I angled my head, mulling over his words. There was an edge to his voice I had never heard before.
“I can’t go with you. I can’t leave Relhok while this is happening.” I winced at the volume of my voice. I lowered it to say, “I won’t be able to live with myself.”
“And what about me? Us?” He hated to ask the question. I could hear that in his voice. He hated that need. He hated exposing that vulnerability in himself.
A lump rose in my throat. “You’ll go on without me. To Allu.” I stopped to swallow again, fighting back that lump. “You’ll find other people. Good people and you will—”
“No,” he bit out, almost as though he sensed I was intimating that someday he would find someone else to love. “You can’t go. You don’t know. You don’t understand—”
“What? What don’t I understand, Fowler?”
“You don’t understand what kind of man my father is!”
I jerked as though slapped. Everything inside of me repelled away from him. My spine arched. Another fingernail split from the pressure of my grip.
His father. Father. The word reverberated through me and my stomach twisted. I pressed a hand to my belly and swallowed back the bile. “Your father?”
I felt him nod. His clothing rustled and a branch groaned as he shifted closer to me, his voice a feverish rush. “Don’t look like that, Luna. It’s not—”
“The high chancellor . . . Cullan . . . he is your father? The king?”
“Yes. But I left. Two years ago—”
“Your father killed my parents.” The truth washed over me awfully and settled like poison in my stomach, curdling there. I pressed a hand to my mouth, certain I was going to be sick.
I peeled back my fingers to choke, “When you found out who I was back in Ortley . . . why didn’t you tell me then?” My voice sounded alarmingly calm to my ears despite all that I was feeling. It felt like the person closest to me in the world had just perished with all the unfairness of a vicious and sudden death. I was left grieving, sick to my stomach, and bewildered.
“I couldn’t. I didn’t want you to do what you’re doing now.”
“Which is what, Fowler?”
“Looking the way you do. Like you think I’m a part of him,” he snapped, his voice fierce and raw. A curse followed and I heard the flutter of his hair as he dragged a hand through it.
“You are,” I whispered, working my lips, trying to suddenly rid the taste of him from me. My eyes stung and I blinked them rapidly, shaking my head. “You’re his son.”
A new sound rose, penetrating over the murmuring wind. We stopped. Not a word. Not a move. I couldn’t even hear Fowler breathing beside me anymore.
The swamp stirred, the wet ground shifting, bubbling like soup in a pot.
Fowler whispered my name in warning. Squelching sounds gurgled under us.
I nodded and bit my lip to cut off all sound. I didn’t need to see to know what was happening. Dwellers were waking, rousing in the swampy ground.
The ground right below our tree frothed and rustled. Clawed fingers slapped mud and silt. A dweller pulled itself free near the base of the trunk with a great sucking sound.
More of them came. They were pulling free everywhere, the mud sucking and sluicing down their stout bodies as though the swamp wanted to keep them buried forever. I assessed the landscape, counting over twenty. Maybe the ground was easier to penetrate here. There were so many, groaning as they came to life, their heavy bodies roiling, squelching the sodden earth.
Fowler’s hand closed over mine. I squeezed back. We held ourselves as still as stone. I didn’t dare make a sound. I held my breath, my fingers flexing against his warm flesh.
A cracking sound split the air and suddenly the tree gave out. It tilted to the side, jostling us in the branches. I lost my balance and fell forward. My legs swung free, but I locked my arms around a branch. A sharp cry escaped before I could smother it.
Fowler’s arm wrapped around my waist and hauled me back up, plastering me against him. I panted into his neck, clinging to him.
“I got you. I got you.”
I nodded fiercely, a hot tear spilling down my cheek. I buried my face in his chest, listening as the dwellers rumbled and surged against the tree, aware of us now. The tree shuddered against the force of their actions.
They started battering the base with their bodies. I clung tightly to Fowler. He held on to the tree for both of us.
“It can’t support us,” Fowler whispered.
I nodded, pressing my lips against his skin directly above his collar. This was it.
The pack of dwellers was frothing under us, clawing and tearing at the trunk, those horrible wet breaths sawing from their lips. The tree made another crunching sound and jerked a foot down. My stomach bottomed out. I whimpered and bit my lip until I tasted the coppery flow of blood against my teeth.