Tell the Wind and Fire(88)

“Take courage.”

“Already got it,” I said, and heard my father laugh behind me.

“Yes, you do. I’m so sorry, Lucie.”

“What for?”

“I’m so sorry for all my bad days,” he said. “I’m so sorry I couldn’t be stronger for you, that I didn’t see when you were hurting. I didn’t see a way to do it, I couldn’t think of how to make it work—to make our family work without her.” His eyes dropped to the diamond shining around my neck, and I felt his fingers tremble. “I knew how much I owed you,” he said. “I tried to tell you that, and I’m sorry if I made it another burden for you.”

“It doesn’t matter,” I said.

“I’m sorry,” he said, even softer, “that I am a burden to you.”

I bit my tongue before I could tell him that he was not a burden, and said instead, blood in my mouth and truth on my lips, “It doesn’t matter. I was always so glad you were there. I was so glad I saved you.”

I had always been glad, and always thought he was worth everything I had done for him.

I had tried not to blame him when his pain had kept him from being there for me. All the resentment I had hidden and could not help did not seem to matter now, when I could feel his warmth at my back and I knew that he loved me. My pain must have stopped me being there for him sometimes too.

It did not mean that pain did not matter. But there was something besides pain between us.

I would not have done anything differently, so perhaps it was time to stop regretting what I had done.

“I can stand with you now,” said my father. “I can do that.”

The pain of it all had seemed such a waste, once. Now it seemed like the sharp fire that had forged me into a weapon, into a sword, into a battering ram that could break through the prison door.

“We can stand together,” I said.

I had spent so long trying to be something I was not. I knew I was something quite different from what I had been: innocent, unformed, terrified, the girl who was lovingly overprotected by both her parents and who wanted to be just like her aunt.

I was not like those polar opposites who had somehow circled around to the same savage place, Aunt Leila and Mark Stryker. I was not like Ethan, always trying to be good, or Carwyn, who believed he was bad. I did not feel as though I would ever have any of their conviction in the rightness or wrongness of their actions. All I knew was who I loved and what I wanted. I did not feel good or bad, and I did not feel guilty anymore. I felt strong enough to do what needed to be done.

I felt that sometime while I was trying to shield others and trying to shield myself, I had become all that I ever needed to be.

The sans-merci guards looked dumbfounded that my father had not stopped me. I saw their hands go to their weapons again, heard the crowd hum, torn between approval and condemnation.

None of the guards dared to strike me down. But then my Aunt Leila arrived to deal with the Golden Thread in the Dark, shoving through the crowd with her hair flying like a preemptive flag of mourning, and I knew she would dare to do anything. She came striding toward me, and I saw her draw a long knife from her belt, its blade edged with wavering Dark magic.

My rings sizzled and shone with power. Our blades leaped to meet each other.

“Why are you doing this?” Aunt Leila hissed.

“Why don’t you even recognize me?” I hissed back. “You think I’m a child or a doll and you are unstoppable? I’m a force of nature too. You thought you were teaching me something else, to be something lesser. Try teaching fire to do anything but burn. It’s time for you to learn better.”

The crowd could not hear us, but I could hear it, drawing in closer as people strained to hear what we were saying. The sound of their muttering was like a storm building, far off out to sea but coming closer.

For the first time, I saw fear on Aunt Leila’s face. She knew the mob was a beast, and it might turn and go for her throat as easily as anyone else’s.

“Let Ethan Stryker go,” I continued, “or cut down the Golden Thread in the Dark in front of everybody. You said you came to the city on a mission to free me. Go ahead—kill me. Show everybody you were lying.”

None of us were safe. But Aunt Leila had taught me how to appear in front of the media and the crowds. I had to believe that she cared more about how things looked than I did.

“What will it take for you to stop this mad defiance?” she snapped.

I held Aunt Leila’s gaze. “Oh, tell the wind and fire where to stop,” I said softly. “But don’t tell me.”

“Go to your committee,” said Dad. “Grant him a pardon or cut us both down.”