My father opened the door to the castle and gestured to the opening with a flourish. I stood a few feet away, unmoving. I’d never set foot in any building besides the citadel in my life—unless the dilapidated stables counted. But beyond that doorway was so much more than just another threshold. It was the line between the life I’d lost and the new one here—in Soluselis, with the Paladin. Without Inara.
“Zuhra?”
I summoned a smile, tremulous but hopefully convincing, and forced my feet to carry me forward, to where my father waited, his own smile faltering a bit at my hesitation.
If I’d believed the grand entrance to the citadel to be large and ornate, it barely held a candle to this one. Everything there was stone, somewhat dark and imposing. Here, everything was so open, so bright.
“It’s pretty remarkable,” my father commented quietly from beside me.
I merely nodded, not sure what to think—or say. It was breathtaking and amazing and … not my home.
After a pause, he continued, “It might take a little getting used to.”
I followed him silently, attempting to take it all in. The walls and floor of the castle were made of polished white stones that gleamed like untouched snow. Pools of sunlight shimmered in perfectly spaced intervals from the skylights overhead.
“They’ve given you a room just up here.”
“I don’t need a room.” The same refrain I’d already repeated multiple times. Giving me a room implied my stay was anticipated to be long enough to require a bed. “We have to leave today—we have to go back.”
“We will,” Adelric assured me, as he had multiple times. “But you can at least get washed up and rest for a moment, while the council convenes. I was told there are clean clothes and a bath already drawn up for you.”
I bit back a reply that I didn’t have time for a bath or rest. The urgency of the situation didn’t matter; when word of my arrival with Adelric’s battalion—and how my arrival had happened in the first place—reached the right ears, they’d agreed the council needed to assemble to decide what to do next. But it took time to gather them all.
How much time, no one would tell me.
The one thing that had been made clear was that no decisions of this magnitude—choosing to open the gateway—were made without the entire council. And they were not all at the castle at that exact moment.
So I took step after step in my father’s wake, each press of the cool stone against my bare feet a reminder that I was walking away from my sister instead of toward her. He paused at a door, gave it a light rap, and then pushed it open.
“Here you go. I’ll be back for you as soon as I hear anything.” But he didn’t retreat, instead shifting his weight side to side, his gaze moving from my face to the ground to the empty room and back again.
My father.
In all the turmoil of the last several hours, that truth hadn’t had a chance to do more than skim the surface of cognizance. He’d saved me, hugged me, claimed to love and want me, brought me here, and was fighting to get his mother—and the council—to hear our plea to let us reopen the gateway. All these things I’d seen, felt, been a part of … and yet, in that moment, as we stood there in that beautiful hallway, just the two of us, it truly hit me.
This was my father. This man—this living, breathing Paladin—had once loved my mother. He’d once loved me. He’d given me my olive skin and Inara her burning eyes. He’d been a hissed curse in our home, the unseen ghost that dodged all our steps, and the aftermath of his supposed betrayal had obstructed every doomed attempt to learn more about who—and what—he was.
But Adelric was none of those things—not a curse, not a ghost, not even an aftermath. He was real and he had crinkles at the corners of his brilliant blue eyes from laughter and lines at the corners of his mouth from heartache, and a habit of talking too fast when he was nervous, and a scar near his left ear, and he’d cried when he realized who I was. He’d cried.
“What happened that night?”
The whispered question was out before I could think better of it; but I knew the events surrounding Inara’s birth, nearly sixteen years ago, were what had kept him standing near the door, his hands shoved into the pockets of his trousers, rather than immediately leaving me to my proffered bath and rest.
“Why were you even near the gateway and not with Mother?”
His eyes snapped to mine and the Paladin fire that made them burn guttered, smoky anguish and haze-smeared regret clouding the brilliant blue to smudged ink. “That night was … I never would have gone up there if I’d known—” His stumbling starts and stops only reinforced the realization that what my mother had assumed happened had been so very, very wrong. “Your sister … what is she like?”
“Inara is…” How to describe her? How to put into a few unworthy words all that made her who she was? “She’s … she’s everything.”
It would have to be enough, because my throat closed off and there were no more words. Inara. Her back arching, the blue fire racing through her veins, out of her hand, and into that door, opening a gateway and ripping our tiny world apart.
