I looked at the black of his eyes in shock, only to see the color fade back to bright green before the black replaced it again. The color shifted as his magic ignited, his own demons bringing themselves right to the surface, his carefully crafted calm shattering into ice and glass.
“You know nothing of our kind!” Sain bellowed at me as his eyes continued to flash so that I wasn’t sure what color they were. I cringed away from the sound of his voice, my muscles seizing as he sped on, his words bouncing over each other in their rage. “The blood of a Drak flows through your veins, yet you know nothing! You know nothing of my kind or our rules and laws. You are as foolish as a child and as dumb as a mortal.”
“How can I know anything when you weren’t there to teach me? You abandoned me!” I screamed at him. The words that had fueled me for the last few minutes tumbled through me as my body threatened to collapse, my cheeks burning as the tears came.
“I didn't abandon you.” His cold eyes glinted as if walking out of his five-year-old child’s life was nothing more than walking out a door, simple and meaningless. It wasn’t nothing, though—not to me. It never had been. That one action had dictated my entire life until Ilyan had saved me and I had become more. Now, the man whose actions had defined me sat before me, denying what he had done, denying me.
“You left!” I screamed, my anger rushing out at the lack of responsibility he was taking, the real reason for my anger breaking free.
“I didn’t leave, Joclyn.” His soft voice was so irritating I could barely stand it. “Jeffery Despain left, and I am not Jeffery Despain.”
There it was, the reason I would never be able to view this man as my father. The reason I would never understand the decisions he had made and the reverences he felt toward what he was, what we both were.
Jeffery Despain was my father. And this man was not Jeffery Despain.
I stared at the stranger in front of me as ice ran through my veins, unable to find the right words to say. I only felt numb. Broken.
“Is that why you won’t teach me? Because I am not your daughter?”
Thom’s eyes widened as the words burst out of me, his jaw clenching in anger and pain that I didn’t understand. I pushed away from Ilyan’s hold as I spoke, taking the few steps to face my father from over Dramin’s body.
“I shouldn’t have to teach you; you are a Drak, Siln?. It is in your blood. You should know to follow sights, to respect the visions your magic gives you. But to question them? That is not what a Drak, what my daughter, should do.” His voice was calm even though his magic seemed to be on fire.
“You are not my father,” I hissed, my anger settling into a low rumble as I faced him, my fists balled at my side. “You left that when you left me.”
“Step away from my son, Siln?. If he is meant to die, then I will see it happen, and anything you do to hinder that is heresy to my kind.”
“Enough!” Ilyan roared as he pulled me away from Sain and back into the comforting rock of his chest.
I tried to fight the anger that still pressed against my heart, the pain that filled me as the hope I had clung to for so many years evaporated into the stifling air that surrounded us.
“She hasn’t been taught, Sain,” Thom said from across the room, his rough voice loud as he pleaded with his friend. “How can she know something that has not been fully explained to her?”
“That is not my fault.” Sain stood next to Dramin as he spoke, the already broken fragments of my heart lodging themselves painfully through my chest at the sight of Sain’s hand wrapped around his son’s.
“I know you are in pain; I know you are mourning. But Dramin is not your only child,” Ilyan said, his speech elevated to the level of a command. His magic sparked as his agitation rose and I cringed against it, pressing myself into his chest to listen to the rumble of his voice.
“I do not know—”
“You are better than this, Sain.” Ilyan interrupted him, his words echoing through me as they vibrated his chest.
“As is she, Ilyan.” Sain’s statement faded into the air, the harsh words taking the air out of my lungs.
The muscles in Ilyan’s back stiffened under my touch, his anger at words I was sure I didn’t fully understand a drowning pool in my heart. I looked up to him in expectation, yet his eyes didn’t move from the hard stare he had trained on Sain.
“If you will excuse us,” Ilyan began, his voice a deep boom in the tense silence around us.
He didn’t wait for a response before sweeping us out of the room, his pace quick as he practically carried me down the dimly lit hall. The bracketed torches that were set in the grey wall looked more like blurs as we moved, the light leaving as he closeted us in a small alcove that was hidden amongst the smooth stone.
My pulse quickened at the dark enclosed space. The tightness of the walls made it feel as though they were going to close around me. It was as though I was trapped, like I was cornered in the pit of Cail’s mind, just waiting for Ryland to find me.