Chapter 17

 

Silence descended with a vengeance. No one spoke. No one moved. Even Tiana who was thoroughly enjoying the chaos she’d caused.

“What?” Kyaerin whispered.

Tiana’s glee rose. “That’s right. Just another mess I had to clean up.”

“What do you mean clean up?” Liam took a step forward. “What are you—?”

“Richella had a daughter,” Tiana hissed as if telling him a secret. “Your daughter. Something your wife never gave you, I notice.”

Magnus wanted to knock the woman’s teeth in for the hurt on his mother’s face, but Riley beat him to it. The redhead was around the coffee table and in front of the queen before anyone could even blink. The crack made everyone jump. It splintered through the room like a sharp snap of lightning.

“You’re a real bitch, you know that, lady?” the strigoi hissed. “Keep it up. I don’t mind slapping that shit right out of you.”

“Riley.” Liam took her gently by the shoulders and nudged her to one side away from Tiana. “It’s all right. I’ll handle this.” He faced the other woman. “You gave my daughter to Baron?”

Tiana shrugged. “It had to be done.”

“What is with that asshole and stealing people’s babies?” Riley blurted. “Like, come on. Doesn’t anyone else find that super creepy?”

“People will do anything for their children,” Kyaerin murmured lowering herself down gingerly onto the sofa. “They make the best leverage.”

“I still think it’s creepy.”

“What are we going to do with her?” Magnus asked, motioning to Tiana.

“Send her home,” Liam said.

“She cannot go home,” Serinda said, speaking up for the first time. “She has conspired against the Black Laws. She has betrayed the treaty and carried out acts of war against the other houses and creatures. By law, she and her people must be punished by death.”

Liam sighed. “Then I will leave the matter to you—”

“Not my people,” Tiana broke in. “They are innocent.”

Serinda faced her. “Your men slaughtered hundreds in the name of a demon under your command. They killed the keeper of another house. They will be punished.”

“Wait. What leader? Who was killed?” Kyaerin asked.

Serinda turned to them, but looked to her sister. “Father is dead. His burned body was found in the courtyard with his hunting party. From what we gathered, they were outnumbered.”

Valkyrie sucked in a breath. Her shoulders straightened as if she were prepared to speak, but her mouth remained firmly shut.

Serinda went on. “There will be a ceremony in three days, after which I will take the throne as the eldest.”

Valkyrie swallowed and gave curt nod. “As it should be. You will make an honorable Queen.”

Serinda must not have been expecting compliance. Maybe she expected Valkyrie to challenge her. It was unclear what had her shoulders lifting and falling as if in relief, but she seemed to relax slightly. She inclined her head in thanks.

“With the challenges before us and our decreasing numbers, I have removed the bounty on your head.” She paused before adding, “You’re welcome to return home anytime.”

Surprise flickered across Valkyrie’s ashen features. Her blue eyes blinked once, her only outward reaction before it was smoothed over and she bowed at the waist.

“Thank you, Your Highness.”

With a nod, Serinda turned to Liam. “One final thing, the west would like to offer the north first chance at an alliance. My people will march into the south with their Queen and we will demand their submission. Those responsible will be hanged to set an example for others.”

“Not the women and children, right?” Riley said.

“Only if they were involved.”

“Even the children?”

The Harvester peered at her. “An example is an example.”

Riley said nothing else, but inwardly, she was a mess of indecisions. On the one hand, she knew she should say something to change the Harvester’s mind. On the other, she knew she couldn’t. The warrior wasn’t a friend or family. She had absolutely no reason to listen to Riley, nor did she need to. She was now the ruler of a house and her people had been attacked. Riley doubted anything anyone said would make a difference.

“We would be honored by an alliance with the west,” Liam said. “Your Highness.”

Serinda took that with a subtle tick of her chin. “We will march after the ceremony. The Queen will be our prisoner until then.”

“I will not go with you,” Tiana snarled. “I am still a queen.”

