Page 66 of Ties of Shadow

“Which was nothing.” The Shade’s hand reached out to me, and I grasped it. His emotions flooded me at the contact, my heart surging with righteous fury demanding justice.

My father put his head into his hands. “For so many things, Aelia. So many…I’m sorry.”

The Shade felt unwilling to forgive him. My previous self was ready to stop the tension and make it better, but I wasn’t that person anymore. He had apologized before and hadn’t changed. I was so sickof hurting. And yet…what was forgiveness but freedom for the one who forgave? What was forgiveness but a means of letting me loose from every ache and bond my father had pinned me under? The Shade, mercifully, held his tongue.

I glanced around the room for the alcohol bottle but saw none. Even his emergency supply under the cabinet was gone. Empty potion bottles lay on the floor in the corner. All drunk or…I hated to hope again for him. I cleared my throat. “Why did you do it? Why didn’t you love me more?”

His shoulders sagged. “I did love you—do love you. I just didn’t see how much until you were ripped from me—until I thought you were dead.” He pulled back his sleeve, showing the scars on the back of his hand, the bond mark he had burned away all those years ago. He closed his eyes, and a glowing leaf emerged beneath the twisted tissues. “I thought losing your mother was the worst pain I would ever experience. But I didn’t know the depths of agony until I lost you too.” A wave of unease slipped from the Shade, but father continued. “We were bonded. So young. She was my everything. When she gave you to me, I knew I had it all. But then I lost everything.”

Bonded. Bonding to someone meant giving up part of yourself, sacrificing the best part of you for another. And if one died, the other would wish they had died also. But Uncle Koll had responded so differently to that pain.

“Your mother was the very air I breathed, Aelia—the ground I walked on. When she left us, I was unmoored, a desiccated husk of a man. But there was you—you needed me. I didn’t…I didn’t want to care foranythingever again. I wanted to work and to die, but you and your persistent affection awoke my shriveled heart, making me want to care for something again.”

The scoff escaped before I could stop it. I looked down at the fingers in my grasp.

“Tell him, Dayspring.”

I bit my lip. “But you didn’t care, Father. You were…mean. Drunk.” My throat threatened to close. “You hit me.”

My father had the decency to look horrified. “I was a fool.”

“Even when you lost Mother—you said you lost everything—but you still had me. I was here. I was trying…trying so hard to win your affection.”

“I was blind and stupid.”

The Shade scoffed. “And cruel.”

Father cringed. “That too.” He heaved a breath. “I thought I was doing okay. But when you looked at me at the temple—when your expression was not one of horror, but of acceptance, as if you already knew I was capable of this—I knew the slime I had become.” He scratched his arm. “I quit drinking. But without you, there isn’t enough potion. The queen’s health is failing. The hope of our nation is failing.”

“We gave the queen a potion, Father. One that is better because of the Shade—because of his help.” I tilted my head to the bottles in the corner, one still containing a drop of the pink liquid. “Did you drink her potions?”

His head sunk farther into his shoulders. “I’m a weak loamer—my earth magic is minimal—but I still felt the effects of the earth’s sickness. So I started taking the potions too.”

I didn’t know I could be more horrified. No wonder all the herbs I found were never enough.

“I’m sorry for this also. I started drinking both the mead and the potions to numb the pain, then to ignore the sickness, and finally to hide my shame from it all.” Father looked at the Shade and dipped hishead. “I owe you many things, sir. Thank you for protecting her when I didn’t.”

Wicked shadows whipped around the room—menacing, but never touching my father or his things. “And what will you do now?”

My father stood as upright as he could. “Now, I’ll help you escape.”

Uncle Koll let out a slow breath. “The only correct answer.”

A shadow from behind my father slipped back to the Shade and returned the knife in its clutches to the sheath on the Shade’s hip.

“You were going to kill my father?”I thought at the Shade.

“I was thinking about it. If he threatened you, I had to disable him.”He shrugged.“My plan was more about maiming him. He’s a healer—he would have recovered.”Turning toward me, he pinned my eyes with his, the shadows around him causing the green to glow. Aloud, he said, “I refuse to let him hurt you again.”

My smile was a bit wobbly. “You can’t protect me from everything.”

“Watch me.”

“Stubbed toes?”

“I’ll destroy the floor that tripped you.” He shook his head. “Or maybe just carry you everywhere.”

“Splinters?”

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