Page 5 of A Kiss of Embers
Quiet murmurs echoed throughout the meeting house as the elders turned to one another to discuss. Bastien vaguely heard someone whisper that the tale sounded incredulous to begin with, but Cranky Cricket still didn’t appear convinced.
The man’s wrinkles deepened with a scowl. “The hairpin ended up in the poolsomehow. Listen to me, half-breed. You are on thin ice. If I discover your involvement in any form, you will be punished. Do you understand?”
He dipped his head in acknowledgment as his pulse raced with unbearable heat in his veins. “I understand.”
“Good.” Cranky Cricket stood, his knees screaming out in protest as they creaked. “You are dismissed.”
Bastien didn’t dare spend another moment lingering in the room when even a second longer could mean his or his father’s death. He moved toward the door at a leisurely pace despite how his body longed to flee. The guards returned his weapons, and he strapped them on his person as he walked the remainder of the way to his father’s house while paying extra attention to the boughs above. The patrol guard often spent their time in the trees, and he didn’t want any of them to surprise him.
Finally, when the large, sturdy structure of his father’s home loomed over him, he opened the door and ducked inside.
His heart continued to race as he pressed his back to the wall and closed his eyes. Any day at any time could mean a brutal death. He was only buying time. He knew that. But how much remained?
Minutes later, the door opened again, and he tensed, fingers reaching for one of the many knives on his belt.
But the squeak of his father’s wheelchair relaxed his tense muscles, and his hand fell to his side.
The door shut behind his father, and for several long moments, they stared back at each other in the dim light of the tree. At least until his father touched one of the crystals in the sconces, lighting up the main floor.
Bastien had recarved new sconces into the walls after his father’s “accident” to allow him to reach them in his chair. The only thing not wheelchair-friendly were the stairs leading to the upper floor to his own space. Now that his tree had burned down, he reckoned he’d have to start sleeping here again.
“I can’t keep living like this,” his father finally said, hands shaking from the ordeal. Bastien watched as he wheeled himself to the kitchen, poured himself water into a cup made from animal bones, and downed the entire thing in seconds. “If you die, I will have nothing left.”
Releasing a long breath, Bastien sat on one of the stools beside the counter, also carved straight from the tree, and rubbed his face with his hands. “There is no other way to live.”
What more could he possibly say? There was no reassurance to give. No hope for a brighter future. Nothing could change the fact that they both lived on borrowed time.
After a long pause, his father waved his cup at him. “You need to leave in the dead of night. Get far, far away from the settlement. Go somewhere they can never find you.”
“I won’t leave you.”
“Ibegyou.”
“No.”
His father slammed his cup onto the table, water sloshing out of the sides while fury blazed in the man’s silver eyes. “Why won’t you see reason? They are so close to finding out what you did, and when they do…you’re a dead man.”
“And if I leave,you’rethe dead man.”
A long sigh followed his words as his father hung his head and stared into his lap. He said nothing, even as Bastien waited and waited. And waited. Heartbreak lived in each of his father’s frown lines around his mouth, his sallow face telling of a man whose spirit had died long ago when Bastien’s mother had died of heartbreak after their separation.
“Don’t do it,” his father finally murmured, still staring into his lap.
“I wasn’t planning on leaving, like I said.”
Slowly, the other man shook his head. “Don’t break the Ember Fae out of jail. I know you, Bastien. You stick your nose where it doesn’t belong and take risks that will get you killed one day.”
“She’s just achild!” Bastien smacked the table with his hand, and the tree groaned as if protesting his treatment of the living structure. “I’ve seen far too many heads roll, far too many bodies dangle, and I refuse to allow her to become one of them.”
His father closed his eyes and sighed again, rubbing his temples with his fingers. “Then you better prepare to run. Because you will be on the top, if not the very first, of the suspect list when the child is discovered missing.”
“I’m not leaving you.”
When his father lifted his head, he and Bastien stared each other down in a glaring battle of wills. A long time ago, his father had taken risks in the name of love. Why couldn’t Bastien take risks in the name of goodness and justice?
“You cannot choose both,” his father finally answered as he wheeled past him and maneuvered himself onto the cushions sitting on top of the wooden sofa, leaving his wheelchair within reach. “I attempted to long ago, and I lost the most precious woman in my life. Don’t make the same mistakes I did.”
Silence filled the tense atmosphere as his father brooded, and he fumed. He clenched and unclenched his fists as he debated whether to argue further or drop the subject. In the end, he could do neither and therefore left the tree house with an exasperated huff, slamming the door shut behind him.
