Shock makes my spine prickle and stiffen. It just takes a split second. Just the tiniest shift of my eyes as I look at her, and I already know. I can’t believe I didn’t put it together before. All the times he brought in fresh flowers for her or made sure to serve her first. The small smiles exchanged between them.
Jak’s still holding her arms, keeping her locked against his chest as if he, a magicless Orean servant, can stand to protect her against my father. He’s so opposite from my father in every way. Jak is quiet. Kind. A head full of hair and lines on his face from smiling rather than scowling.
My mother looks at me like she’s afraid of my reaction.
“There, you see?” Father says, pointing at my face. “Slade didn’t know. The truth is right there in the disgust on his face.”
I hate the way Mother takes in a shuddering breath.
“You’re right, I didn’t know,” I reply, taking a step forward. “But if there’s disgust on my expression, it’s not for her. It’s for you.”
My father goes still. “What did you say?”
“Why wouldn’t she seek affection from someone else?” I spit out. “You treat her like garbage.”
The surprise that enters his eyes is nothing compared to the surprise at myself that I managed to say that to his face. Every word is true, and if he thinks I would ever take his side over hers, then he doesn’t know me at all.
He whips around, eyes flaring on the gathered crowd. “I want to know which of you knew about this affair and failed to report it to me! I want to know how long it’s been going on!”
None of them say a word.
He pounds a fist against his chest in a shaky rage, making some of his power slip out, a break appearing in the middle of the floor. The crack of the marble reverberates throughout the room, shaking up through my feet.
“Control, Father,” I mock, throwing his constant command back in his face.
He snaps his finger so fast I don’t even see it, I just feel my pointer finger break in half, right where he did it the last time. A grunt skids past my lips, the pain exploding down my entire hand.
“Stop it, Stanton!” my mother cries. “Slade has nothing to do with it.”
My father doesn’t turn away from me, doesn’t acknowledge her right away. He just watches with sadistic retribution while I try not to vomit. After several long seconds, he snaps his fingers again, and my bones jolt back together with a sickening click.
I have to grit my teeth so hard that my jaw cracks, but I keep everything contained, keep it controlled. After all, that’s what he taught me all these years. To be in control. To master my power.
“You’re right, Elore,” I hear him say while I blink away the rest of the pain. “This has to do with you...and him.”
In my next breath, my father has shoved Mother away and gripped Jak by the throat. Jak tries to fight back, but it’s no use. He’s not a retired, wealthy warrior. He’s an Orean servant, skin tanned from all his time outside, body lean instead of the bulk of muscle my father has from all his years in the army. Jak might be a strong Orean, but he’s no match against the force of my father.
My father’s voice drops dangerously low. “I brought you into my home, allowed you to live in Annwyn and sustain long life. Yet you deign to seek what does not belong to you?”
Jak’s weathered hands scrabble, though he can’t even get a single finger off his throat. His face starts to go unnaturally red, his lips gasping for air he can’t take in.
“Stanton, stop it!” My mother tries to yank at my father’s arm, but he shoves her away. She would’ve gone sprawling, but I catch her before she can fall.
“I want to know how long this has been going on,” he says, releasing Jak’s throat just enough for him to suck in a breath of air and squeeze out hoarse words. “Was this the first time?”
Jak’s eyes flick to my mother, but that only enrages my father more. He shakes Jak like a rag doll. “Was this the first time?”
The entire room feels swollen. Like the air right before a torrent, inflated with a downpour ready to burst and flood us all.
The crack of thunder is Jak’s hoarse answer. “No.”
My father throws him so hard and so far, tossing Jak across the room, making him smash into one of the windows. The glass shatters, the first of the torrent raining down.
He falls into a heap, and my mother screams and tries to run to him, but my father holds her back. “How long, Elore?”
She tries and fails to rip from his grasp. His expression might be enraged, but hers is one I’ve never seen before either. Hers is pure, open hate. And that hate is like the wind that blows this storm around us, whipping it into a frenzy.
Her chin tips up, green eyes unfaltering. “For eleven years.”
“Eleven years?” Utter shock consumes my father. A surprised gasp even falls out of me. How did she keep that secret for so long?
But then I realize not a single servant gasped, none of them looked shocked, and that’s my answer.
They helped them.
My father’s black eyes glitter with something ruthless. “You will regret that, Elore,” he grounds out, like the rumble of an angry cloud.
I don’t know whether I want to thank them for helping give my mother a sliver of happiness or tell them off for not making her be more careful.
Right now, my mother seems to be well past the point of caring about being careful.
“I have loved him for much longer. The only thing I regret is not allowing myself to have that love far sooner.”
My father’s temper explodes.
In the next instant, he’s across the room, boots crunching over the broken glass. Jak has gotten to his feet, but before he can do anything, my father snaps his fingers, just as he snaps Jak’s leg.
The crack makes me jolt, and then an agonizing scream tears from Jak’s throat. My mother goes running over, but with another snap, my father breaks the entire room.
Everyone on either side stumbles from the shake, my own knees slamming down onto the marble tile as the house shifts.
The noise is deafening.
The whole estate breaks right down the middle. Everyone is screaming, falling, debris crashing down on our heads. When the walls split, the ceiling clefts, dirt spraying from the fissure in the floor. I have to scramble back when the crack spreads so wide I nearly fall into it.
When the shaking stops, I manage to stand up again and pull my mother up with me. The servants all get to their feet again too, everyone giving the broken floor a wide berth. Mother looks down at the massive crevice now between her and Jak, the gap too far to jump.
The two of them look across at each other, and the expression on their faces makes my whole chest hurt.
“Jak...” my mother says, voice cracking, eyes wet.
He swallows hard from his spot on the floor, face now covered in sweat and visible pain. “It’s alright, Elore.”
“Don’t say her name!” my father screams, and then his power breaks Jak’s arm next, snapping it so hard that the bone pierces through his skin.
“No!” My mother’s scream rends the air, and she tries to jump across, but I grab her at the last second. “You won’t make it! You’ll fall,” I tell her over and over again as she tries to get away.
“This is what you get for choosing Orean trash,” my father seethes. “I want you to remember this, Elore. Remember that this is what you get for betraying me.”
She goes stiff in my arms. The whole room seems to suck in a breath of air. And then, my father lifts his hand and snaps.
And Jak’s neck breaks.
There’s no time for my mother to scream. No time for me to blink. Jak’s neck cracks in an unnatural angle, and his wide, agonized eyes extinguish their light right before us.
When his upper body hits the floor, my mother’s body does too.
I’ve read the word keening before. I’ve heard of it plenty of times. But I have never actually heard someone let out a keening cry like my mother does.
It wrenches from her body with so much force that it sends chills down my spine. It’s so loud that I can’t even hear my pounding heartbeat.
The sound she makes is terrifying. Unrecognizable.