Chapter Five
Rayna
Rayna managed not to collapse this time. She landed more or less where she had planned; near the edge of the tree line, a bit off to the side of the road. She stood still for a moment, staring at the city walls and trying to catch her breath. She had done it. Finally, after all these years, she was free of the city. She had escaped from Father, eluded his Shade Hunters and passed through the enchanted walls without dying. The implausibility of it all overwhelmed her and she leaned forward, resting her hands on her wobbly knees as her head spun and a wave of nausea washed over her. Two Jumps in one night was a lot to ask, and she wasn’t exactly in the best of shape after all the running and fighting she’d been forced into. She closed her eyes and breathed deeply, tasting the chilly night air as it burned inside her tired lungs. She didn’t care. The air had never tasted as good as it did right now, in this moment. It tasted… free.
A minute or two later the nausea and dizziness passed and she stood, looking around. The city wall in front of her was bathed in moonlight, its gray and weathered surface massive and imposing, dominating the landscape. She was maybe a hundred and fifty feet back from the walls, but she could still see two guards posted outside the gate, dim as they were in the moon and lantern light, standing alert on either side of the tunnel, undoubtedly having heard the shouts of their counterparts inside the city. Their attention seemed to be focused on whatever was going on inside the walls and they did not show any indication that they had noticed Rayna. She smiled as a growing sense of accomplishment filled her chest, and she gingerly took a few steps back toward the trees, slipping into the shadows.
As soon as she was far enough into the trees that she could no longer see the guards she allowed herself to breathe a sigh of relief. It would be nearly impossible for anyone to find her now. Only Adrick would be able to locate her in the near pitch-black of the forest, and there was little chance of him getting outside the city before the morning. First, it would take the Shade Hunters several more hours before they gave up looking for her within the city, and then they would have to return to Father’s house to give their reports. She could only imagine his face - stern and hard and unreadable - as they explained how she had escaped them. Then he would accompany them to the gates, order them opened despite the early hour, and turn the Hunters loose to seek for her in the wide, unfamiliar world outside the walls where their Skills would matter little. Adrick still concerned her, but her plan was to keep Jumping as far ahead as she could see, putting as much distance between them as fast as she could manage. It would not be long before she was beyond even his reach.
She picked her way through the trees, looking for somewhere to rest. She was exhausted, both physically and emotionally, and she had a long journey ahead of her. The walled city of Vertas was a couple days away, or so she had heard, and it was there that she planned to begin her search for her sister. If she had managed to get out of Villamont, as Rayna supposed she must have, then it was likely she had at least passed through there at some point. It was a long shot, probably, but she had to start her search somewhere. But right now she needed to rest. There was no way she had enough stamina for another Jump, not after everything that had happened already that night, and it wasn't as though she could see very far in the low light of the moon anyway. And so she would rest until dawn before heading toward Vertas.
She coughed as the adrenaline from earlier slowly wore off, her weariness suddenly weighing on her. She reached for her canteen, then remembered that it was empty. She sighed and dropped her arms. She would need to find a stream before she could rest, apparently. Her joy vanished as the reality of her situation dawned on her. Water, food, shelter… she had always taken these for granted. If nothing else, Father ensured that they were well-fed and healthy. Now, out here in the woods, these basic necessities of life suddenly seemed far more precious and vital. She had packed some food - scraps of dried meat and cheese that she had stolen from the kitchen, along with some bread. But it was only enough to last for a couple of days, and even that only if she was careful. A breeze blew through the trees and she hugged her arms tight against the chill, which reminded her that she had left her blanket with the little boy, leaving only her clothes and cloak for warmth. It was going to be a cold night, it seemed.
Her eyes and ears searched for any sign of a stream. Only now did she realize that she had severely underestimated how hard it was for someone accustomed to life in the city to pick their way through a forest lit by nothing more than the light of a half-moon. More than once she tripped over roots and rocks or found herself stumbling at an unexpected rise or dip in the land. Her progress was slow and arduous, and only the need to find water kept her moving forward.
Before long her legs grew heavy and she felt her chest begin to tighten. Oh, come on, she thought, grimacing against the familiar pain. Not now... Soon, she knew, she would be forced to stop and rest, whether or not she found any water. She simply wouldn’t have the energy to keep going.