The disapproval was unmistakable in Serinda’s eyes when turning them to the other woman. “You are a traitor,” Serinda corrected. “To the treaty, to our cause, to your own people. No one will show you mercy.”

“I will come with you,” Valkyrie volunteered before the queen could open her mouth. “The south owes me.”

“Me too,” Gideon said.

Serinda glanced from one to the other and gave a faint nod. “Very well.” She turned to Magnus unexpectedly. “May I have a word?”

He followed her and her entourage from the room and down the front porch. They hauled Tiana and her guard to their car while their queen remained behind. The cold air made him wish he’d thought to grab his coat. Serinda seemed immune to the increasing wind. She stood before him with her jacket open and her fingers absent of their gloves. She faced him, her bound mane drifting around her shoulders.

“I have come to accept that the north has many secrets, and a tendency to blur the lines between right and wrong.” Her head cocked to one side. “But whatever magic you possess that allows you into the minds of others may be your undoing. I only say this as a warrior who has fought many battles with you.”

Magnus almost snorted at the understatement. “Believe me. I didn’t ask for it.”

“Were you cursed?”

He thought of the mark on his arms and the woman in the parlor upstairs, and sighed. “You can say that.”

“Be rid of it,” she warned him, keeping her voice low. “Nothing good comes from meddling in the minds of others.” She started down the steps, but stopped at the bottom and glanced back. “And congratulations on having found your mate.”

Without another word, Serinda mounted her bike and disappeared through the winding gap leading into the human world.

Magnus remained where he was, studying the shivering branches of the naked trees surrounding the property and wondering what his chances were of ever getting rid of the curse. Meddling, as Serinda had put it, in the minds of others wasn’t a talent he wanted for the rest of his life. Even he knew nothing good would come of it. Those with the gift seldom heard anything worth hearing. But if there was a cure, he didn’t have time to find it. If he wasn’t running off to save babies and kittens from trees, he was saving the world from demons. His problems never seemed to take priority.

But that was his life. The middle child syndrome. He was the one people needed in a fight, but didn’t know what to do with otherwise. He was too sullen, too bad tempered and aggressive. People didn’t like spending time with him if they didn’t have to. And he liked that. He preferred it. Even his brothers could only be digested in small doses. His own company was the only one he could stand.

So, maybe it didn’t matter that he always stood alone. Alone was the only thing he knew.

“Magnus?” his mother stepped onto the porch with him, her wrap pulled tight around her thin shoulders. She squinted through the pale strands that blew into her face. “Has Serinda left?”

“Yeah.” He turned to face her. “You shouldn’t be here. You’ll get sick.”

Rather than comply, she closed the door and joined him at the railings. Her blue eyes peered over the driveway and the trees separating them from the world.

“I hated this place when we first arrived. I felt like I was being led to prison. I missed our cabin on the cliff side. I missed the ocean over my feet and the sound of you boys playing in the waves. This place wasn’t Ireland.”

Magnus once again failed to think of a single thing to say to comfort her. So, he said nothing.

“I haven’t missed home in a very long time, not until tonight.”

She was thinking about his father and the child he’d conceived with another woman. It was a violent and vivid force clouding her thoughts.

“He didn’t know,” Magnus attempted to pacify. “It was before you, before—”

“Before our imprint, I know.” She sighed. “I never had any illusion that your father was a monk before us. I knew what he was. I knew his reputation with the girls in our village. But a child … with her. I don’t know what to do with that. Maybe if it had been someone else, someone…” “Less beautiful,” her mind thought, while she broke off. “How am I supposed to look at Zara the same now?”

Magnus thought about that, weighing his answer carefully before giving it. “What does Dad say?”

She gave him a look that said very clearly, what do you think?

“I can take her away from here,” he told her, struggling not to sound resigned. “If that’s what you want.”  Because it was what she wanted to hear.

