“Then why did he ask her?”
Shadows play across Gabriel’s face as he settles back against his pillow and stares up at the ceiling. “They have always been friends, and Luc doesn’t care about the prejudices against outsiders. He never has.”
“I see. Willshesuffer backlash?”
“She could.”
Everything in me wants to raise a fist to the high gods and protest the unfair world we live in. It shouldn’t be this way. Everyone should be equal.
I clench my fingers around my bedcovers. “Couldn’t Luc’s father—Roland—” the words sour against my lips, but I force myself to continue, “—change the rules?”
“No.”
The immediacy of Gabriel’s reply strikes at my chest. Does Gabriel not care about the way his people treat outsiders?
“Why not?” The material bends beneath my fingers as I tighten my grip. “He’s your leader.”
“You cannot snap your fingers and make people change their prejudices.” No emotions border his words, no bricks to build a foundation upon. How can I understand him if he offers me no insight into his thoughts? His world? His beliefs?
What happened to the man who seemed to care the day before?
“Yes, but your leaders could guide by example. Remove their red circles. Accept them fully into your culture.”
“You want the laws and rules to bend to your way of thinking.”
“I want people to stop shunning good people simply because of their linage,” I say in a rush of frustration.
“Kassandra’s father was a Kyanite.” Even though Gabriel speaks in an even voice, I detect threads of bitterness. It builds, echoing his words like a never-ending tune.Kassandra’s father was a Kyanite. Kassandra’s father was a Kyanite.
Maybe that’s why we get along. Part of her is like me. Kyanite. Enemy to the Bloodstone. Enemy to the darkness.
Light cannot abide darkness.
At least, that’s what Father used to say. I never really understood what he meant.
I rise on my elbow to meet Gabriel’s gaze. “Why didn’t you say something sooner?”
“I didn’t know I needed to.”
“Kassandra’s father is a Kyanite? Where is he now?”
Gabriel shrugs. “Dead for all I know or care.”
I shove my hand through my hair and sigh. “Can you not address the prejudices against outsiders in the next council meeting?”
“I cannot.”
“Gabriel.”
“Things have been done this way for centuries. Don’t shake the trees, Kyanite. You may not like what falls out of them,” he says, his tone steady, and heartbreaking at the same time.
There it is—proof he simply doesn’t care.
He’s the only pigheaded tree I want to shake. He sits on the council. He could affect change. Except, he doesn’t care to.
“I thought you wanted to see change. What happened?”
“An infected tree is incapable of healing its branches,” he says in a flat voice. “It’s futile to try to mend something that refuses to be mended.”
