What had she said to Landor when he’d talked about losing me to the Wilds?
That wasn’t losing her. It was letting her go.
I know we will see her again.
You are your father’s son. Just as Kyla is her father’s daughter.
“Her father.”
Oh, gods!
She hadn’t said “your father’s daughter.” She’d said “her father’s daughter.” My father. Not his. My father . . . a different man . . .
Kyla is where she belongs.
Where she belongs.
Everything is so clear and so shady all at once. “She knew you would find me,” I say, watching Trithar move from his place by the wall to finally rest upon the sofa near the fireplace. I hesitate to join him.
“Do you want to know how your mother met and fell in love with a ‘monster’ like me?” He gestures at a chair straight across from him.
I sit down.
He stares at me for a moment, particularly at my shoulder. He must know about the ostracized scar even if I have hidden it well, but he doesn’t ask me about it. “I was a wild and reckless heir,” he says, “and hated the idea of being tied down. My father was weakening day by day. And a weak emperor is a curse to this land. I knew I was next in line. So I decided I would hide from my rule – just for a little while, that is. So I went to Kelba. I went to Kirath.
“All the stories I’d heard about Kelba didn’t do it any justice. It was different from the life I’d known here in Ebonia. So much different. The change was good for me. But, slowly, I started feeling guilty. About leaving my father and Ebonia behind. About ignoring what I truly was and where I truly came from. And then I met your mother.”
He smiles, but his eyes are full of shadows. “I was walking down a street in the high class part of town late one night. I’d been drinking at one of the taverns and listening to the latest gossip. Some mortar fell from the top of an overpass. When I looked up, a woman was standing on the top of the wall, arms spread out and toes teetering on the edge. It was Lady Elinor Bone.”
I’m on my feet. “That’s a lie! My mother would never think about committing suicide! You’re a liar!”
He calmly motions for me to sit down. “She stepped off the edge . . . and I caught her with my powers and lowered her safely to the ground. I still remember how she’d looked at me. Shock. Confusion. Fear. Her sorrow and shame quickly replaced those first emotions. I’d tried my best to comfort her while she chastised herself for trying to take her own life. I knew of the Kelban religion and asked if she would like me to escort her to the temple and ask the gods forgiveness. Mind you, I didn’t believe in such rubbish, but I didn’t want to openly admit that. Do you know what the fine Lady Elinor Bone said? She’d looked me, straight in the eyes, and snapped, ‘Damn the gods! I’m not fool enough to believe they’ll interfere on the behalf of an insignificant human being like me.’
“Just like that,” he snaps his fingers, “I fell for her.”
Once, I wouldn’t have been able to picture those words leaving my mother’s mouth. But now, after my visions – after realizing my mother wore a mask and wore it well – I’d believe anything.
“Do you know the reason for her abrupt decision to end her life? Lord Gavin Bone and her son, Landor Bone, had recently boarded a sea vessel and sailed for the coast of Landor on some business for his eminent grace, Celectate Wood.” He says the name with contempt. “Their ship sank. They were said to be dead.”
Just like Mother had said in my visions – just like she’d told Landor. If only you knew half the story behind your sister and what happened.
This is the other half.
“I should have walked away. I should have left her. But I didn’t. I came back. I attended the funeral of empty caskets, but kept to the shadows. I followed her home, in the shadows, mind you. There was no way I was going to let her see me after what I’d done. I had never revealed my powers in Kelba until that night. The fact that she knew about my unique abilities was reason enough to kill her. My father would have done it. I knew I should. I watched her approach the gates of that lonely mansion, and she’d paused. Turned around. Looked right at the spot I occupied in the darkness and asked ‘Are you coming or are you going to make me stand here all night?’” He chuckles. “How she knew I was behind her – stalking her – I have no idea. She took me inside. She didn’t waste time but got right to the point, immediately asking what abilities I possessed to save her. And, for some fool’s reason, I told her.