“I shouldn’t be making this decision,” she mused. “It’s not up to me. She’s not my child,” she said to him while her inner voice said, “But how can I ask her to remain in my home and not wonder if he sees her mother every time he looks at her?”

It took him a moment to realize the last part was said in her head. It made him wish Gideon or Octavian were around. They would know what to say. Even Reggie seemed capable of basic sympathy. That just left him, standing there, uselessly.

“Tell her he loves her and what happened before doesn’t change that,” said a quiet voice in his head.

He cast an impatient glower at the door. “You should be resting.”

Zara answered almost immediately. “I am resting. Now, tell her.”

He hesitated, the words tasting off in his mouth. “He loves you and the past doesn’t change that.”

Kyaerin sniffled. “You’re right, of course. I’m being ridiculous. I should talk to Liam.” Eyes still bright with unshed tears, she turned to him. Her warm fingers reached like a pale ghost across the distance and lightly caressed the side of his cold face. “Thank you, darling.”

He watched her walk back inside and close the door behind her. Then it was just him again in the dark.

“She’s scared.”

He’d forgotten about the voice in his head. Her soft whisper snapped his eyes open, eyes he had no recollection of closing.

“She shouldn’t be. She has no reason.”

“She doesn’t need a reason. She’s a woman in love and her mate has a child with another woman. Even the most secure woman in the world would feel fear.”

Her logic made no sense. “Richella is dead. Has been for centuries.”

Zara sighed. “But the intimacy they shared is no longer a mere thought your mother can simply push aside and ignore. It’s a living, breathing creature, a constant reminder.” She paused before adding, “I’m a reminder.”

He considered that while studying the skyline peeking up over the treetops. It was purely by the grace of the moon that there was any light radiating at all. Their prison was too far from any stray illumination from the city.

“There’s nothing there for you.”

Magnus folded his arms and stared stubbornly at the trees. “Where?”

“In the dark.”

“Is that your personal or professional opinion, Madam Oracle?”

If he’d meant for his jab to silence her, it didn’t.

“You put yourself there as some attempt to find something, but who has ever found anything in the dark?”

A muscle coiled at his lower back, a pang that made him want to roll his shoulders. The tension gravitated through him, a slow-moving tar paralyzing his attempts to dislodge and move away.

“Two days in my head doesn’t make you an expert on what I am.”

“In here, you have no secrets from me, Caster,” she taunted without her usual barbs. That absence unnerved him more than her comment did. “And it’s been more than two days.”

“Don’t you have something better to do?”

The laughter in her tone prickled something inside him. “Possibly, but why would I when there are so many interesting things in here? It’s like Pandora’s box.”

Magnus hummed out loud, unusually amused. “And look how that turned out.”

“Pandora was an idiot.” Her scoff tugged at the corner of his lips, turning them upwards without his consent.

“So, you’re telling me you wouldn’t have opened the box?”

“Of course I would have! I’m not a saint.”

He chuckled at her unabashed admission. “But she’s the idiot.”

“She unleashed chaos and misery onto the world. Right or wrong, she was an idiot.”

Shaking his head, Magnus pushed away from the railings and stepped off the porch steps. His boots disturbed the clumps of snow and gravel, filling the night air with their melodious scuffle.

“Would you have opened the box?” she asked as he started around the side of the house.

“No.”

“You mean that!” she gasped, her surprise shimmering between them. “You really wouldn’t have?”

“It’s like you said, chaos and misery.”

Her huff made him laugh. “You’re only saying that because you know what happened.”

“Exactly.”

“That’s cheating.”

“I don’t recall saying I would play fair, and look at you talking about cheating. You see the future.”

Her low giggles filled the cavity of his skull and rippled in tendrils of fire down the length of his spine. The uncharacteristic sensation jolted through his system, a shockwave that faltered his next stride. He slowed to a stop in the shadows of the manor and wrestled with the unwanted image of Zara curled up in that enormous bed, tucked beneath the sheets, a pale figure in the dark.