Her strength left her faster than she thought it would and she found herself gasping for air, forcing her shaky legs forward as each shallow, rapid breath dried her already parched mouth. The dim moonlight wavered in her eyes and she struggled to concentrate, finding it nearly impossible to differentiate between shadow or root. After several unsteady minutes she stumbled and collapsed against a log, groaning and pulling her cloak tight around herself. She’d pushed too hard, she realized. She shivered, cold and dehydrated, cursing herself for forgetting that her canteen was empty. She should have thought to bring more water, or found a tap to refill it before leaving the city. In the stories the adventurer never neglected such simple things, such basic things. All she’d been thinking about was getting out of the city; she’d barely even considered what came next. She’d thought it would be easy to get through the woods and mountains to Vertas. Easier at least than making it past the Shade Hunters and over the walls. Her chest spasmed and she pitched forward, coughing. And definitely easier than living with these damned lungs, she thought, squeezing her eyes tight against the tears that were coming whether she wanted them to or not. She hugged her knees and gritted her teeth, waiting for the fits to pass. They always did. Eventually.
“Now, this is familiar…” said a deep, gentle voice. Rayna tensed as she felt a familiar presence settle down next to her. The voice sighed, settling its massive bulk against the log and casually laying a heavy hand on her shoulder. She tried to cry out, tried to leap to her feet, tried to do anything other than lie on the cold, damp ground and cough. The voice sighed again - a sad, almost nostalgic sound - and began to massage her shoulder with strong, knowing hands.
“It wasn’t all that long ago that I found you, just like this,” Father said as he expertly rubbed her shoulders and forearm. She could do nothing other than lie in the cold dirt and cough, feeling his fingers loosening muscles she hadn’t even realized were cramped. She squeezed her eyes shut while tears of pain mixed with tears of frustration. How had he found her? Where had he come from? How had he gotten to her so fast? Her victory tonight had been absolute: she had eluded the best of his Shade Hunters, had evaded the city guards and had gotten past the ancient wards that no one in recorded history had ever managed to penetrate. She had achieved the impossible, yet here he was, comforting her as he had when she was a child, and she hated that she wanted nothing more than to lose herself in the safety of his strong arms.
He slid off the log and sat beside her, his hands moving from her shoulders to her back, and he began working at the muscles below her shoulder blades. Almost immediately she felt her lungs relax and her breathing become easier, her coughs less violent.
“Of course, you were much smaller back then,” he said. “You were so tiny you could fit in the palm of my hand. And it was a gutter you were laying in, not a forest. But the truth of the situation was much the same. Back then you were abandoned by the ones who should have loved you the most; those who should have loved and protected you. Those who should have prepared you for the hard world we all must endure.” He hesitated, faltering slightly before continuing his massage. “Tonight, however, it was you who did the abandoning,” he said, his voice tinged with sadness. “The poetic reversal is ironic.”
He said nothing more for several minutes as he continued to massage Rayna’s back - her shoulders, her neck, returning to her back - his strong fingers loosening the tight muscles that were constricting her lungs. Her spasms ceased. Eventually, after her coughs had all but subsided, he helped her to sit up and offered her a canteen of water. She glared at him, breathing easier and rubbing her arms. He looked as calm and as regal as ever, even though he was sitting in the dirt, leaning against a log, dressed in his hunting clothes. She snatched the canteen away from him and drank the cool water greedily, barely noticing and certainly not caring that some of it sloshed down her chin and across her cloak. After she had drained almost half the canteen she let her arms drop to her lap and collapsed against the log. She was done, finished, defeated. She almost didn't care anymore.
“Do you really hate me that much, child?” he asked, gently removing the canteen from her hands and taking a sip of water himself. “Do you despise me so much that it is better to die alone in the woods than to live by my side?”
Rayna covered her mouth and coughed once. Her chest still hurt and her muscles ached, but she was far better off than she would have been had Father not helped her. She silently cursed him, and herself. It had been so long since he had been there for her that she had allowed herself to forget how comforting his presence could be. As a little girl she had always been so frightened whenever her lungs would constrict, and somehow he had always been there to calm her, to massage her back and tell her she was going to be okay.
She dropped her hands to her lap and stared at them, avoiding his eyes. “If I’d died, at least I'd be with my sister.”
“Am I not enough for you?”
“Ha!” Rayna laughed before she could even think. She shook her head and met his gaze. He wasn’t angry, but instead had a look of concern and weariness on his face. Rayna hesitated for a moment. She had never seen this side of Father before, not that she could remember, anyway. He always presented an air of authority that demanded respect and rejected any such notion of love or tenderness. He was stoic, difficult to read and distant from those around him. She turned back to stare at her lap again. “How could you be?” she said quietly, “I hardly ever see you. I don’t even know who you are.”
