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Chapter Seventy-Five

Annora

The next morning, I step into Jasce’s war tent, where he sits at a table with Jude, Reeve, Brathen, and Kythara.

My breath hitches as I jerk my focus between my husband and the Watchers.

Why are they here?

“Please sit,” Jasce says, nodding toward the chair across from him.

“I don’t understand,” I say as I settle into the chair. “What are they doing here?”

“Asha has lost her way.” Brathen wraps his hand around a goblet of wine, but he doesn’t lift it to his mouth. “And we are ready to stop her.”

“How can I trust you?” Jasce leans forward as he speaks. “One moment you stand with Asha, and now you don’t?”

“Either you trust me, or you don’t. The choice is yours.” Brathen settles back in his chair as he continues. “I’m prepared to attack within her ranks.”

Over and over again, I hear Brathen’s voice, the way it stirs memories—memories I thought long buried.

No…

It’s impossible!

He cannot be…

Sunlight seeps through the open tent flap as I search Brathen’s masked face—seeing those dark blue eyes—seeing their familiarity.

Why didn’t I notice that he sounds just like my father before now? Or that his eyes are the same?

My gaze settles on Kythara, who sits next to Brathen with her spine straight, her amber eyes fierce. She catches my stare and smiles.

Does she know?

Is she compliant?

Wait! Kythara is Brathen’s daughter…

So, does that mean she’s my sister?

“And what guarantee do we have?” Jude asks, his voice breaking through my frantic thoughts.

Reeve shifts in his chair. “We could use inside intelligence.”

“Inside intelligence won’t matter if it’s false,” Jude counters.

Jasce looks between his brothers for a moment before speaking. “What made you turn against Asha?”

“She’s lost sight of what matters,” the leader of the Watchers says. “And it’s our people who suffer while she pursues vengeance.”

“And what of your men?” Reeve’s voice cuts through my thoughts as he continues. “Will they follow your lead?”

“They follow the code of the Watchers,” Brathen says, certainty edging his words. “To protect our people above all else.”

Jude crosses his arms. “Pretty words. But words mean little without action.”

“We’ll need precise information about her defenses,” Jasce says. “Numbers. Positions. Everything.”

The men continue their strategic discussion, but their voices fade to a distant hum as I think about that day my father left. How I had waited and waited for him, but he never came.

I curl my hands into my sleeves as I study Brathen’s masked face, taking in the same eyes that once crinkled at the corners when he smiled at me across the breakfast table.

The same broad shoulders that carried me on piggyback rides through the garden.

Even his way of sitting—straight-backed yet somehow casual—mirrors the father in my memories.

After he vanished, everything crumbled like a sandcastle in the tide. My mother retreated into herself. And my grandfather swooped in, filling the void with his poison. His rigid rules. His cutting words that severed my heart in half like a scythe cutting wheat.

I learned to draw then, to create beauty when I could find none. My charcoal sketches became windows into better worlds—ones where fathers returned and mothers smiled.

Now Brathen sits mere feet away, hidden behind that black mask, and my throat burns with questions.

Why did he leave us? Why didn’t he come back? How could he watch from the shadows all these summers while we fractured and broke?

My gaze shifts to the sun streaking through the open tent flap. Its bright rays remind me of summer skies and better days, when our family was whole. Before betrayal. Before pain. Before everything changed.

The moment the meeting ends and Brathen and Kythara leave the tent, I hurry to my feet and follow them.

I stop them by reaching out and grabbing Brathen’s arm. He turns swiftly, his eyes meeting mine through the slits in his black mask.

“Are you my father?” I blurt out.

For a second, maybe two, he simply stares at me, his expression unreadable.

“Are you?” I challenge, needing answers.

His raspy voice cuts through the air. “No, I am not your father.”

I take a step closer, searching those familiar dark blue eyes. They’re the same shade as mine, the same shape. “But your eyes—”

“—many people have blue eyes, Lady Annora.” His tone remains steady, controlled.

Frustration burns in my chest. “Please, just tell me the truth. Are you my father?”

“I’ve already answered your question.” He turns away, and Kythara follows. Neither looks back as they disappear between the rows of tents.

Those eyes. That voice. I know it’s him.