“I’m not in the dark,” she told him, her tone light with silent laughter. “Nor am I in bed … yet.”

Magnus rolled his eyes, despite the grin threatening to break free.

“Why are you out there?” she asked when he pushed himself to start walking again. “It’s cold.”

He honestly had no idea why he was still out there. It really was fucking cold, but he couldn’t bring himself to head back inside.

“Checking the perimeter,” he lied.

“Liar.”

He rolled his tongue over his teeth. “All right, if you’re so smart, why am I out here?”

Her answer came in the form of silence, the penetrating sort, the kind that weighed heavy with all the things she wanted to say, which wasn’t like her at all. She had never not said exactly what was on her mind, even when it infuriated him.

“What?” he prompted.

“Because you don’t think you belong in here.” It was said with a quietness that was nearly missed, despite being said directly into his head.

“That’s crazy,” he thought. “It’s my home.”

“Yet you feel like a stranger within its walls.”

He came to an abrupt halt as the sting of her read struck him where it hurt most. He tapered the blow with his own brew of annoyance and indignation.

“You don’t know everything,” he shot back.

Her silence returned. This time, he didn’t attempt to engage her. Instead, he circled the manor twice before willing himself to go in. The whole time, he replayed Zara’s words and scoffed at the bullshit of them. It was clear she was fucking with his head, trying to get under his skin. Why else would she put on such a show luring him into a false sense of security? That had been her plan the whole time. Well, she was wrong.

Inside, he found his family in the parlor. With the fire roaring in the hearth, they made the picture-perfect snapshot of a holiday card. Each of them properly paired off and sitting with their respective partners on the sofas. Everyone, except Reggie and Zara, who seemed completely fine with being the eighth wheel in the group. They all laughed and talked like everything was fine, like the world wasn’t ending, like a mad man wasn’t starting a war between heaven and hell. Their blindness was maddening. Their lack of priorities made him want to scream at them. How could they be so blasé about everything? Why was no one formulating a battle plan? Even Valkyrie, the one person he’d always counted on to see reason had abandoned him. Once again, it all fell on him to prepare. It fell on him to keep everyone alive, to have a fucking plan.

“Magnus.” Riley spotted him. Her luminous, crimson eyes pinned him to the threshold. “Why are you standing there?”

Why are you all sitting there? He wanted to rebuttal, but he knew it would do no good. They would never change. They would never share his anxiety, his fears of losing them. They didn’t understand how much he needed them, possibly more than they would ever need him.

“That isn’t true,” Zara murmured.

He didn’t have the heart or energy to tell her to get out of his head. What did it matter anymore anyway?

“Hey, you okay?” Gideon shoved off the armrest he’d been propped against and rose. “You look a little constipated.”

“I don’t know,” Reggie ventured. “It looks pretty normal to me.”

Octavian swatted his arm, but focused on Magnus. “Everything all right?”

His family. His brothers. Men he’d faced heaven and hell with. Good men.

“Mag?” The lightness vacated Gideon’s face completely. His concern became a flood of sounds through the space between them.

“Oh!” Riley gasped. Then again, louder and with a horrified realization. “Oh!”

All heads pivoted in her direction, expressions bemused, but she was staring at him, wide eyed and slack jawed.

“Oh!” Zara breathed, small hands going to her mouth.

“What?” Gideon demanded, glancing from one to the other. “Can someone fill in the rest of us?”

Magnus willed himself in closer. He told himself it was to try and pick up the redhead’s thoughts, but something about the distress humming around Zara had him migrating towards her against his will. He stopped next to his father’s empty armchair, three feet from where she was, hindered by Gideon and Valkyrie’s legs, but it was close enough.

“Zara’s Liam’s daughter,” Riley choked out at long last.

Glances were exchanged, none of his brothers understanding the weight of what she was saying, but Magnus did. The moment those words were dropped into existence, it became a solid fist driving into his abdomen.