“We saw each other often, after that. Secretly. She didn’t want rumors spreading about a High Lord’s widow consorting with a dark, shady gentleman of foreign birth. I didn’t want rumors to spread anymore than she did. If word reached Ebonia of what I was doing – if word reached my father – he’d be livid and your mother would have been executed.
“We . . . our relationship didn’t become one of passionate nature until a couple months later.” He notices the accusations on my face. “After I told her everything about what I was and where I came from,” he adds hastily. “And you know what? She didn’t care. She told me she loved me.”
I remain quiet, unsure about what to say. My mother loved him?
Trithar smiles, but there is no amusement on his face. Just a deep, dark pit of sorrow. “Only two weeks later, news arrived that a man and his son had been found in a distant trade city. Their names? Lord Gavin Bone and his son, Landor.”
I don’t miss the bleak feeling that takes hold of him.
“We both knew what we had to do. Despite our affair, despite our passion for one another, your mother still cared for Gavin. She cared about her son. And she knew that Gavin would never understand what had happened, and she didn’t want to try and explain. We agreed it should be forgotten and we separated. I was there when the High Lord arrived home. I watched him hug her. Kiss her. And it hurt like hell.” He sighs. “When word reached me by courier from Ebonia that my father was fading fast, I went without hesitation, leaving Kelba and Elinor behind.
“My father died. Two months later I became emperor. Five months after that, on a stormy night, you were born. And though I was not there in person to watch the delivery, I opened a portal between my mind and that room to watch you come into the world. I remember feeling so empty inside as I watched the midwife place Lord Gavin Bone’s first daughter in his arms. You’d been so tiny. Beautiful. And your eyes – it was like the night sky came down and blessed you with their eternal glory. That should have been my first clue. But, like a fool, I believed you were Gavin Bone’s daughter. The child the ancestors would never have blessed Elinor and I with. As you grew up, I would occasionally watch you and your mother. And, gods, were you a handful. Sass. Spunk. Boyish. Stubborn. But through it all, Elinor turned a blind eye. She let you grow up the way you chose. That should have been another giveaway. But your powers . . . they never showed up. If you were my child, you would definitely have them. They would have become evident by the time you reached your eighth year. I held onto that one hope. I even waited until you were ten. Nothing. I gave up. I stopped looking in. Stopped hoping. For seven years I kept the portals of my mind closed off from that portion of Kelba.”
He looks at me again, tears shining in his eyes. “Word reached me that Grag, my leading general of the Ebonian forces charged with defending our borders, had been killed . . . by an ostracized Kelban girl with the mysterious ability to move objects without touching them. I opened the portal again and saw your mother. You weren’t with her. I knew. I knew you had to be the one. I sent Roke to retrieve you, but I had to be sure. After all, you had slaughtered half of Grag’s small force. Trish attempted to make you demonstrate your gifts – which you did perfectly.”
In the dungeons she’d tried to infuriate me. She’d gone after Shade – my obvious weakness.
It had worked.
Trithar stands up. “The answer was in front of us both all along, Kyla. Elinor was a very sly woman. She hid your true origins in plain sight and neither of us was
clever enough to figure it out.”
I stare at him blankly.
“Your name,” he says. “It’s unique, yes? Say it. Say it out loud, daughter, and listen to the words.”
“Kyla Kel . . .” Oh, gods!
Kelonia. The middle name that everyone had thought was strange. The middle name that had no meaning, whatsoever, except to sound strange. The middle name I had thought was a cursed joke.
Kelba.
Ebonia.
Kelonia.
The truth of my birth, my heritage, and my ethnicity hidden in plain sight.
A particle of two worlds, combined.
One simple word held all the answers to my existence.
Trithar laughs when I look at him. “Clearly, your mother is the smartest woman alive.”
Quietly, I agree with him.
But there’s something not right. Something still nagging at the back of my mind. He said he’d closed the portals between my mother and himself. He said he hadn’t looked in seven years. But Grag . . . Grag had known about me. Grag had been hunting for me. Grag had tried to kill me.
