“I have to go away for three nights, Cassandra. I’m travelling to the other side of Onaya,” my father says the second I walk into his office. The old decor matches the grumpy old man look my father gives me. My father’s once brown hair is grey, and his beard is slowly matching. The room is stuffy and needs cleaning, like a lot of the house. I try to clean it, but he goes mad. The place is a shrine to my mother, and he doesn’t like anything changed in it. Everything is the same as when she died in childbirth, died giving my father me. His only child and one he has to hide. I know that my father cares for me, but he doesn’t know what to do with me anymore. He looks down at the piles of old, yellow rolls of parchment, his hands folded into tight fists. He doesn’t want to go and leave me here, I know that. My father is around fifty with a receding hair line and round stomach from all the food he eats, and his white shirt stretches to keep him in it. The only thing I think I inherited from him was my light-brown hair. My mother’s was black and her skin was darker than mine, or so I’ve been told. I’m very pale compared to my father’s tanned skin, but I believe it’s more from the lack of sunlight, than what I was born with. I only get to go outside at night or late evening when no one is around.

“I will stay inside, and I’ll be fine,” I say as I wave a hand at him and sit on the window seat instead of one of the spare chairs in the room. I have to sit close to the windows because otherwise I feel trapped in here, or at least that’s what I tell myself. My father doesn’t question my choice of seats, like he used too. He hasn’t since I told him about feeling trapped in this house.

“I have never left you this long before, but now that you are eighteen, I believe you can be alone for a short amount of time,” he says and picks up a bowl of soup. I watch him eat it, wondering how many people in this town would kill for one hot meal like that when this is likely his fourth one today. My father could choose to eat less and give it to the worst off, but he wouldn’t. He thinks I eat as much as he does, I don’t. I hide my food and give it to Everly. She takes it to the people that need it on the poor side of town. Everly tells me how bad it is, how the people die from starvation or they go to the water. I’m not sure which is worse, but I only eat one meal a day because of it.

“I’m old enough to be alone for three days. You are rarely home these days, you’re always working. There isn’t much of a difference,” I tell him, my tone harsher than I usually speak to him.

He picks up on it. “A new Attitude seems to have developed as well,” he tells me.

I look away and out the window, “I’m sorry–”

But, he cuts me off with his harsh words spoken with anger, “You should be. I saved you from being killed as a baby, hid you your entire life, and fed you because I loved your mother. If she was here–” he snaps at me, throwing his bowl across the room, it smashes into the wall right next to me. I watch the red soup drip down the wall as the room goes silent.

I just turn and plaster on a fake smile, one I have become perfect at doing. My father has a temper, it’s best to just be nice to him and let him calm down. “Father, I didn’t mean to–” I get out before he cuts me off.

“I killed another man today, a gardener who saw you and was stupid enough to tell his family,” he tells me, and sickness fills my throat. I don’t say anything for a while, I just stare at him. I don’t want to know how he killed him, although he likely used a sword. We are one of the few families who have any swords, as it’s a sign of being well off. Also, no one would ever tell the council about an unusual killing. Everly says they always know it was one of them. They all have weapons like my father does.

“The family?” I ask, my voice betraying my emotions when it cracks.

“Also, dead. No one can know about you, so don’t look at me like that,” my father snaps. I don’t respond as I look at the dated red rug on the floor. It has yellow designs drawn into it, and I trace the yellow circles with my eyes for a long time, the silence in the room deafening.

“The things I have done to keep you alive would haunt you, Cassandra. I only ask that you watch your tongue around me,” he says, and I nod, words leaving me. Everly told me of the people that go missing, I have everyone written down in a book upstairs. The ones I know about, anyway.

The guilt does haunt me, they died because they knew I was alive.

“The King and his family are coming in two weeks. I need for you to behave while I work,” he says, and I nod. I knew they would be coming soon, I keep track of their visits on my calendar upstairs.

“Cassandra, leave me. I wish to be alone,” my father tells me, and I look up at his dark-blue eyes, seeing the emptiness of them. How many men and women can you kill before it destroys you?

I stand and walk out of the office, not looking back at my father. I know he means well, but we are so different. How he sees people and life is different to how I do. Maybe it’s because I’m locked up in here, maybe it’s because I spend all my time watching people from windows. Maybe he is just how men are, being that he is the only one I’ve ever spoken too.

The only one I will ever get to speak to if my life doesn’t change, and I know it never can, it never will.