“She’s his daughter,” Riley repeated, looking from Octavian to Gideon like she expected to see lightbulbs ding to life behind their eyes. “He’s Liam’s son.”

“Oh!” Octavian recoiled, understanding finally dawning.

“Jesus!” Gideon exclaimed simultaneously. “What … no!” He shook his head wildly as if attempting to rattle that horrible image out. “No, absolutely not. There has been a mistake somewhere.”

Riley splayed her small hands and lifted her shoulders to her ears in a very, I don’t know gesture. “Maybe Magnus was adopted.”

No one believed that for a second, especially given that his twin was standing at his shoulder.

“The mark would not have bonded them if they were related,” Reggie attempted to justify rationally. “It wouldn’t. It’s not natural. I mean, I saw it happen.”

“Right, because a million-year-old curse physically branding you forever to one person is completely natural,” Magnus muttered. “Practically organic.”

“Draconians marry their siblings to keep the bloodlines pure,” Gideon ventured logically. “Sykes, Richella’s husband was her older brother, and Zara’s half Draconian, so maybe…”

“Stop,” Magnus warned. “She’s not my…”

“Sister?” Riley supplied when he couldn’t bring himself to finish. “Dude, biology is totally against you right now.”

“You’re all idiots,” Valkyrie muttered, speaking up for the first time. “Zara isn’t your sister.”

Riley scoffed. “Sharing a dad basically makes you siblings. Half siblings. Right?”

Gideon started to nod.

Valkyrie unfolded endless miles of leather clad legs and pushed gracefully to her feet. She peered at Riley as if the girl was an absolute moron.

“Tiana lied. I mean, I believed her just like the rest of you at the beginning, but commonsense kicked in … at least for me.” She waved a hand towards Zara. “She’s part demon. Is Liam a demon? Was Richella? No. He’s a selkie and she was a Draconian. I don’t smell him in her at all, but I can sense the Draconian part of her. Whoever her daddy is, it’s not Liam. See? Basic logic.”

The room plunged into silence. Such a silence that even the thoughts went momentarily mute. No one seemed to know what to say. But never in all his life had Magnus wanted to embrace anyone as badly as he did the brunette in that moment. Every muscle in his body thrummed with it.

“Holy Jesus!” Gideon slapped a hand to his chest. “Man, things got really scary there for a minute. Whew!” He reached for his wife and pulled her to him. He kissed her soundly on the mouth. “This is why I love you.”

Valkyrie bunched her nose up at him.

“But why would Tiana lie about that?” Riley interjected. “It seems like a stupid thing to make up.”

“She wasn’t talking about me.” Zara looked up at the group.

“I need to sit down.” Riley flopped down in her usual spot and blew out a breath. “This is all way too Jerry Springer for me.”

“What do you mean?” Octavian asked Zara, but settled a gentle hand on his wife’s shoulder.

Zara sighed. “It was something in her thoughts. When she looked at me, for a moment, she wasn’t sure which daughter I was.”

“Which daughter?” Reggie asked. “How many are there?”

Zara lifted delicate shoulders. “I’m not sure.”

“So, Dad does have a kid with Richella?” Gideon glanced at the others. “We have a sister out there somewhere?”

“She would be older,” Octavian mused. “Older than Kyros and Zara.”

“Jesus, she’s older than even us!” Reggie realized with astonishment. “Older than Octavian. We have an older sister.”

Gideon propped a hip against the armrest of the sofa. Valkyrie was dragged between his knees and held there as he peered around her at the rest of the room.

“So, what’s the plan? Do we find her? I mean, we find her, right?”

No one said anything for a long moment, but their inner voices rambled off pros and cons of making such a decision. Everyone seemed to have the same opinion and the same concerns. But Magnus was sure of one thing, if it were up to him, he wouldn’t. He was done finding babies and children. He was tired of being a search and rescue. But he knew it wasn’t that simple. He knew if his mother or father asked, he would. He’d find his long, lost sister. He’d bring her home.

