Page 106 of A Monarch's Fall

“It’s not like I had a choice,” I defended, before I realised that he wouldn’t be angry like he was if he didn’t know who The New Foundation were. “You know about them,” I stated.

“I know,” he admitted, and the way his shoulder stiffened felt wrong. For the first time, I felt like I couldn’t trust him.

“How much do you know? Did you know that my mother was the daughter of Lady Persephone of Flores? That she was the result of a rape? That she was a dual user?” I challenged.

“You were too young to understand —” he started before I cut him off.

“Too young! You should have said something!” I raised my voice, and Galan began to cry in his crib across the room.

Rosemary entered the doorway and walked quickly over to him.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to wake him,” I apologised, feeling bad that I had barely been home an hour and already I had made him cry.

“It’s not good for him to be around negative energy or raised voices. I’ve just taken scones out of the oven; they’re cooling down. Bring them to the bonfire. I feel that the two of you have some things to talk about. Galan and I will be at Sarah’s. I’ll stay around until Ana is dressed and take her with me. We’re preparing food for tonight,” Rosemary said as she left the room with Galan.

Dad sighed heavily beside me.

“Let’s sit in your garden, I put a bench out there after you left,” he said as he walked through the kitchen to the back door.

My garden was dead, and I couldn’t stop myself from beginning to work my magic, reaching out and touching every plant I passed to bring it to bloom and fruit.

“I’m sorry, it’s difficult to keep up without you,” he said.

“It’s okay. I understand,” I replied and sat down next to him on a bench handmade from driftwood.

“What do you want to know?” he asked after a while, as we sat in silence, the sun already setting behind us, the sea reflecting its colours.

“Everything. Everything I should have known from the start,” I answered.

He sighed heavily.

“We never meant to keep anything from you. Your mother and I didn’t know how we would tell you. Damia used to say that it all felt so far away, like a dream, like maybe it wasn’t even her life,” he said and scratched his overgrown beard that I noticed had grey now. “She wanted to protect you. She left that job to me. She’d be so disappointed if she could see how badly I failed,” he finished.

“You didn’t fail,” I said and lay my head against his shoulder.

“I did, Percy. I allowed a Borealis Royal to take you from me. If I had done something. If I had stopped her. None of this would have happened. You wouldn’t be in danger now,” he said.

“Soul matches are fate. No one has control over fate. You couldn’t have predicted it. You couldn’t have stopped it. And even with everything that’s happened, I’m happy with her, Dad. I love her,” I told him.

“You would have found love regardless,” he insisted.

“Not like this,” I countered. “Nothing could compare.”

He sighed heavily again, like he didn’t want to argue with me but definitely didn’t agree.

“Your mum was running from her coven when I met her. Do you know about the dark times of the Flores coven? Whathappened before you were born, when your mother was a little girl?” he asked.

“I know about when the Houses abused Flores, and no one helped them. I know that’s why they disappeared,” I said.

“Damia used to say it was a perfect storm, one terrible thing after the other. First her mother’s rape, and your mother’s mother never wanted her, never treated her right. She saw her rapist in your mother. If it wasn’t for her father, your mother’s father that is, Damia said she thought her mother would have killed her in the womb.

“He forced her to carry your mother. Lady Flores, your grandmother, never really recovered from that. Damia didn’t really blame her. She had so much empathy, your mother. So much kindness. Forgiveness. She even empathised with the woman who abused her all her life, and it got so much worse after her father, her real father, Karo, not the rapist scum, died. Damia said that, as angry as her mother was with her father for forcing her to keep her, she truly loved him.”

The ocean breeze chilled me, and I saw by the set of my father’s shoulders that he was still silently grieving my mother. I prayed that I never knew such endless pain.

“His death was another blow. At the same time the kingdom experienced the worst streak of winters in generations. Suddenly, so many of Flores were experiencing situations similar to what your grandmother had gone through, and no one helped. Every House, they all turned a blind eye. Your grandmother is a smart woman, and she became enraged. She led raids and rescue missions, and she called back every Flores witch to the fold and ordered that none ever again offer their services to the Houses of the Kingdom,” he explained.

“Can anyone blame her?” I asked. When Lady Flores spoke about my mother, she made it seem as if my mother had beenwanted, cherished, even. I realised that story was simply a manipulation to endear me to her more quickly.