My mother's words were calm, but not like a sunny day, they were calm like the eye of a storm. “Keigan… I love you… But If you ever point a sword at my daughter again you won’t like what happens…”

He cleared his throat, but as he took a step forward her blade lifted off his and strung across his neck. “Did you hear me?” She asked in a voice so cold it gave me chills. Even Fritz had stopped breathing.

He froze still, looking down at the blade, his confidence vanishing. “I… Yes… I heard what you said…”

Her blade nicked his neck as blood dripped down and ran down across its edge. “So you won’t do it again?”

His eyes moved back towards me, cold as ever

“She’s more than strong enough to not dishonor the family, there would be no point in risking her life… Just go kill the ghoule, and put all of this behind you…”

The black fog began to leak from his eyes more intensely than before. “You think she’s strong enough? She will never be strong enough, even now it’s all fake, just a facade built up by her use of magic… We aren’t done, not even close… Not until she can stand on her own without the use of magic. Until then she’s a threat.”

Mara Lowered her voice until I was sure no one else could hear it but him, making me use my magic to listen in. “I could accept you’re methods… As much as I hated them because they worked… But she’s good enough… If you hurt her again, instead of keeping her safe, I’ll cut your sword in half…”

He let out a long sigh as the darkness around his eyes vanished. “I’ll still have my ax…” He grumbled submissively.

“Your other sword.” She said back, making him almost instantly lose a shade of color in his face.

‘Can’t say I’ve ever seen that expression cross his face… But I guess this means I don’t have to run?’ I turned back towards Finlo, who was a bit jittery all the sudden. “ Told you. She’s amazing… scary… But still amazing”

‘Well, I guess that explains why he’s so careful about things like last night… I wonder if that’s why I haven’t seen Bhaltair since he broke my arm too.’

My father let out another sigh, heaving his sword out of the earth and whipping off the mud before sheathing it again. “Let’s just hope we make it to the fountain before she turns…”

Mara’s blade was still held tightly against his neck. “You still haven't said it…”

He let out another sigh. “On my honor, I will protect the young lady Siyasivede with my life, and not endanger her life, nor harm her in any way so long as I live from this moment onward.”

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I felt a string of chills run down my whole body that was so strong it felt almost like pins and needles, making the hair on the back of my neck stand up on end. ‘He… But…’ My thoughts hit a brick wall and stopped dead in their tracks.

She finally lowered her sword and he put his back in its sheath after wiping off the blade. “Either way, you used dark magic Siya… Just… If you're going that far, make sure you at least win…”

He walked over to his horse and began double-checking his things.

“You’ve got some family there…” Zu whispered with a confused smile.

“You have no idea…”

Keigan finished looking through his things as my Mom called over my brother.

“Airsidh! Get ready! You’re going with them!”

My father turned around. “I told you that we would be–”

“Shut up, you don’t get to talk anymore. You’re lucky I’m letting you take her out there at all after that.”

Again everything froze. The only one that dared to move was Air, who quickly ran off to the stables. He was conveniently already geared up, almost like they had planned it from the beginning… Judging by how he got out of the stables and joined us before my father was even done checking his things… I’d say yeah, they were definitely planning it.

“I thought you said you were saddling Mara’s horse…”

“The fact that I lied and you didn’t notice means my point still stands.”

“You…” I gritted my teeth, somehow holding back everything I wanted to say to him. “No wonder Lu gets so pissed at you…”

He rode up right beside me with a laugh, rubbing his horse's neck. “Don’t worry sis…” He turned back to look at our father “I got your back…”

“Gotta love hearing those words from a liar…” I said, rolling my eyes. ‘What the heck is even going on right now?’ He didn’t say anything back, but I could tell from his relaxed face he took my comment unexpectedly hard.

Meanwhile, I was still wrapping my head around the fact that my father used dark magic. Seeing as how he just gave a speech about how it turned people into demons… I mean, what sense did it make to kill me over using it if he was using it too? As annoying as Air was, that was what was really pissing me off.

For a moment, I started to hope that maybe that was why he had changed, but I quickly stopped myself from going down that train of thought. Even if dark magic helped him, from what Rafi said, all it did was name your price, it showed you the corruption in your soul that was already there and made it worse. In other words, it was all still him…

For him, his price is his family. Putting the pieces together it all started to make sense. ‘No matter what the cause was, it was still him, just like I’m still me…’

A part of me wanted to believe I could somehow blame it all on the dark magic… But I couldn’t. I quickly checked with Zu. He didn’t have anywhere near enough energy to turn into a demon, so there was no way it would be influencing his decisions.

“This is giving me a headache… Can’t we just leave already…”

After finally mounting up my father checked everything one last time and then put a big grin on his face as he said his goodbyes.

‘It’s a cheap way for me to try and resolve my feelings of rage toward him, nothing more. A cheap way to forgive him for everything that he’s done. I could just blame it all on dark magic corrupting him… But, knowing that only makes it all the more sad… Because I know that’s not true…’ I was glad Mara stepped in the way she did… But she had to, and that in itself was the problem.

“You ready for your Dad to show you things are done in the real world!” He cheered as the guards slowly opened the gates.

In the past, how many excuses had I made to justify his actions, how many times had I tried to bend my thinking to put him in a better light? I could have gone back through my memory and counted, but there would have been no point. I wasn’t going to do that anymore.

“I only have one dad… And he’s… Nothing like you…” I muttered as I pulled my hood back up, wiping a single tear from my eye. It was strange that I didn’t cry more, given what Catherine had told me, but it seemed almost fitting in a way. Like he wasn’t even worth my tears anymore after how many he had taken from me.

Despite being the last one on the horse, Lord Keigan was the first to leave, pretending like everyone else was lagging behind. “Hurry up, let's get going.” He said, and the horses took off, their hooves pounding as we rode out the gate.

‘I can’t keep this up anymore. He swore an oath to not hurt me, but what’s that worth? One way or another we're going to settle things, either in the dungeon or after we get back and I can hide behind Mara just in case.’