“We don’t even know what Tiana did with her,” Riley pointed out. “She got Zara mixed up with her, so, what if she killed the other one thinking she’d killed Zara?”

The confusing ramble made sense to the room.

“Then we ask her,” Reggie decided. “We talk to her again.”

“Hold on,” Octavian cut in. “Sister or not, she’s been gone for eons. We don’t know what she’s like, what she’s been through. But more importantly, just knowing Dad had a baby with someone else crushed Mom. I’m not bringing that kid back here, not without Mom’s say so.”

“Especially given that we can’t trust anything Tiana told us,” Valkyrie added. “For all we know, there is no other daughter.”

“There is.” Zara sighed, sounding exhausted. “I saw both children in her mind. I felt her anger and betrayal. She was so ashamed.”

“Psychotic bitch,” Riley grumbled.

“I don’t know if she’s your father’s daughter, but there is … was another child. Tiana was so hard to read…” She broke off to press the tips of her four fingers to her brow where Magnus could feel his own thrumming pain building. Her face screwed up tight in agony. “Too many centuries. So many memories. I couldn’t see things straight. I … I’m sorry.”

“Okay, that’s enough.” Magnus marched forward. He stepped around Gideon and Valkyrie’s feet. “I’m taking you to bed.”

No one stopped him when he scooped her up into his arms, not even Zara. She hooped her arms around his shoulders willingly and let him take her from the room with her head resting on his shoulder.

“I tried,” she whispered sluggishly.

“I know,” he murmured.

“There was so much hatred inside her.”

“Tiana’s difficult to understand,” he rationalized.

“She loved you.”

He jostled her higher against his chest. “Not enough.”

Zara exhaled softly against the side of his neck. “I thought I finally knew.”

“Knew what?”

They reached her room. He nudged the door open and carried her to the unmade bed.

“Where I came from.”

Gingerly, he placed her down on the mattress. He helped ease her beneath the sheets, prolonging the answer he didn’t have, but she didn’t seem to need it.

“I always wondered why I was sold,” she whispered, turning onto her side and snuggling into the pillow. “I used to pretend my parents were dead, because it was less painful than thinking they didn’t want me.”

The heartbreak in her words ripped at him. They burrowed beneath his skin and sunk serrated claws around his heart. He felt the crushing compression with every beat of hers, as if the two were linked and her suffering was bleeding through him.

“You’re not alone anymore,” he told her quietly. “It’s not possible being alone in this family.”

Violet eyes lifted, wet pools that threatened to drown him. “You’re alone.”

“I need to be. I can’t protect those I love if they get too close.”

“I’ve been alone my whole life. It terrifies me.” She mashed her lips together and lowered her eyes. “I don’t know Richella, but I wouldn’t have minded Liam being my father.”

“I would,” he mumbled in a lame attempt at humor.

It seemed to work when she smiled a little. “I suppose you’re right. That would have been awkward.” Her pale eyes lifted to his face, her smile gone. “Your mother is upset. Seeing me here hurts her.”

He knew lying to her would be pointless. Odds were, she’d heard everything Kyaerin had said to him on the porch, but he had no idea what to say to make it better, except…

“It won’t last.”

“Maybe I should leave—”

“You’re not going anywhere,” he cut her off shortly. “She’s upset right now, but once I tell her the truth, she'll be fine. Plus, I know my mom. She’s not capable of blaming you for something you didn’t do. Things will be better by morning. You’ll see.” He straightened his shoulders as if that settled everything. “Now, rest.”

He left her in bed and made his way to his parent’s office. He closed the door and stalked to the folder he kept tucked away in one of the filing cabinets. It was taken to the desk and opened. The files were laid out in perfect order, everything he could remember from the first war along with all the things they’d had to face so far.

“I thought I would find you here.” Liam slipped into the room and shut the door behind him. He crossed the room, his gray eyes glimmered in the semidarkness. “May I ask why you’re here and not with the others?”