“Ah, child,” he said, his voice tender yet aggrieved, as though he were about to explain something that should have been obvious. “That is the way things are among the nobility. It is not the best way, nonetheless it is the way of things.” He turned from her and stared into the dark forest. He sighed. A deep, rumbling sound that was strangely comforting in the dark chill of the forest. “I never knew my father’s name until after he was dead.” He scoffed, shaking his head. “I truly believed his first name was ‘Lord’.” Then he looked at her, taking her chin in his hand and gently turning her face to look up at his. “With you, I had hoped to change these things. At least in part. I had truly hoped to one day call you ‘daughter’, and in doing so perhaps show you the love my own parents could never show me.”
She pushed his hand away. “Yeah. Fine. Whatever. You’ve said all that before. But you never did anything about it. After all these years I’m supposed to believe you? You’re the most powerful man in town and you can’t make it happen?”
Father closed his eyes and sighed sadly. “I was naive. I underestimated how poorly noble society would look upon a man of my status adopting an urchin. Even as my ward you are subject to ridicule and scorn. I have shielded you from the worst of it, but someday you will be confronted by the ugly truth of the nobility.” He spoke the last word with a depth of scorn that surprised her. Father was a nobleman. He was the Lord of Villamont, yet he was speaking of his own people with a hatred she would never have expected from him. It caught her off-guard, unprepared. He continued. “I was naive, yes. But I was also selfish. I could not bear to give up on the idea that one day my peers might accept you, despite the circumstances of your birth. And so I continued to raise you as my ward, teaching you, preparing you for the day that the nobility would finally accept you, would finally know you as I do. As my daughter.”
Despite herself, Rayna groaned. “You kept me locked in my room! I was your prisoner, never your daughter. I never even left the estate until I started training.”
“Oh? And after what I just told you, is any of that truly surprising? Have you never considered why, despite my status as Lord of the City, I rarely entertained? Why I never receive guests? Why I never hosted a ball?”
Rayna hesitated. She had wondered about those things, occasionally. Almost every lesson she’d received early in her life - before she began training under Master Jan - had been focused on how to behave in social settings. Noble ladies were expected to always be at their absolute best when in the public eye, and so Rayna had found it odd that Father almost never invited anyone into his home other than the Shade Hunters. She had never been able to practice her lessons, had never once been exposed to High Society. As a child she’d never really thought about it, though as she grew older and began to consider such things she had mostly assumed that it was because Villamont was a remote city with a very small noble population. There just weren’t that many people worthy of entertaining.
Father acknowledged her silence with a scoff, though there was no malice in it. Not towards Rayna, at least. “Noble society is a cancer, little one. It makes itself fat off the labor of those it purports to provide for and then feeds on itself while imagining that it is thriving. They lavish themselves with meaningless titles and ever more outlandish gifts while ignoring the suffering of the very people who make their decadence possible. They are pure corruption; I choose not to participate.”
“And since when did you care what anyone else thinks?”
“Since I found you lying in that gutter, naked and pale and moments away from death… Since that singular moment when I learned what it meant to love.”
Rayna blinked, unsure of what to say. She had been with Father for as long as she could remember, yet he had always been a distant and commanding presence. At his insistence she called him Father, though she had never felt any particular affection for him. She suppressed a cough. “I… I didn’t know…”
“Hhmm…” Father grunted, waving his hand dismissively. “Of course you didn’t. I never said.”
Rayna sat there, unmoving, staring at Father. This was not right. Could not be right. Father had always cared for her, of course. He looked after all of those in his house; his retainers, the Shade Hunters, even his staff and servants. There was always a warm bed and a hot meal waiting for them. That did not mean he loved them. Or her. Sure, he treated Rayna better than the others, had given her a suite of her own instead of a bunk, took his meals with her on occasion, had even talked about adopting her. She always assumed that it was because he had no wife or children of his own. It had nothing to do with love, merely convenience and necessity. That was all there was to it. All there could be to it.
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“Are they truly that important to you?” Father asked, his voice low, almost pained.
Rayna blinked and let out her breath. It wasn't quite a gasp, but she was still caught off-guard, uncertain that she had heard him correctly. “What?” she asked, almost stumbling over the words. “Who?”
“Your twin. Who else could possibly mean more to you than I?”
She blinked again and looked away from him, the hurt in his face - barely discernible in the dim moonlight but still there nonetheless - made it hard for her to maintain eye contact. “Uhm... well, yes. Of course. She’s the only family I have left.”
