Hattie raises her hands to her lips, then lifts her chin toward the door. I nod, understanding her cue for silence. Her elaborate gown whispers against her legs as she moves to the fireplace and tugs on a porcelain figurine on the mantle. A section of the wall shifts, revealing a small opening.
“Follow the tunnel,” she says, her words so low I have to lean forward to hear her. “It will take you to him.”
“Hattie,” I whisper, my voice heavy with emotion as I think about all those nights she stayed up with me and held me while I cried for Mother.
“I know.” Understanding glistens in her eyes as she takes my hands, gripping them. “Now, you must go to your father.”
With that, she encourages me forward, and I step into that tiny opening. Darkness crushes me the moment the door shuts, so I use my hands as my guide, trailing them down the stone walls, feeling, searching for a door that will lead me to Father.
I walk on my tiptoes and keep brushing my hands against the walls, feeling those cracks, those dents until I reach a wider indentation. My heart pounds as I pause, running my fingertips up and down, frantically hunting for a handle. My hand catches on metal, and I pull it down.
The door swings open, hemorrhaging torchlight into the tunnel. I blink rapidly, trying to adjust to the sudden onslaught. I shield my eyes as Father stands and turns to face me, his eyes wide with shock.
“Hello, Father.” A smile pulls at my mouth as I take in his familiar face, weathered and creased with age and experience.
“Sol.” He steps forward and squashes me to him. “You’re here. You’re alive!”
I wrap my arms around him, embracing him back in a way I haven’t since Mother died. In a way, I never thought he would ever allow me to embrace him again.
Father drew inward after her death. He didn’t offer comfort or kind words. He was so overwhelmed with his grief that he couldn’t see mine.
After I pull back, I look around, taking in his secret chamber. There is a simple bed with a worn blanket draped over it, a table cluttered with parchment, and a small fireplace in the opposite corner.
He motions for me to sit on the bed as he busies himself with pouring two goblets of lavender tea. The heels of his boots echo against the stone floor as he brings one to me, and I admit, I down it. His brown eyes lighten with amusement as he returns to the table and pours me a second goblet. This one, I drink more slowly.
The chair creaks as he sits opposite of me. “Did Hattie tell you why I’m here?”
I shake my head and tighten my grip on the goblet.
“The Kyanite chieftain wants me dead.”
I open my mouth to ask him more, but Father raises his hand.
“First, I want to talk about you.” Pain laces his words as he continues. “Why did you leave, Sol?”
“I had to.” It’s an honest answer. Hopefully, he will not condemn me for it.
Sadness deepens the creases near his mouth, shaping them into a frown. “Because of what happened to your mother?”
I nod as my throat turns dryer than the sand outside this brothel.
“Is she...” The Seer’s words hum in my ears. How she said Mother wasn’t my real mother. “Was she my mother?”
A muscle pulses in Father’s jaw as he stares down at his hands cradling the goblet.
“I need to know,” I choke out, my words hoarse, heartbroken. “Please,Father. Tell me.”
Every part of me needs to know this, to understand who I really am. Only then can I move on with my life.
“Is that why you’re here?” he asks after a moment.
“Partially, yes.”
He takes a quick drink of his tea before settling the goblet against his lap. “She was not the woman who brought you into this world, but she loved you as if she did.”
Pain stabs into my chest at his words, at that truth I hadn’t wanted to accept, but something in meknew.“I know she did.”
The edge of the pottery bites into my palm as I tighten my grip around the terracotta goblet. Never once in those ten summers I spent with her, did I doubt her love for me. She showed me how much she cared every day.
