Page 109 of Mirror of Malice
My father clasped his hands together. He looked so small, so frail, sitting here in front of me, wearing the same torn and tattered clothes he’d been wearing the night my stepmother betrayed us.
“Liliath, I—I was in alliance with Sorrengard.”
I went completely still at that.
“Twenty-three years ago, I started hearing whispers, rumors that some weren’t happy with the way I was ruling the earth court. I feared a coup. I didn’t know what else to do.”
“So you turned to the shadow court?” I asked, horrified.
“I had no one else,” my father said. “All the damn courts of Arathia are so terrified by conflict of any kind, I knew if I came to them with this, they’d intervene—and not in a helpful way.”
I threw out my arms. “What would they do?”
“Insist on shadowing me, studying my court, searching for any failing on my part. They might’ve even insisted on putting a new ruler on the throne. It would’ve been insulting.”
I sat back on my heels. “How did you even get in touch with the shadow court?”
“There are ways.” He pushed a hand through his hair. “Smugglers who get people in and out. I asked the pirate lord to take me to the shadow court, and I met with their king.”
My hand floated up to my mouth. This was beyond what I ever could’ve imagined my father doing.
“I didn’t like their terms, and I realized I didn’t want to deal with them, didn’t want anything to do with them, but theirisland—Liliath, it was full of magical items, items with power. Rings with the ability to make you invisible. Cups that will poison any who drink from them. Bracelets that can burn skin.”
The hunger in his eyes as he spoke of these items made my insides shrivel.
“What did you do?” I asked with a shaky voice.
“Nothing. I swear it. I left the island and came home to you and your mother, but the damage had already been done. Two travelers from the earth court had found out about my dealings.”
Penn’s mother and father.
“I don’t know if they saw me boarding the ship or just heard about it somehow through their travels. I thought I’d been so careful. So I had them arrested, but they escaped, and that’s when they began spreading the rumors, the lies.”
Blood and earth, I’d been so stupid. “But they weren’t lies,” I said and stood, pacing. I needed distance from my father right now. “They weren’t lies at all.”
“They were!” my father snapped. “They said I was in league with the shadow court.”
I whirled around. “You might as well have been!”
He stared out at the rolling waves like he hadn’t even heard me. “They were gaining popularity, on the run, gathering followers who wanted to see them on the throne. If the information got out, especially to the other courts, I’d be done for. Removed from the throne, killed even. So I did the only thing I could. I started a war.”
“You made us all believe they started the Great War.”
His eyes darkened. “I staged a fake attack on our castle, blamed it on them, and just like that, the Great War began. I backed them into Mosswood Forest, finally caught the false king and queen and had them killed, and then I erected the border to keep their people, and my secrets, trapped away.”
“How could you do that?”
His shoulders hunched.
“Mother’s death?—”
“Is on my hands,” he said. “Something I’ll always regret. I didn’t know she’d get so sick, that the only plants that could save her would be in that damned forest. But they would’ve taken my crown, Liliath. They would’ve taken the earth court from us.”
It was like I was listening to the ramblings of a mad king. I always knew my father had his faults, his failings, but this went beyond anything I could ever have imagined.
“I needed to marry again,” he said. “Improve my image. I found your stepmother. She was bright-eyed and naive. She worshipped me. Exactly the kind of queen I needed.”
That’s why he had chosen my stepmother? Here I’d thought she was using my father, but really, he was using her for his own ego. He just wanted someone to make him feel like he deserved the crown on his head. I felt sick, and I stared at my father, unable to do anything but listen as he uncovered one horrible truth after another.
