Page 111 of Dreams and Dragon Wings
I’m tired offeeling.
And I’m tired of my room being filled with nothing butboxes. Why must I have so many things? Does Malice think suddenly showering me with every asinine object my mother ever owned will make me warm to the idea of marrying him?
Rowan watches the ball of paper’s trajectory before he returns to draping the dress that is to be my wedding gown across the end of the bed. He handles it carefully, as if it might fall apart at the slightest touch.
But I see the Earth threads helping the confection of snow-white gossamer and diamonds hold its shape well enough.
“This was your mother’s,” he croaks.
Of course it was.
“Why does no one ever speak about my father?” I snap, leaving him blinking at me owlishly with his too-large eyes. He has done nothing wrong. There is no need for me to be short with the poor goblin.
But everything is annoying me at the moment.
In his silence, I press, “I had a father, didn’t I?”
“You did,” he quietly agrees, shuffling away from me with his slow, heavy steps.
I wait for him to say more. When he doesn’t, I frown at his back as he retrieves a box from one of the piles taking up everyinch of spare space on my floor. When he draws closer, he opens it for me, revealing that it is yet more jewelry.
Either my mother was an avid collector or Malice has raided the apartments of every former lady of my mother’s court.
“Well? Why does no one ever speak about him?” I demand to know. I might as well distract my mind with some new mystery now that the other has finally been solved: the reason why everyone suddenly wants me after a lifetime of being unwanted.
It’s all because I can grant them a bit more life. That’s all I’m good for, really—lighting up a room with my obnoxious glow and handing out an extra lifetime to one special person like a holiday parcel.
Rowan settles the box of jewels next to my wedding gown and rasps, “Because he’s dead.” Before I can pry further, he adds, sounding annoyed, “He died shortly after the second Jewel War. Not much to live for when your wife is killed and your daughter is sent away to another world.”
“Oh.” That realization sinks into my heart like a heavy, damp fog. I don’t know why I’m so sad—I never even knew the man. But I suppose there was a small part of me that was holding out hope that perhaps there was some piece of my former life left. The life I never had a chance to know.
I love my adopted parents. They will always be my parents.
But my birth parents were my parents, too.
My brow furrows, something not quite adding up. “Did he not die in the Jewel War, then? I thought all the Jewels were required to submit themselves to the Living Waters or be executed?”
Rowan shuffles off, collecting another box. “Your father wasn’t a Jewel.”
I blink, now more confused than ever. “So I’m only half a Jewel?”
The goblin eyes me as if I have just said something utterly ridiculous. “You can never be half a Jewel,Therya’fey. Doesn’t matter the coupling; so long as one parent is a Jewel, there’s a chance for the babes to be Jewels, too.”
Those words hit me hard and settle in deep, stealing my breath momentarily. It’s strange realizing how little I still know about myself.
“Well, what was he then?”
Rowan groans and drops the next box beside the bed. A box of shoes.
Why would anyone ever need that many shoes?
“Who?” the goblin asks, as if he’s already lost the thread of our conversation.
I frown at him. “Myfather.”
He rubs a clawed hand against his nearly hairless head and claims, “I’m not sure I remember rightly. Maybe an elf.”
Somehow, I immediately know that’s a lie—Rowan not remembering rightly. He seems to know a great deal about my family and the way things were before the Vale died.