Magnus straightened. “Someone needs to prepare.”

Liam stopped on the other end of the desk and peered down at the mess of pages. He picked one up at random and studied the contents with a thoughtful expression.

“What do you hope to find that you haven’t already?” He set the page down and lifted his chin to face Magnus. “Have you not already gone over all of these a thousand times?”

“Maybe I wouldn’t have to if others would take this half as seriously,” he countered, feeling his temper swirling tight with his helplessness. “No one else seems to give a shit that we could all be dead tomorrow.”

“How many wars have we fought, Magnus?” Liam moved slowly to Magnus’s side of the desk. “How many people have we lost?”

Two, he wanted to say. Two small, precious lives. Instead, he asked, “Why does that—?”

“There will always be a war, son,” Liam cut in. “It’s a fact of life and there isn’t anything any of us can do, except wait for it and fight.

“Maybe people wouldn’t die if we prepared better,” he countered. “Arild Devereaux was killed just outside his own front doors. I had no love for the man, but why am I the only one…?”

Something like understanding flickered behind his eyes.

“I won’t be here forever,” Liam told him quietly. “Every new war, I accept the fact that it may be my last. But I will not greet death with open arms, do you understand? I will not leave you, your brothers, or your mother without taking down as many of them with me as I can. But I can’t live behind walls and gates. I won’t. I am a warrior, like you, and my duty as a husband and father is to protect what’s mine.” He glanced down at the papers. “I once told you to know your weaknesses—”

“I don’t—” One sidelong glance from his father and Magnus broke off.

“This is your weakness, Magnus.” He touched the tip of his fingers to the corner of a page. “You can’t hide behind fear. You can’t always look over your shoulder. You and your brothers, you deserve a life. You deserve happiness. Yes, I may die tomorrow, but I will not die with regret.”

“I don’t know how to be anything else.”

The confession settled in a fine mist. It bled into the shadows.

Compassion and understanding wafted off his father even before the other man put out a hand and touched him on the shoulder.

“You can start by letting go of whatever you’re hanging on to, whatever it is that has you hating yourself.”

“I can’t.”

The hand slipped away. “Then tell me. Let me shoulder it with you. That is what family does. We lighten the other’s burdens. We forgive each other when we can’t forgive ourselves. There is nothing you can tell me that will ever make me any less proud of the man you are.”

“I don’t need forgiveness.” Magnus turned away and picked his way to the sitting area. He dropped into the armchair. “I need a way to go into the past and change it.”

Liam considered that as he made his way to the drink cart and poured them both a shot a brandy. He brought the glasses over and handed one to Magnus.

“Don’t we all.” He claimed the adjacent sofa. “But then we would learn nothing from our mistakes.”

Magnus had wondered often what part of losing his family he would change if he could. Not meeting Osha, maybe. But it always came back to the moment Alyse burst into the hut with that drink. He wouldn’t drink it. He would be awake and alert to protect his children. That was the thing he would change.

“What is it?”

The confession welled up in Magnus’s chest. It expanded until he was sure it would kill him if he didn’t talk.

He told his father.

He spilled every bitter, vile moment of those two years down on the table between them. No amount of brandy in the world could properly numb the gashes each serrated edge left coming up his esophagus, but he kept going until the very last second.

When he finished, his father remained perfectly immobile with his drink between his hands. His silver eyes stared past Magnus to something just over his shoulder. Neither spoke. For the first time, Magnus actually felt empty of everything. It was a level of weightlessness he’d never faced before. It was the carefree nothingness of a child.

Finally, his father set his drink down. He took Magnus’s empty glass and placed it next to his. Then he rose and motioned for Magnus to follow. Magnus thought for sure he was about to get dragged to see his mother and retell the story all over again.

Instead, Liam pulled him in for a fierce embrace.

“It’s time,” he murmured into Magnus’s ear. “Let it go, son.”