“Hmm.” She felt more than heard him grunt next to her, nodding as if confirming something he had always known. After several moments of silence he spoke again, his voice carrying a level of resignation she had never heard before. “Your actions tonight are my own fault more than yours, I suppose. I should never have kept the two of you apart.”
Once again Rayna felt herself completely off-balance. Kept them apart? What did he even mean by that? Did he know where her sister was? Had he always known yet never told her? Had he ever even tried to save her sister as he had Rayna? She wanted to scream at him, to demand answers, to grab him by the throat and choke the truth out of him. She felt her face tightening and her fists clench as her breaths grew short and rapid. Before she could lunge at him, however; before she could dig her fingers into his throat and beat his face into a pulpy mess, Father spoke again, his voice laden with regret.
“By the time you were old enough for anyone to realize that you had powers, that you were a twin, the trail had grown cold. We tried - I tried - to track down your twin. I had long ago learned that your mother was already dead but, of course, the mages in my employ assured me that there was no shade bound to you, which could only mean that your twin was still alive somewhere in this wide, cruel world. It took us many years and by then your twin was out of the reach of my Shade Hunters, being under the protection of another noble house. I tried other methods, more diplomatic methods, but I was loath to reveal your existence. And so I never played my hand, never went as far as I could have in reuniting the two of you. I always knew that you would be weaker apart than you would be together, but still I was grateful to have at least one twin in my house rather than none. And, as time went on, I began to consider you a daughter, not just another Shade Hunter to be used and discarded. I will grant, your physical weaknesses are what first endeared you to me. I could not bear to see such a young child struggle for life as you once did. You awakened in me a… compassion… I never knew I had. I watched as you struggled for breath, as you fought for life, and I saw in you a strength that I longed for myself. The world meant nothing to you. It had done for you naught but cruelty and yet still you clung to it, fought to hold on to it. You seemed to scream, grasping for that one power you still had control over, holding on to the only thing you could: your will, your own sense of determination. You were the only one who would decide when you should die, fate be damned. And so you fought, and in that struggle you found victory.”
Rayna blinked away the tears that threatened to fall thick from her eyes. No. This was Father who was speaking. Father. The man who had held her captive all her life. The man who was keeping Xavi and Ricard in his basement prison. The man who had stolen her away from her family. The man who had saved her life and in doing so taken everything from her.
“You are strong, child,” Father said, closing his eyes and sighing as he turned away from her. “Stronger even than I. I knew it from the moment I first laid eyes on you, cold and alone, slowly dying as the filthy gutter waste washed around you. You were crying, of course, yet it was not in despair but in anger. Even as a discarded and despised infant you raged against the world, daring it to defy you, and defy you it did. And now here you stand, victorious, your very life a testament against the vulgarity of chance. What now shall you do?”
Rayna forced herself to meet his eyes, which were now looking down at her expectantly. She didn't know what it was that he wanted from her anymore. Obedience? That was never going to happen. Defiance? Perhaps, but that didn't make sense either. A quiet acquiescence then, an acceptance on her part to remain at his side. That seemed the most likely.
“Whatever I do I’m sure you won’t approve.”
Father nodded. “Almost certainly. You were never meant to be a Shade Hunter.”
“Obviously.” she snorted. “How often did I have to beg for you to let me train?”
“In order to lead,” Father continued, “one must first learn to follow. That is why I ultimately allowed you to train with the others, despite your health and my own desires to keep you from harm. You had to know what it was to earn the trust of your subordinates by first being subordinate yourself. But one also must be hungry. You must desire power. You must want to lead. If you are merely content to follow orders you can never truly lead. And you, child, are truly powerful, and anything but content.”
Rayna slapped her hands to her face, vigorously wiping away her tears. This was garbage. Fluff. He was playing her, no matter how much she wanted to believe him.
“No,” she said, snorting and coughing at the same time. The sleeves of her cloak were getting slimy with her snot and tears. “No. You did everything you could to keep me away from the Hunters. You locked the doors and put wards on my room. You even told Othilia to keep me away from them.”
“And for all that I tried, I failed,” his voice was hard, determined. “I need to know that you are ready.”
“Ready for what? To be a soldier? To be another one of your slaves? To lie down on a cot in that hellish basement? What do you want from me?”
