Page 51 of A Monarch's Fall

“Your cousin,” she continued.

“I got that,” I replied and couldn’t help the way I cringed at my rudeness. Selene wouldn’t approve, even in such a situation. “Sorry, I’m upset,” I apologised.

“I know, dear. And I, too, am sorry for bringing you to me under such circumstances,” she replied softly.

“Then why did you? You could have reached out some other way,” I asked.

If she were able to send a team of soldiers to get me, surely she could have written a letter, Hades, she could have knocked on the doors of Ardens Estate, and Selene would have welcomed her.

“It’s a dangerous time, young Percy. If there had been a safer option, I would have taken it.”

“Why not before now then?” I continued to question.

Why did my own family leave Father and me alone, with no one, for all this time? Didn’t she want to know me then? Or did she only care when she learned of my novel ability?

“It wasn’t time,” she answered.

“Time for what?” my frustration had boiled over into tiredness, or maybe I was simply tired from the fight for Ardens’ Estate that felt fresh like it happened only that morning, not five days earlier, maybe it was from the ache in my chest, the hole that Selene was meant to occupy, or maybe it was the emotional toll of finally being with family and yet feeling utterly alone.

“Damia was a pacifist, and she could see even at her young age that violence would become inevitable. She left the coven to make her own way in the world, unencumbered by her lineage. She wanted you to grow free, and I wanted to honour my daughter's wishes. As much as I’ve wanted to meet you, to bring you into the fold of Flores, to see what of Damia lives on in you, it would have been selfish of me. Damia made her desires known.”

I swallowed the lump in my throat. I had never heard anyone who wasn’t my father or one of the women in the village who had known my mother speak about her. It was disorientating. It made me sad in that way that I longed for a mother as a child.

“Why break her wishes now?” I asked, with my voice barely above a whisper, scared it would break and reveal the tears that stung behind my eyes.

“You became the property of Borealis. From the moment we became aware that Selene Borealis had purchased you,” her lip twitched in disgust, “we have been conceiving of ways to rescue you,” she explained.

“I didn’t need rescuing,” I protested.

“The paramilitary groups of the northern Houses had banded together under the banner of True North, and you, my daughter’s daughter, were their top target. You cannot imagine the depravity and torture that would have befallen you, had theysucceeded. We learned of the imminent danger to your life, and I acted. I will not apologise for ensuring that the cowardly and corrupt did not achieve their goal. Yet I am mournful that fate did not see fit to allow us to meet under kinder circumstances.”

“I was doing fine on my own,” I reiterated.

I didn’t need saving. I wasn’t weak or incapable, like Dylan viewed me.

“Perhaps, but I wasn’t willing to take such a risk. It was only a few months ago that you were kidnapped and held hostage in Vouna,” she argued.

“I didn’t need rescuing then either,” I told her.

A smile slowly grew on her lips, replacing the thin line of frustration that they had been.

“You remind me so much of your mother. You share the same wilfulness,” she told me.

“Yeah, well, I wouldn’t know. I never met her. And no one who did know her, no one calling themselves family, ever reached out to us. As far as I’m concerned, you didn’t exist until a few days ago, and even then, you could have been dead for all anyone knew of it,” I countered defiantly.

I wouldn’t be fooled into whatever familial bond Lady Flores thought we shared. Where had she been when my father and I were hungry? It was the support of the village and the coming of my magic that fed us.

She didn’t care about me. Not really. I couldn’t forget that.

I couldn’t allow the warmth of the room, the gentleness of her tone, the way she looked at me, and photographs of my mother to fool me into believing that the dreams I held in childhood of family and a home of more than father and me could be real.

The time for that had passed.

The woman before me claimed to have been aware of me all my life, yet she had never offered any care or support. And there had been times when it was badly needed.

Her only act in my life had been to rip me away from the woman who did care for me, who did support me and who loved me like no other ever could. My soul match. And while she was unaware of the bond I shared with Selene and, therefore, the magnitude of her actions, the result was the same.

Lady Flores sat back in her chair and slightly narrowed her eyes.