Page 110 of The Ballad of a Bard

Her father was right in front of her.

Her hand pressed to her chest as she rapidly breathed, searching deep into the veins that controlled her pulse anddemanding that it calm before the wild thrum transformed into a bursting star. Her skin was electric, thunder roiling in regal cracks that skimmed all along her charged flesh.

“Connor.” She forced herself to say, to stop staring at him like a bumbling idiot. His eyes softened, as if he were sad to hear his name from her tongue but she couldn’t command herself to call him ‘father’. She’d already been commanded to do enough harm, enough damage and this was such a small thing to her in comparison to everything else in her chaotic life.

“Yes,” He said quietly, as if it pained him that she didn’t say more. Good. Shewantedit to hurt. Wanted to pay him back for the years of hurt that he caused her.

But her head was a horrible mess of things she wanted to say, needed to say, had to say to him. There were so many things swirling within the already cramped space that she wasn’t sure what to pick. Instead she just sat there, frozen like a block of ice in the icy Valkrigge mountains.

“Crimson.” Connor repeated her name and her heart lurched at the sound of it.

How many times had she longed to see him again? How many nights had she sobbed herself to sleep in desperate hopes to have him hold her again? How many times had she wished for him to appear so that she could feel whole again, young again?

“You’re here.” Crimson whispered, her body swaying with the shock. She’d known that he would be here, thanks to the talisman that she still wore around her neck. The guards had removed her of her weapons, but nothing else and she thanked the Saints that she’d thought to tuck it under her clothes where no one would know it was there but herself.

And yet, even though she commanded him to stay in the palace, forced him to be here truly, there was still the overwhelmingsurprise of it all that doused her like water to a candle as she came face to face with him for the first time since he left.

In eight years.

With that realisation, her anger and hatred returned like a spark in the dark. Her skin prickled with it, tingled with all the loathing that she gained over the missing years from his absence.

“I am,” He admitted with a slight bob of his head.

“Why?” She demanded, leaving the timid doe behind as the mighty lion took over. “Why are you here now, after all this time? Was it because of this?” She yanked the necklace off her neck and held it up before them both. The heart pendant swung back and forth as her hands shook violently. “Was it because Icommandedyou to come home? Because I used your Saints-damned talisman andforcedyou to face me?”

His handsome face paled to the point of snow.

“WHY?”Crimson didn’t care that she was screaming now, or that tears poured out of her eyes and down her face. They dripped off her chin and soaked her trousers, which were already filthy from the nights and days she’d spent in the cell. She was exhausted, emotionally and physically from the last few days and the well of her sanity could only handle so much without spilling over.

Connor didn’t pull away from her fury-ridden expression. “I had to.”

“That isnotan acceptable answer, Connor and youfuckingknow it.” She seethed, tucking the necklace away for now. She doubted that it could ever break considering that the Saints had been around for centuries and none of their artefacts had ever been successfully destroyed. “You left us alone, foreight years.”

“I know,” He said bitterly, looking up at the ceiling, “And I hated every moment of it.”

His words struck her harder than she thought they wouldhave. But she didn’t give in to that momentary weakness, that daughter’s need for her father’s pride.

“You could have come back, at any time.” Crimson answered, leaning against the wall as she wiped at her face. She wished West was here, to hold her and to let her cry as she shook. She wished he was here for this monumental meeting and to see the shock on his face too.

But she didn’t want him here, because she didn’t want to tell him that she’d been the one to kill Muse.

It was only a matter of time.

“When Cobalt was born,” Connor began softly, pulling her attention back to him, “I instantly knew that he wasn’t mine.”

A chill ran through her.

“What?” She asked.

There had always been a thread out of place, a single suspicion considering that he looked nothing like their black-haired mother with hazel eyes. Nor did he look anything like their supposed father, even with the shade of his eyes that were similar enough to pass. But it was another thing entirely to have her wonders confirmed.

“Your mother, I loved her more than anything in this world, in this realm.” He sighed and let his head hit the wall. “And the only reason I didn’t die with her, was because of you, Crimson. I loved you nearly as much as I loved her. I would never have left you behind if I didn’t have to.”

She wanted to ignore him.

Wanted to cast off his praises but they healed some part of her that had been left open for far too long. Her chest vibrated with sparking torment, her lungs constricting as he went on.

“But as soon as your mother told me the truth about Cobalt, that… someone had hurt her and that Cobalt was not my son byblood, my anger flooded me. It took over every sane and rational thought until I cursed the man who’d done that to her. That part of Imp that came from me, I saw it then and there. And with that curse, I unknowingly cursed Cobalt too.” Self-loathing laced his low baritone, and it punched her directly through her stomach.

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