I stood slowly, not trusting my eyes. Had the Queen sent him to break my heart again?
“I don’t wish to alarm you, child,” Father said, standing in the open doorway. “But your face reminds me of something. Though I don’t know what it is.”
I looked down, saw the patch of light cast by the window, and stepped slowly into it, trying to smooth my hair into something that would remind him of the daughter he’d banished so long ago.
He stepped closer, unable to look away. “She said I was being foolish, my wife, but I don’t think I am. It’s just that sometimes, I can’t think clearly and she feels she must make sure I’m not taken advantage of.” He smiled. “There are so many who would abuse their favor with the king, you know.”
I nodded. Yes, I know.
Another step closer, and I lowered my gaze, afraid even that would frighten him.
“Perhaps it is that you remind me of someone,” he said.
I smiled then, to keep from crying.
“There!” he exclaimed. “There it is! Your smile. It reminds me of my first wife, my first love . . .”
He remembered Mother?
He shook his head. “It was very long ago, but she smiled like you. Perhaps that is what I saw earlier.”
He looked around the dark cell, noticing it for the first time. “What have you done, child, that she sent you here? She is merciful. I know this from my own life, how she saved me from, from—”
Your sons and daughter? Your throne? Your sanity?
He shook his head, as if trying to remember. “No matter.”
I looked down at the untouched muck illuminated in a square of light, the previous day’s drawing hidden in shadow. I thought of sunlight streaming through the library windows so many summers ago. I thought of the sound of Father’s voice as he read to me from The Annals of Lacharra.
And for a moment, I smelled cloves.
There are spaces between heartbeats and breaths. Between the smallest moments of time. Sometimes, you can step into those spaces and live there for a little while.
Just long enough.
I touched Father’s shoulder so that he would pay attention and slowly knelt beside the patch of light.
I remembered the scent of cloves and the scent of books and the way the east wind made the library fireplace smell of smoke in the winter. I thought of the Cynwrig crest above the alcove where Father read.
And in the muck on the floor of the cell, I drew three swans, wings unfurled.
I drew the broken chains around their necks.
I drew the flight of swans as if they’d spring up from the muck and find freedom once again.
Father crouched to see the swans better and reached a finger toward them. Then he whispered:
And so, a game of swans, bearing swords, flew up from the south.
The House of Cynwrig settled among the lakes of the north and all the lands in between, establishing their fortress at Roden.
Every prayer I’d ever drawn or sent out into the night was answered as Father recited from The Annals of Lacharra.
“It’s from a very old book, you see. A favorite of mine, though I’d forgotten that too,” he murmured. “Perhaps you wouldn’t have liked it, but—”
He looked up at me—and what I saw filled the empty spaces between years of heartbreak.
“Andaryn?”
If I could only talk to Father about home and the library and Lacharra, the enchantment would fall from him—but I couldn’t answer him!
So I nodded and smiled up at him.
“You have your mother’s smile.”
I nodded again, then glanced behind him to the open cell door. I wanted to dash from this place with Father, but I knew I’d lose him if he met the Queen again. He was returning, but not fully. He still didn’t seem to notice that I was mute.
So I pointed to the swans, asking him to tell me more.
And he did.
He told me how the Cynwrig brothers fled, but the King of Brisson followed, determined to kill the entire house for denying him their sister. His voice grew strong, and I was in the castle library again, the scent of books and cloves more real than the dark and slime that surrounded me.
The flight of swans, bearing swords, met the King of Brisson and his allies in combat.
And all the while, I watched Father’s face as he slowly returned. His hair was as dark as it had ever been. I’d expected the lines around his eyes and mouth to be deeper, but he looked younger than I remembered. It reminded me of the Queen, as if somehow his soul had aged rather than his body. But I pushed the fear aside and held my father’s gaze as he spoke on.
Father’s voice grew stronger as the patch of daylight grew brighter. I watched him and the door behind him as hope rose inside me—until Father’s voice faltered.
I glanced at the partially opened door behind him, expecting to see the Queen or one of her Hunters behind him, but there was no one. But Father wasn’t looking out the door. He stared at me.
“What’s happened to you, Andaryn? Why are you here? Why can’t you speak?”
Father looked around at the cell, truly seeing it for the first time.
Seeing me for the first time.
He raised a hand to his face. “What’s happened to me?”
I wanted to hug him but didn’t dare—I was covered in filth. But he caught me up anyway and pressed me close.
It was better than sunlight. Better than speech.
“I haven’t been myself these past few weeks,” he whispered against my hair, just as he used to when I was a girl. Then he released me and studied my face, slowly shaking his head. “No. Not weeks. It’s been years, hasn’t it? How many years has it been?”
I held up six fingers, and his face crumpled in shame and disgust. But he mastered it quickly. “Now is not the time to grieve it. It is time for me to make it right. And I will, Rynni. I—”
The door screeched behind him.
The sound of a hiss.
Father gasped and a moment later, the tip of an obsidian blade protruded from his chest.
Father’s eyes widened, and his hands lifted to the sword as if touching it would make it go away. I saw the Hunter behind Father, eyes wide with bloodlust, and caught Father by the shoulders.
The Hunter yanked his blade from Father, and all that was left was blood.
Father fell back into the cell and tried to pull himself up on one of his elbows. The Hunter stood in the doorway, the evil blade still in his hand. I launched myself at him, clawing and kicking. He stumbled back, flung the blade to the floor, and fled.
The blade shattered, sending sparks into the dim.
I knelt beside Father. Blood already covered his tunic.
So much blood.
I put my hands over the gash in his chest, wishing I could push the life back into him. But still it spilled out, a warm pool spreading beneath him.
All the while, Father looked up at me, his breath catching and burbling in the back of his throat.
I wanted to wail. I wanted to scream.
But his hand came up and caught mine as he tried to speak.
I leaned closer.
“—love you.”
I felt the life streaming from him, saw the lines the years had cut into his face, and I couldn’t stop crying, great silent sobs, and tears so thick I could hardly see him.
Then I felt his hand on my cheek, and I cupped his hand with my own.
“You . . .” Father’s breath rattled in his chest. “. . . will finish what . . . could not. Don’t—” He closed his eyes, and I thought I’d lost him. “. . . give her any—thing. Don’t . . . say . . . yes.”
I kept nodding against his hand just to keep him close, keep him with me.
“Andaryn.”
The last word my father spoke to me was my name.