Page 108 of Beasts of Briar
Please, Kairoth. I’m counting on you. I fear Khalasa will destroy my mind soon with these nightmares. I’m sending you my journal along with this letter. All my journal entries from the last thousand years. Find Khalasa. Stop whatever she’s planning.
You’re our last hope.
Your friend,
Bathalous
Chapter Sixty
BELLAMY
Hours later, I sat on Kairoth’s floor, staring at the entries I’d just read. Sometimes, years went in between the entries, while other times there were several in a year. It seemed like whenever something big happened, my father didn’t know where else to go or who else to talk to, so he began writing to soothe his thoughts.
My father was immortal.
My mother was . . . a goddess.
Suddenly it was hard to breathe. My lungs squeezed tight in my chest, and I bent over, the journal bending in my balled fists.
Kairoth had stayed silent this entire time, sitting on a chair by my father, who’d finally passed out and was curled up in his own chair, softly snoring. He was sleeping while my entire world had just been turned upside down.
I lay the journal in my lap.“You knew about this?”I asked Kairoth.
He shook his head. “No. I had my suspicions—and not until more recently. It took me a while to even make the connectionthat you could be his daughter, that you could be Khalasa’s. I was so focused on finding the weapons, on making sure the other gods stayed trapped, I’ll admit, I didn’t even think much about the child he’d mentioned. But about a month ago, I went back to re-read some of these entries, and I realized it could very well be you. I didn’t want to say anything until I had proof. That’s when I started searching for your father.”
I couldn’t move, still frozen to the spot from everything I’d just learned about my father, about myself.
“After he sent me this journal, I immediately left to find Khalasa. I brought an army of shadows. I caught her unaware and managed to get her back to the shadow court, to this castle. She’s been here ever since, my prisoner. But I could never find your father.”
“You must’ve come right after she cursed my brothers—when my father disappeared.”I paused.“The net.”I lifted my father’s journal, flipping through the pages until I got to his last entry.“It was his net that she used to curse my brothers. Not a magical item from this island. My father had his own weapon.”I stared in shock at the journal in my lap.
Kairoth nodded. “I wondered if it had to be one of the gods’ weapons that did something like that to your brothers. But I figured you would’ve known if it were.”
I wondered what my father’s weapon did. What kind of magic he would’ve possessed should he have accepted it.
“Eventually, I stopped trying to find your father, thinking maybe he’d died. It turned out he was just really good at hiding.”
I nodded, looking back down at journal in my lap. He’d hid from me as well. From my brothers. Probably because it was too painful to see them in their swan form, to know that he’d been the cause.
“I’m sorry, Bellamy,” Kairoth said. “I’m so sorry about everything.”
My father hiccupped in his sleep, then curled more into himself.
“He didn’t deserve any of this,”I signed with shaky hands.“All he did was fall in love. He did the right thing time after time after time, and he suffered so much. Because of her.”Tears leaked down my cheeks.
“I know.” Kairoth looked over at my father. “Bathalous was always a good man. I’m only sorry I couldn’t find him sooner. If I’d found you all, been able to get Khalasa more quickly, she wouldn’t have been able to curse your brothers, addle your father’s mind so badly. He might be immortal, but he’s not a god. His mind wouldn’t have the strength to withstand whatever she did to him over that extended period of time.”
I swallowed, remembering when she came into our lives. How cruel she’d been from the start, and how my father had become a different person. None of us could understand it. She’d only been with us for a few months, and that entire time she was in my father’s mind, ruining him with nightmares, then making him watch his own children suffer. And there was nothing he could do. Except reach out to Kairoth. Once again, he did the one thing he could to try and save us. It had just been too late.
The injustice of it all made my stomach twist. Bile rose in my throat.
“Do you think my father can be fixed?”I asked Kairoth.
He didn’t answer, which was answer enough. I closed my eyes, tears streaming down my cheeks. This had been what I was afraid of all along. Finding my father, seeing him, and realizing I’d lost him for good.
“Hey.” I opened my eyes to see Kairoth crouching in front of me, eyes glowing red behind his cloud of shadows. “You’re not mortal, Bellamy. You have extraordinary powers. Powers that rival Khalasa. You are the daughter of two immortals. If she wasable to do this damage, then you might very well be able to undo it. Don’t give up hope. Not yet.”
Part of me was still in denial.“If I’m not mortal, if I was never mortal, then how did I age? I always thought I’d aged so slowly because of the Wilds, that it kept me young because of the magic, but that can’t be true.”