“I want a child!” Father shouted, slamming his fist into the log mere inches from where Rayna was still resting. She jerked away from him, instinctively focusing her power on the right side of her body, on the side that was closest to Father. Splinters flew in every direction, though they probably would have bounced off of her even if she hadn’t hardened her cloak against the blow. Father glared at his fist, focused intently not on the destruction but on some other unseen thing that Rayna could only guess at.
“Father,” she said, softly, reaching her hand out and placing it on top of his, suddenly feeling a warmth for him that she hadn’t felt in years. He jerked his head up, glaring at her, his eyes wide. Rayna tensed, shifting her focus from her arms and torso up to her face and neck line, readying herself for anything. Then, just as suddenly as he had raged, his face softened. He dropped his free hand to rest on top of hers, patting it affectionately before gently pushing it aside and pulling his fist from the log. Blood and shattered wood remained. Father examined his hand, pulling a large splinter from between his knuckles and carelessly flicking it into the night. He sighed and flexed his fist, not seeming to notice the blood that was starting to run from the multitude of cuts and drip to the ground.
“So, daughter,” he said, his voice heavy and slow. “The question still remains: what will you do?”
“Why are there people in the basement?” she asked. It was the only question that mattered.
“They have given themselves to the cause. I care for them because no one else will.”
“Xavi and Ricard?”
“Yes.”
“You told me they had left, that they were reassigned.”
“A gentle lie for a gentle child. I knew they were kind to you, and you would have taken it badly to know they had come to harm.”
“Are they..?”
“Not dead. Though perhaps death would be kinder, in a way. Nearly seven years and they have not awoken. It is the same with all of them, though Xavi and Ricard were the first.”
“The first?” Rayna asked, letting go of her focus.
Father stood, smoothly and elegantly despite his size and injured hand. He held out his uninjured hand to Rayna. She took it and let him pull her up. “The first to be found in such a state,” Father said. She couldn't tell if he sounded angry or sad. Maybe a bit of both. She had rarely, if ever, spoken with Father this long or this openly, and she was beginning to realize that she knew how to read Adrick’s and Remei’s moods better than Father’s. He bent down and picked up her pack, handing it to her. She took it, slinging it over her shoulder, and he began to walk, heading in the same direction that she had been going before collapsing.
He led them through the woods for several minutes, expertly weaving his way through the trees so that they always passed through the places where the branches were the thinnest and the path was the easiest, pausing occasionally to help her cross the deep ruts that sliced down the hill towards the road and river. Rayna had no time to consider how he managed to so easily navigate the dark woods as her mind was still racing with everything he had said earlier. He knew about her sister and might even know where she was. Would he be willing to help her, though? It sounded as if he had tried, once before, but had been unable to do anything. She couldn't believe it, honestly. Father was a duke, the lord of an entire city. Surely there wasn’t anything he couldn’t do if he really wanted to.
So, did he really want to? Had he ever tried to track down her sister as he claimed? She wanted to believe that he had. She wanted to believe everything he had told her tonight.
But that was just her being foolish. That was just her being a weak child desperate for her father’s love. But even as she tried to close off that part of her heart she felt the rift opening wider. She did want his love. No matter how hard she tried to deny it, no matter how hard she tried to hate him, she was desperate for his approval, for his acceptance, for his genuine, unconditional love.
She choked, stumbling over nothing as the realization formed itself in her heart, and Father stopped, turning toward her and resting his hand on her shoulder.
She slapped his hand away and straightened up, gasping. This wasn’t like one of her attacks, when her own body was trying to kill her. This was something different. This was something… deeper.
“Are you well, child?” Father asked, placing his hand back on her shoulder so gently that it took her a moment to realize he had even touched her again.
“Yeah. I’m fine,” she said, not even fooling herself. She cleared her throat and adjusted her pack, turning to look at Father. His hand dropped to his side and she saw what looked like genuine concern in his eyes.
“You have had a long and stressful night. I could carry…”
“No,” Rayna said quickly. “I’m fine, really. I just tripped.”
Father looked at her for a moment longer and Rayna was unable to read his eyes; unable to decipher what he was thinking. He nodded, a short, terse movement that could have meant anything or nothing, then turned to continue their hike through the blackness of the forest.
“Yes, of course,” he said, his voice taking on the distant noble quality she was used to. “It’s only a little further. I am certain you can manage.”
Rayna sighed. Men were so difficult sometimes. So hard to understand. And they call us the emotional ones, she thought, coughing slightly before falling in step behind Father.
“So where are we going, anyway? Where are you taking us?”
“Back to the road, child,” he said, hesitating for a moment before choosing to go left around a copse of trees rather than to the right. He did not turn around to look at her. “From there, I will be returning home. As for you, well… the question still stands.”
