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I try to say something several times, but the words won’t come. The hurt in his face deepens. I grind my teeth in frustration.

Tell him to come back,my head screams.Tell him it’s ok, what he’s done doesn’t matter. It’s not his fault.

But my lips won’t obey. Not yet.

Give me time,my heart cries. Except there is no time.

The moment before he is about to disappear from my light, I make my voice submit. “Follow the water. It will lead you home.”

What just happened?

Can all solas withhold their light, or did I witness something spectacular?

My hands still tingle with warmth from contact with the creature. I try to preserve their heat by wrapping them tightly around the book as I journey home.

Walking in the exact opposite direction of Belwyn, my chest tightens. I hate that I am reacting this way to his confession. But what choice do I have? It isn’t me who can absolve him of guilt. How else did he think I could respond—especially at that moment?

To me, the solas represent all that is good and true and life-giving in this world. They represent my mother. Something about them has awoken a fire within me that has lain dormant my whole life.

I don’t understand how anyone—especially him—could have been so heartless.

But it broke him. I can’t deny it. It cost him everything to confess it to me. How is it fair to hold this against him?

Let me be mad at him for a little while longer.

Oh, but it hurts my heart.

I stare at my feet and stumble through the forest, oblivious to the night that surrounds me.

When the spongy floor hardens and the trees no longer surround me, I lift my eyes to a surprising sight.

The cottage glows with warm firelight, with the scent of woodsmoke in the air.

“Father?” I murmur, barely daring to hope.

I throw out caution and sprint toward my home. I need him to be there.

My hand finds the crude planks, slides down to pull the latch. The door swings open, and ...

He waits for me with open arms.

I abandon all attempts at maintaining composure and throw myself into his embrace. He holds me tightly, so tightly it hurts, but nothing could ever make me tell him to let go.

My face buried in his shoulder, I shake and cry and heave in breath after shaky breath. He slips a hand under my mass of hair and presses my head closer, closer still, kissing my temple and whispering words I don’t catch. They calm my soul, nonetheless.

“Pada,” I say, pulling away after an eternity and looking into his steady blue eyes. “I was so scared.” My voice trembles, my head shakes. “So, so scared.”

His lips press together, an effort to keep calm, and he brushes away strands of hair that my tears have slicked to my cheeks. “I am sorry, my girl. I should never have shut you out like that.”

My hand covers his.

“I treated your mother’s loss as my pain, and mine alone. I did not allow myself to believe it was yours too. And I was not strong enough to bear the thought of losing you to those,” he grits his teeth and pinches his eyes closed, “those monsters.”

“I’m fine, Pada. I’m alright. The darkness can’t touch me.”

He slips his hand out from under mine and grabs it, pulling it down and trapping the other with it between his. “But it can. I saw it with your mother.”

Leading me to a chair at our humble table, he sits in the one on the other side, all the while not letting go of my hands. “She thought she was invincible too. But this ténesomni is more sinister than you know.”