.”
Groaning, he slouched back in his seat. “It is as if you speak to me in another language, Mother. I do not understand what you are telling me.”
“I am telling you that it is not your place to kill your father, no matter how tempted you may be.”
“What is the purpose of having me mentored if I cannot kill what threatens me? Of forcing me to endure punishment without healing?” He lifted his arm, yanking back the sleeve of his tunic from a scar he could’ve easily healed with his own hands.
The way she merely glanced at the vestiges of his wound left the baron wondering if seeing them affected her, at all. “It is only flesh. Your punishments serve to keep them blinded to what you are and what you are capable of.”
“Why?” He pushed his sleeve back in place, finding it useless as a point of argument. “If I truly possess the ability to destroy them, why hide what I am?”
“Because your gifts serve to guard and protect human life. Not destroy it. By exposing what you are, you cast fear into their hearts, and they will try to destroy you, as a result. Which would put you in a very precarious position.” Still, her words remained cryptic to the boy, as if she longed to keep him in a state of confusion. “Abandon the notion of killing your father. For it puts far too many at risk.”
Sneering, he looked away, but turned back at a rough shake of his arm.
“Promise me you will banish such thoughts. Promise me!”
“I promise. But only because it is you who asks. At least tell me why.”
“Your father has debts.” She flinched, her gaze falling away from his. “Horrible debts. And should he perish, those debts would fall in your hands.”
“I would gladly take the burden of a few debts to know that he–”
“Enough! You do not know of what you speak, and I ask you to remain silent because of it. I am not foolish enough to suffer his torment, nor to watch you suffer the same over something so insignificant as coin.” It was rare that his mother had ever gotten so nettled over something he’d said, and the way her stern brow softened told him she regretted having raised her voice. “I know it frustrates you to be left in the dark. All will make sense in time. I promise.”
The carriage slowed along a dirt path that wound through the trees toward a thatched roof hut. In the open yard, a well-kempt Andalusian horse stood penned in a makeshift corral connected to an unimpressive stable. A goat, pigs, and sheep had their own separate pens about the clearing, while chickens roamed freely.
Arms behind his back, chin tipped high, Solomon, his supposed mentor, waited beside a young blond boy, who looked to be slightly older than the baron and built with more stock. When the carriage finally rolled to a stop, both approached before the coachman even had the opportunity to dismount.
The door swung open, and the blond reached a hand for the baron’s mother. “Lady Praecepsia,” he said with a respectful nod, as she exited the carriage.