Rayna blinked as she blindly followed Father. Was he actually going to let her choose her own path? To return to Villamont with him or to continue on to Vertas? The ground was sloping continually downward, leading her and Father closer to their moment of decision. It wasn’t fair, she thought. It had taken all of her courage to flee in the first place, but now she was going to have to decide all over again. It had been a very long night.
Father wasn’t wrong about how close they were to the road. After a couple of short minutes he led them through a thin spot between some trees and she almost tumbled down the steep bank on the other side. A carriage was waiting there, black and imposing and drawn by a quartet of black stallions in ornate yet functional harnesses. They pawed at the road impatiently, held in check by the coachman. Rayna recognized the carriage as Father’s favorite; the one he would use on everyday errands when he was more concerned about function over form. It was large enough for four adults and swift when harnessed to the stallions. The lack of ornamentation meant that it was comfortable, since it bore no unnecessary carvings or gilding that would have otherwise weighed it down. Rayna had only ridden in it a handful of times, such as when Father would take her to be fitted for a new wardrobe, yet she held these memories close.
Father made his way effortlessly down the steep embankment and turned to offer Rayna a hand. She eyed him for a moment, then shook her head and sighed to herself. It had been a long, confusing, wonderful and terrible night, but she wasn't about to let him win that easily. She deftly slid down the embankment, ignoring his outstretched hand. It was easier to see now that she was out of the thickest of the trees and the first faint hints of dawn were beginning to show. She sighed. It was decision time.
Rayna looked right, to the West. To Vertas. The road in that direction was still dark, curving gently away into a thick canopy of trees, hidden from the early dawn by the hills and mountains. To the left the road slanted downward and into a clearing, a small field of grass and wildflowers with a thin wispy blanket of tule fog clinging just above the surface. Vertas or Villamont. Those were her options. The stallions pawed at the ground, snorting impatiently. A spirit-light drifted from the fog, flitting gently down the road toward Vertas.
She looked back at Father, who was standing by the open carriage door, his hands held behind his back as if he had not just been up all night traipsing through the woods tracking down his errant daughter. She sighed.
“Tell me,” she said, trying to keep the absolute weariness from her voice and failing. “Two things.”
“If I can,” Father replied.
“Huh,” she scoffed. “If you can. Fine, ‘If you can,’ tell me two things. One: that basement. Those people in there, you’re truly trying to help them?”
“Of course. They mean more to me than you will ever know.”
She believed him. There was no lie in his answer, of that she was certain. She had stumbled on the room as she was making one of her standard explorations of the compound, looking for other ways to escape, to run off, to get free for a time. The discovery had shaken her to the core. It had scared her in a way she had never imagined possible. But now, here in the middle of the woods on an abandoned road, she believed him. Father was many things. He was powerful, he was distant, he was the center of her world. But he was not a liar.
“Alright,” she sighed, pinching the bridge of her nose. She was tired. So tired. Fate be damned though, she wasn't going to let him win. Her entire life, ever since she had stopped believing that he was serious about adopting her, she had struggled to break free of the hold that he had over her; she had fought to make her own way in life. She had fought to train as a shade Hunter so she would have the strength and tools necessary to survive on her own. She had paid lip service to her lessons with Othilia about how to live as a noble girl not just to appease Father but because it taught her about noble society, things she couldn't pick up on the street. She had fought, she had struggled, she had defied the world and won. She was not going to lose now.
She dropped her hand from her face and looked up. Father was still standing there, holding the same composition. “Alright,” she said, sounding deflated despite her best efforts. “Fine. Two: My sister. I’m never going to stop looking for her. Are you going to help me or not?”
Father nodded slowly. “Ah, child. Daughter. Your twin means as much to me as to you. Perhaps more, if you will permit. I will seek them to the ends of the world.”
Rayna sighed deeply. She had already made her decision, though she hated to admit it. He still had a hold on her. There was nothing for it. He was as much a part of her as her own power.
“One more thing,” she said, taking a couple of steps toward the carriage.
“Yes?” Father said, stepping aside to allow the footman room to assist her.
“Adrick. He tried to kill me earlier.”
He reached out and helped her remove her pack. “Adrick is a tool. A soldier. If he cannot be controlled he is of no use.”
“Hm. Indeed.”
Father smiled. “And now you begin to think like a leader.”
“I think like you taught me,” she said, taking the footman's hand and stepping into the carriage.