How the hell had Grag known who I was?
I turn towards the man who calls himself my father and brush the hair aside. “Do you know what these are?”
I watch his face change to dark, suppressed rage when he sees the scars. “Where did you get those?”
Does he truly not know?
“Four years ago you sent your shadows or Ebonians or whatever the hell you call them to kill me and my father . . . to kill me and Lord Gavin Bone!”
The rage on his face gives way to shock. “I . . . did what?”
“Don’t you dare deny it. Who else could have known, but you? There are a million reasons you could want me dead. After all, I am a half-breed. I am not truly an Ebonian like you. Perhaps that scares you.”
He stares at me like I’ve punched him in the gut. “Do you truly believe me to be such a monster? You are part of me, Kyla. You are my own daughter, for gods sakes! I would never . . . never want to hurt you!”
“Grag tried to kill me because he knew who I was! He knew I was your daughter,” I scream at him. “How could he have known? I watched him – through that thing you call a portal. I watched him as he hunted for me. As he kept the truth from . . .”
As he kept the truth from Trithar. I remember the one shadow who had asked if they should tell “him” about me. Grag had refused. When the shadow protested, he’d killed him. When another shadow called him a “traitor” he killed that one too. He didn’t want Trithar to even know I existed. Why?
Trithar steps close, his massive shoulders tightening as his hands ball into fists. “Grag betrayed me, didn’t he?”
I nod solemnly. Nothing else makes sense.
“Trish!”
She enters the room at the sound of his voice.
“Who brought Grag’s mask to you?” His voice is deathly cold and hollow.
She isn’t oblivious to it and her fingers tighten on the doorknob. “Pardon, Excellency?”
Trithar loses control. “Who the hell brought back Grag’s mask!”
“Luthar, Grag’s second-in-command after the recent death of Captain Lavon,” she answers quickly. “He . . .”
“Bring him to the court room. Now!”
Trish’s face hardens, and she leaves the room without bowing, her shoes making earnest clacking noises down the hall.
Trithar gestures for me to follow him.
We walk down the long hallways without saying a word. The anger and power radiating from him both frightens and amazes me. I say a brief prayer for the poor fool who will be on the receiving end of it.
The guards don’t even wait for his command and open the large double doors for as he approaches, admitting us into the throne room.
The caped shadow situated beneath the oval sunlight turns around, the breath leaves my body in a harsh gasp, and I recoil in horror. If it had been centuries since that night I would still remember that shadowy form. That black hood. That raspy laugh.
“Good evening, Excellency,” Luthar says.
It’s the shadow that disappeared on that long ago night.
Chapter XLII
Luthar’s gaze drifts languidly from Trithar to me. I know he recognizes me because he steps back, startled, and darts a wary glance at Trish. Her blade is drawn, and she’s standing way too close for comfort. His shoulders tighten.
He knows why he’s here.
“Excellency, let me explain . . .”
“Lie and I’ll rip your fucking throat out!” Trithar growls, sounding more demon than man. He points a shaky finger at the shivering soldier. “Grag knew that the strange Kelban was my daughter. There was no way he couldn’t have known. Why didn’t he tell me?”
“I swear, my liege, I had nothing to do with it. He went mad. He was enraged. Violent, even. No one could get in his way. He . . .”
“If you give me one more damn excuse I’ll blow you apart right now!” Trithar opens the palm of his hand for warning and Luthar’s cape quivers around his shoulders, blown by the invisible power that the emperor and I share.
“How did he know about her?” Trithar continues.
I watch hundreds of different scenarios shudder across Luthar’s eyes in a matter of seconds as he contemplates the situation before him. One shuddering breath later, his gaze returns to normal and he shrugs. “I don’t know, Excellency. None of us did.”
“He’s lying.”
Everyone looks at me.
