Page 103 of Oracle of Ruin

He rocks forward, resting his elbows on his knees. When he speaks, his voice is rough, like sandpaper on oak. “When someone took our baby, I didn’t sleep. I didn’t eat. I just took care of Aiko as best as I knew, then I went searching for her. During the day, I’d knock on doors and ask as kindly as I could if anyone had seen anything. Warrants went out that way, but at night, I would break into any home I knew had a baby or heard one crying in. I would search for her in every screaming face, but none of them were her. I never would have thought…”

I remember hearing about this from the gutters. A man who would break into homes, noble and poor, cursed and blessed alike. He would break in but never steal anything and would leave gold for the families to repair their doors or windows. I had my suspicions, but no one was able to pin any blame on the man, until now.

“I did far worse for my daughter, and would go even farther if it meant I could take this weight from her shoulders. Aiko has done the same in her own ways, things neither of us dare speak about lest it finally catch up to us and Vera takes the fall. You say you would do anything for the ones you love, but you never know just how far you would be willing to go until the one you love most is taken from you.” He sighs, then stares hard into my eyes. “You do not love someone in spite of their flaws. If you love them that way, you cannot call it love at all. To love is to accept completely, the saintandthe murderer. Whoever my daughter has become, I will learn to love her how I know best—completely.” His hand rests heavy on my shoulder. “You can guide them towards the light, but how can you force them out of the darkness when you’re shrouded in your own?”

“That’s a fancy way of saying don’t be a hypocritical asshole.”

“If you’d rather I say it that way, then fine. Don’t be a hypocritical asshole.” His gaze hardens. “I don’t care who you are to me or to her. Love her right or don’t love her at all.”

I’ve lost count of how many men I’ve killed. How many innocents. The children I’ve indirectly slaughtered as I try to push my evils to the back of my mind. We’ve all tried to justify our sins and condemn hers because we feared she would become like us.

Love is not always good. It is dark and twisted even more so than hate. Hatred knows boundaries, while love knows none. Of the two, it is clear which is the more lethal weapon, and which one has poisoned more men.

“There’s something else you haven’t said. You’re hesitating,” Aiko drawls from the doorway. She drapes herself across the frame, leaning into it for support. Her eyes trace my direction lazily, but there is a sharp awareness beneath the façade.

Verosa called her a silver fox in passing once, and I laughed, not only because it was an odd description but because it was accurate. She is clever and unassuming, a lethal combination.

“Lyra.”

Aiko blinks once, then twice. She moves into the room with feline stealth and closes the door. She brings her face close to mine, close enough that I can smell the mint upon her breath. “She’s alive?” she breathes.

“Alive and married to the leader of the rebellion,” I respond lowly. “It’s interesting that you never ran into them, considering you were hiding near their base.”

“How do you know that?”

“Winter mint only grows near the base of the mountains in that region.”

Finneas beams and clasps my shoulder again, nearly knocking me over. “That’s my boy.”

Aiko does not share his pride, though the slight upward curve of her lips tells me she acknowledges it. “What is she doing married to him?”

“I don’t know,” I admit, “but it didn’t sound like she had much of a choice. Any light you can shed on this situation?”

I can practically see the gears shifting in Aiko’s mind. She’s filing through a life of memories from over twenty years ago. A time before I existed, before the world went to shit. “She’s your mother’s younger sister. She was about fifteen when she went missing, your mother was twenty. This was just under a year before you were born. You were not quite an expected blessing.”

“What a polite way to call me a mistake.”

Aiko ignores my slight and continues. “Your grandparents were dead by the time your mother was fifteen, leaving her with a child to care for. She viewed herself as solely responsible for Lyra, so imagine the grief when one day, she left for school and never came home.”

Look at the silver in my husband’s hair, boy, and the little I have in mine. Do you see how things are run around here? Use that brain she gave you and put it together.

“So Roidentookher.”

Aiko’s face is grim and her mouth a hard-set line. Finneas’s fists shake at his side.

“Most likely.”

I expected her response, coming to my conclusions and not quite requiring her confirmation, but the two words still send nausea roiling through my stomach nonetheless. “I’ve promised to get her out.”

“I’m sure you have.”

“And I’m going to tell my mother.”

“Don’t,” Aiko interrupts. “Not yet. If it wasn’t for your father, your mother would’ve chosen to leave this earth after Lyra went missing. If it wasn’t for finding out she had you to live for, she would’ve…”

I press my eyes closed, harder and harder until the stars in the black turn red and streak across the darkness in my vision. I can feel the air shift as Finneas rises, feel his every footstep through the legs of the stool. He paces closer to the window, slamming his fist against the stone. When I open my eyes, I find that the sunlight drifting through the window has cast his freckles in gold, just like it does Vera’s.

Secrets like these tore us apart. I thought I was protecting Vera by keeping Blaine from her, and I was wrong. I cannot forget the hurt that flashed across her face at the duel when I told her what Lucius asked of me. It cuts deeper than the moment she came to after Ophelus and Lucius tried to murder her, when she found Blaine sitting at the foot of her bed, none of us surprised to see him there. The first cut into her trust was unexpected. She had full faith, and that faith was sliced away until she didn’t question it when I revealed I had Blaine all along. I was met with silence for days, then we moved on like nothing ever transpired between us.

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