Rose Thorns (The Cimmerian Cycle #3)

Chapter 21 - Part 1

Chapter 21

The silence echoed. His head was bowed. Evrart had her hands tightly wrapped into fists. She bit her tongue and waited.

"Why does it matter?" he said. Evrart searched his face for evidence that he really cared about his daughter.

"Tell me why then? Why did you keep me? Why didn't you just pretend that I wasn't your child and live happily?"

He sighed and gestured for her to come closer.

"I have waited for you to ask me that question for seventeen years my dear Evrart. I thought you would have done so already but every time you looked like you were ready, your tongue was held. Do you really hate me that much?"

Evrart bit her tongue. Her fingers tightened until her knuckles were red. How could he speak so? It was he who hated her. She said nothing and waited for him to continue.

"I kept you because she asked me too. She said that there was no life for you if I left you behind. She made me promise to keep you safe. I have done my best for her sake. You must understand Evrart, this was all before I became King, before I had responsibility."

"That doesn't mean you can do whatever you want. I wish I had never been born."

He rose from the throne.

"Evrart," he said. He walked down the steps so that he was within her arms reach.

"Don't let me hear you say that ever again." He said.

"It's true," she said pushing him away, "Everything has gone wrong and it would be better if I never existed."

His tone went dark. "What has happened Evrart?"

"Evrart?"

"Stop!" she turned away so that she didn't have to look at his face.

His mouth was frozen hanging open. His hand was outstretched to take her shoulder.

"I want you to tell me about my mother."

"I think you already know Evrart. Deep in your heart you know why you're different."

She thought for a moment, colours and memories racing through her head. All she could see was the dusty plains from beyond the mountains.

"She was one of them. Wasn't she?" she said. She looked at him from over her shoulder. A sense of easing pain flooded through her.

"She was a princess of the Windsmen. I met her while I was on campaign in Easterden. A lord from the west controlled the fortress and she was one of his ladies... I saved her. That war went on for over year. On the eve of victory you were born," he placed a hand on his head, "I felt like a fool. I had loved this girl from one of the tribes yet I had a wife who was pregnant and a son. Queen Isilie died of shame. She told me that if she hadn't loved her kingdom the way she did she would have left. She was just doing her duty."

Evrart folded her arms across her chest and hugged herself tightly, "I bet she hated you for taking me in. Actually I know she did. I could see it when I looked into her eyes. She wanted me to die."

She laughed inside herself at the irony of it. She was a bastard child born of two nobles. She would claim no title but she had the blood of kings.

"Isilie was certainly opposed to me bringing you home but I loved your mother. She wanted to return to her people for she knew no other home. My father would have disowned me and I would have lost my crown if I brought her back to Highhollow."

"But you took me."

The silence was awkward and loud with Evrart's breathing. She had never felt so alive.

"She didn't want you to end up as the play thing of some barbaric lord who would feed the people he was bored with to wyverns."

Evrart didn't know how to take it all in. The answer had been there all along and now it seemed that her way forward was illuminated.

"What was her name?"

"Pardon?"

"What was her name? My mother's name..."

"Fey."

She walked away, oblivious to everything around her.

At the door her father called out to her.

"You are precious to me Evrart. Don't you ever forget that."

Her feet found the stairs that led to her apartment. She didn't want to talk to anyone anymore. Even though she had been away from the palace for a week she felt like it had been years.

Images of the battle plagued her inner eye. Blood and death and fire. Nothing would be normal again. She felt as if she could do no right. She could understand why her father had been worried about her. She had ridden off in broad daylight without a word to anyone. She wondered if Pirella would still be around.

Evrart had felt that the girl had been a little too loyal. She knew why that was so as well. Pirella had known from the beginning that she was one of them. She had just never spoken a word. Evrart slightly betrayed but she was the one who had never asked.

She whispered a prayer to the Ancestors but paused before she could finish. Who were her gods? The Ancestors? Who were her people?

She collapsed on the top stair, her head pounding. She remembered the way Philip had held her hand, touched her skin. She stared at her hands in horror. For the first time in her life her heart had been right and the voice in the back her mind hand had been wrong. She grasped at the air in front of her as she suddenly understood why she had been in so much pain. She had been in love with him.

"I love him."

Evrart let the tears fall freely as she rocked backwards and forwards on the stair. She didn't know what to think anymore.

"I don't know. I don't know."

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