1st Draft Fridays - A Fistful of Air: Book #5, Chronicles of Marsdenfel

Year 239 of the Bynding - Grehafen - harvesttime - ii

I teach my daughter of her godmother, who's blocked by wards from coming here. I teach her of the Shadow that her father controls and the faery herb that can destroy it.

When Evonalé gives a cup of linashor tea to a man that Darnell was seeking to force into supporting him, I have no one to blame but myself. I should have warned her better.

That doesn't stop the pain, when Darnell takes out his fury with his daughter on me. He doesn't need me to survive, not really, and he can do things to me that even he won't do to his own daughter.

And it hurts Evonalé by proxy. Evonalé herself, he has to be kept well enough to be able to give her father's legitimate son a child, once she's old enough. Drake can't inherit the Bynd as it is, unless he rapes and impregnates Onlé—but they don't know she's an option, and she wouldn't let herself conceive by him, anyway.

I focus on my fault in the matter as I can't stop myself from screaming. As bones crack and break and blood pours. As my subjects are treated similarly by those in or seeking Darnell's favor.

My fault, for not educating her properly.

But it is also Darnell's fault, for he's the one who chooses to engage in actions that even our father would have found abominable.