I knew what he was saying was meant to be a compliment, a show of acceptance from father to daughter, and the very thing I had been so desperate for. I didn't hear that, though. I only felt my anger swell at his words. I saw the flash of disapproval as he held Ryland’s gasping body, my foolish mind pulling out a different meaning altogether, the same as I had done before.
He was happy I was doing this for Ryland; he was concerned for Ryland. I knew that wasn't what he meant—he meant that he was happy that I had made the choice I did. Still, I couldn't stop the jealous anger from swelling.
I cringed at the sensation, my breathing picking up as I tried to push the frustration away.
“Is that-t all you c…care about?” I stuttered out, my voice faltering through the emotion. “That Ryland is saved?”
Sain looked away from me, the action making my frustrations grow. I exhaled through my gritted teeth, hating the way my body was beginning to hurt.
I waited for him to look at me—to deny it—but he sat still, his focus on the forest outside of the windows.
“Is that what you think?” he asked toward the darkening sky. His tone was calm enough that I wasn’t even sure he had heard me. Nevertheless, I knew he had, he just wouldn’t rise to me. He wouldn’t fight for me.
It wasn’t the Drak way.
He dropped the necklace back onto the bed, the chain falling in a heap around the stone.
I fought the desire to reach out and lay it out nicely again, to berate him for treating it so haphazardly.
My anger only seemed to flare at seeing the pile of metal, at hearing his calm voice and before I could stop it, it exploded out of me again. “You only care for him!”
I didn’t like feeling this way. I needed to control it before I did something stupid. I exhaled as I pushed my anger away, pulling the positive memories I had clung to right to the forefront of my mind. I relaxed a bit as the uncontrollable hatred that had been threatening a hostile takeover left until I could only feel the pain from my father’s abandonment.
“Is this because I helped him last night?” Sain asked as he finally looked back at me, his weight shifting on the bed in his discomfort.
I didn't respond to him, I only gritted my teeth as my eyes shot fire and anger. I didn’t trust myself to speak. I didn’t want to yell, to fight. That was not what this moment was supposed to be about. I had waited for this since I was five, since the day he first left. I had seen him over the past few days, but I hadn’t been able to ask the questions that had been burning a hole in my soul for the last twelve years.
Now that I could, I couldn't find the words to gain the answers I so desperately needed. I just sat, staring at him, my pain growing until my heart began to ache.
“I helped him because he needed me, Joclyn. You almost killed him. I needed to help him.” He shook his head like he was disappointed in me. The cold look in his eyes was a steady reminder of where I stood in his life.
“And not your own daughter?” I asked, my voice hard as the anger and pain tried to break through the calm I had found.
Sain’s eyes widened at my words, as if I had offended him somehow.
“You are a Drak; you should be able to calm yourself.” His harsh words cut through me like a knife and I winced, my heart burning and tensing.
It was the same as it had been before; he knew I was a Drak. Somehow, his perfect Drak blood had made me into something else, something more. Something beyond what I even understood, and he obviously expected more from me. What that more was, though, I wasn’t sure. I didn’t know if I could give him that.
“But I can’t,” I practically whispered, the pain in my chest making it hard to form words.
Sain closed his eyes and breathed deeply as he took control of his own emotions. Almost as if he was proving to me it could be done.
The look was one I had seen on his face before when he and my mother would fight, when he would calm himself. For a fleeting moment, he was that same man from my childhood; he was the same person I so desperately wanted him to be. That was before he opened his mouth and took all those memories away.
“You had Ilyan, Joclyn.” His voice was the mellow calm it always was, the calm he expected from the Drak. I cringed against it, the sound grating on me as I fought the need to yell again.
Sain reached out as if he was going to comfort me, but I shied away, pushing myself into the headboard again.
I looked at that hand in disgust, the palm littered with at least a dozen scars, the small lines of raised skin lying one over another. They almost looked like the ones I had seen on Wyn’s palm, but there were so many, they were almost unrecognizable.
“Ilyan left!” I spat, tearing my focus away from his scarred palm.
“I know.”
“And still you didn’t come.” I sat stiffly against the headboard as I whispered in pain. The soft sound taking away my desperate attempt to get him to understand.