“He’s lying,” I repeat, and look straight at Luthar. His hood is pulled back, revealing the ebony mask and the dark eyes behind it. They warn me not to continue. Threaten me to remain silent. But he can’t frighten me like he did that night. Nothing like him will ever frighten me again. “Or have you forgotten me already, Luthar?”
He freezes at the sound of his name on my lips.
Trithar glances between us, confused. “What?”
“We’ve met before,” I continue in a slow, casual voice, “about four years ago, wasn’t it, Luthar? On a dark street in Kirath? Don’t you remember? You told your men to kill me.”
“You son of a bitch . . .” A blast of Trithar’s power knocks Luthar to his knees with a loud crack.
He screams in pain, sounding very human. “Excellency, please. I didn’t know she was your child. Grag thought she was Gavin Bone’s.” Luthar screams again as another wave of power rattles through him. “Grag found out about your affair through her. Empress Lilath. He wanted to punish your whore, and he thought killing her husband and child would be a good place to start.”
Now it’s my turn to be confused. Empress Lilath?
“You’re married?”
Trithar’s face darkens. “Was. She died twelve years ago.”
“And that information wasn’t convenient an hour ago because . . .”
He shakes his head in irritation. “My father made me marry a Darthan, one of the noble Ebonians. It just so happens that Grag was her brother. She told him everything. I always suspected she knew about Elinor. She was certainly suspicious that there was another woman. She must have learned the truth when my interest in Kelba remained long after I left that land behind.”
Luthar hastily interjects, “He was enraged that you would dare betray his sister like that. Enraged at you and at the other woman. He spent years investigating the matter until he was certain he’d found the right one. He said taking her life wouldn’t be punishment enough for the grief she’d caused his sister. She would have to suffer the loss of a loved one as well.”
“He failed,” I snap.
Luthar trembles, but I don’t think it’s from fear.
“When did he know she was my heir?” Trithar asks.
Luthar hesitates. The emperor’s lips curl and his fingers jerk as that invisible line of power that the two of us share grips the Ebonian with painful claws that fill the room with screams. After a few seconds that seem like hours, Trithar releases a steady breath and Lu
thar stops screaming.
“When did he know she was my heir?” The deadly quiet in the powerful man’s voice is more frightening than his rage.
“From the moment she arrived in Agron and word reached him that she could understand us.,” Luthar spits out hastily, splattering the floor with specks of saliva. “Only one of Ebonian birth or heritage could understand us without knowing how to speak the language itself.”
Only an Ebonian?
Holy gods! The boy from Gavrone – Avarick. Celeste. The “cursed” ones..
They were shadows too!
Half-breeds.
Luthar continues with his story. “The girl in Agron was a Kelban. The daughter of a High Lord. And her mother was Elinor Bone. Grag knew immediately whose child she really was. He ordered for her to be brought to him, but the force he sent failed to do so. He decided to do it himself. He attacked Agron, but she wasn’t there. We came back a few days later . . . she killed him.” Luthar looks at me again and, even though he wears a mask, I don’t miss the hatred simmering behind it. “He said she could never be found. That Trithar of Darkness’s half-blood heir never existed and should remain that way.”
Trithar stares down at him, lips curled in disgust. “You knew he was a traitor. You knew what he was about to do. And yet you did nothing. You did nothing while he was preparing to butcher my only daughter! I should have your head, you son of a bitch. Hear me? Your head!”
The trembling shadow has the good sense to lower that head. “I was afraid, Excellency. Grag slaughtered those who opposed him. I was afraid I was next. I brought you his mask and told her,” he points at Trish, “the truth because he was dead. I have and always will be loyal, Excellency. Forgive me.” He sinks onto his knees and puts his head on the ground.
Trithar stares down at him, repulsed. “You thought only of your own life and not of the crime you were committing. To murder a blood-line heir is treason. That heir is as much your master as I am. By following Grag’s orders, I have to believe you were involved in the assassination plot.”
“Excellency, please . . .”
“Enough!” He turns to speak with Trish.
Ostracized (The Ostracized Saga Book 1) Page 63