My father—our father—nodded and swallowed. “Inara,” he repeated, rolling her name over his tongue, the lilt of his accent turning the single word into music. He shut his eyes and tilted his face up to the edge of sunlight from the skylight above. But not before I saw the sheen of tears—for her, this time. For Inara. “I felt it that night—I felt her coming. I’d heard stories of such occurrences, but…” He paused, then restarted. “I was so young when the Five Banished found the gateway and reopened it, thrusting us into your world. I was very knowledgeable about some things, but sadly, not others. So when that swelling of imminent power gathered near your mother as her labor began—when I sensed the hedge responding, I wasn’t entirely certain what it meant, but I had my suspicions.”
Question after question piled upon the last as he spoke, until there were so many they filled my mouth entirely and I could do nothing except listen, silently choking on my lack of understanding. The Five Banished? The hedge responded—to Inara’s birth?
“My greatest fear was that if the birth sent that surge of power out into the world, as I’d vaguely remembered hearing was possible, that it would be enough to reopen the gateway again, since it was in such close proximity to us. I’d thought the citadel the only safe place to bring your mother when she decided she wished to marry me. It was … a dangerous time in Vamala for a Paladin. But there were many safeguards prepared by the Paladin who built the citadel that would protect our family from any of the king’s garrison if they were needed …
“I’d never thought until that moment that I might have actually put us in even greater danger from what could be lying in wait on the other side of that gateway in Visimperum.
“So I kissed your mother and told her I had to see to something and went to the Hall of Miracles. I had to protect my family. I only intended to create a barrier of some sort, to slow or stop whatever might come if the gateway was opened, and return immediately to the birthing room—but the baby came too fast. I felt the moment of her birth; the shock wave of her power entering the world hit just as I was climbing the stairs. It was like an explosion had gone off from behind me, knocking me into the door just as the wave of her power hit it. It did just as I feared and opened the gateway. But instead of something coming through into our world, I fell through it back into mine … and it shut behind me, trapping me here.”
“You … you were trying to protect us?”
My father rubbed a hand over his face, deep lines etched into his forehead revealing themselves when his brows drew together. “I have fought and pleaded for fifteen years to have the gateway reopened—even just for a moment—so that I could go back. And I have been refused every time. I never got to see Cinnia again … I missed watching you grow up … I never even met Inara … I—” His voice shattered, the shards of his grief impaling me, crushing every last preconceived notion I’d had forced on me, and when he lifted trembling, hesitant, terrified arms, I willingly and gratefully stepped into his embrace. “Zuhra,” he said, and my name was a shudder that started with him and ended with me. “Oh, my little girl. My little girl.”
The deep timbre of his voice, the sunshine and soap smell, the strength of his embrace—so unknown and yet achingly familiar all at once—brought a surge of memory that I had lost long ago. The name I had learned back then, back before Inara and the surge and his disappearance. This man—this Paladin—this father. He wasn’t just Father to me. “Papa,” I whispered, and his arms tightened even more as my own tears—of anger at the injustice of it all, the grief at the years stolen from us, and the hurt spread across us all—joined his.
The room they’d given me (who “they” were, I wasn’t sure—I just knew it couldn’t possibly have been Ederra, who I hadn’t seen again) was smaller than my room in the citadel, but it was warm and bright, with the same glowing white walls and floors as the rest of the castle. Two large windows let in gobs of sunlight, making the cream and yellow curtains and bedding practically glow. A freestanding copper tub had been dragged in and set up in the corner near the armoire. The water was no longer hot, but it was clean and smelled of lavender and mint. Despite myself, I couldn’t pull my clothes off fast enough to sink into the fragrant bath. I didn’t sit in it long, as it was barely even warm to begin with and only continued to cool. I quickly scrubbed the dirt and blood from my skin, wishing the guilt and grief were as easy to remove.
As I passed the washcloth they’d provided me over each part of my body that had been ripped apart or shattered by the attack, the only physical reminder of what had happened was a shiver of memory, a blurry, smudged recollection of the pain I’d endured. I propped my foot up on the edge of the tub and inspected it—the skin was flawless, no bruising, no marks, not even a hint of scarring. Completely healed … because of Raidyn. The memory of his presence inside me sent a wave of gooseflesh over my skin. I’d never experienced anything like it. And then when he’d saved me from falling to my death … the way he’d held me, calmed me …
I shivered in the cool water and forced myself to stand, grabbing the towel folded neatly on the chair set next to the tub, and quickly rubbed myself dry. The clothes they’d left on the bed were softer than anything I’d ever owned—and they were obviously brand-new. I lifted the delicate white underclothes and fingered them reverently. They felt like clouds slipping over my body, silky and smooth and so clean. No matter how hard I tried, none of my clothes at the citadel were ever this fresh and spotless … years and years of wear were impossible to erase, no matter how much care I took with my washing and darning and attempts at embellishments.
The blouse and skirt were also unbelievably soft, and fit like a dream. Fitted enough to show the form of my body, but with enough room and flow to allow easy movement. They’d also left me a pair of trousers, but I’d opted for the skirt. I’d never worn pants before and I didn’t dare try them for the first time now, when I was planning on going before an entire council of powerful Paladin to plead with them to do something they’d refused to do for fifteen years.
I sat at the armoire to brush out the tangles in my hair but instead found myself staring out the window at the busy courtyard below, the roofs of the city visible past the hedge spreading down the hillside like melted butter, and the sky-scraping mountains beyond. The enormity of being in a different world washed over me again, vastly terrifying and exhilarating all at once. There was too much to take in, too much to worry over, too much to fear. The temptation of a nap—of letting my frantic mind shut down for at least a little while—sounded much more appealing than I’d originally thought.
Ignoring the call of the bed, I set down the brush, quickly braided my hair back, then thought better of it and took it down again and headed for the door.
I was done waiting.
The hallway was empty, and I had no idea where to go or what I even intended to do. I just knew I had to do something—I had to find a way back to my sister. And the fear that I refused to fully acknowledge was that the council would tell me no, as they apparently had my father.
So I walked and I tried to come up with a plan, though I knew, deep down, that I had no control here. I had no way of getting back to my sister unless this council said yes.
I passed doors and hallways and Paladin who paused and glanced or halted and outright stared, but I ignored them all and kept walking, moving, doing something … even if it was just … wandering. The castle was a marvel; golden ceilings soared overhead, deliciously bright paintings adorned the clean white walls, and nearly everywhere I looked diamonds decorated and adorned furniture, tables, vases, statues—I even wondered if they were embedded in the flooring, if that’s what made it shimmer in the squares of sunshine from the skylights.
The castle seemed to be built as though it were encircling something; every hallway curved. The closer to the center of the building, the more dramatic the curve. I was hopelessly lost and couldn’t have found my way back to my room even if I’d wanted to, but there was a pulse within me, separate from my heartbeat, something different, but still a part of me somehow … and it urged me inward, deeper into the castle. I let it pull me toward the middle—toward whatever this castle had been built around. The closer I got to the center, the stronger that strange pulse became and the more I wanted to follow it.
Finally, I found a connecting hallway that cut straight to the center of the castle. The entire place was full of skylights, letting in plenty of daylight and illuminating the hallways. But the light at the end of this hallway was different. It came from within the castle, not outside, and it … glowed. I could almost feel the warmth of it, even from where I stood, staring—but not on my skin, underneath it somehow, inside me.
Everything within me urged me closer, yet my steps slowed, expecting someone or something to block me from passing through the arched opening into whatever room lay beyond.
But nothing and no one ever came.
I stepped through the archway into a room that surpassed any ability I possessed to ever describe. The domed ceiling soared high above where I stood, made entirely of glass so that at first glance it appeared as though there were no ceiling at all, only a vast expanse of endless blue sky. The floor I stood on only continued forward the length of five or six strides and then came to a balustrade—the entirety of which was made of diamond—which in and of itself was beyond comprehension. And beyond that, there was nothing. Nothing except pure, brilliant light.
It filled the entire room, refracting through the massive diamond railing, shattering into a million more dazzling shards that danced on the walls, the floor, my arms, and in my eyes.
“Remarkable, isn’t it?”
I choked on a half-emitted squeak of shock and whirled to see a tall male Paladin standing a few feet away. He was quite a bit older than my father, he had deep lines etched in the grooves of his mouth and near his eyes, and yet he exuded a vitality and energy that took me by surprise. He also looked a lot like—
“I’m sorry if I startled you, Zuhra, but I had to meet you.” His burning blue eyes were somehow gentle when they met mine, gentle and … full of wonder. “I couldn’t believe it when Ederra first told me, and yet, here you are.
“After eighteen years, I finally get to meet my granddaughter.”