Page 55 of Light Locked #1

They waited for a moment in silence, taking each other in.

As she examined his weakness, she wondered now how he perceived hers.

She’d lost so much weight, her body was drained and sickly, her clothes covered in dirt and ash, her skin laden in sweat, her hair in complete disarray.

She expected him to point out or criticize any of these things, but instead he said what she least expected.

“You now watch me brazenly like your mother did,” he said, his voice gruff, the words his version of warmth in that they hid a nested compliment.

“I’m stronger now,” she said, and though she didn’t feel it, she knew it was true.

The sight of her father now shrunk the man in her memories.

In three years, neither of them had changed so drastically, but she felt bigger beside him rather than a figure in his shadow.

Somewhere along the way, a servant, guard or advisor had informed her of her fathers contraction of their family's illness. She hadn’t paid attention to the who, only the what behind the message.

“I see,” he replied. “You come now with the intention of taking the throne?”

Clea shook her head. “I wouldn’t—”

“You should.” In the hardness of his voice, she understood now that the question had not been an accusation but a suggestion. “The Decline closes in and people need their light more than ever.”

Their light. Their symbol. Old patterns repeated in front of her eyes, wrapping around her, tying close in a restrictive way, but she didn’t feel suffocated by them. Not this time.

“Already, we’re talking about this,” she said, pushing back against those ties as she leaned back in her chair. “Before a welcome back or any questions about my journey, this is what we discuss? Affairs of state?”

“What else is there to talk about?” he replied, his face unchanging, as if his own weakness were nothing more than a matter of business. Perhaps to him it was.

“Even the guards asked if mother was in fact dead. Even they had some glimmer of hope and needed confirmation,” Clea replied .

“She had my heart, my daughter. I felt her light go. My own heart now beats homelessly in my chest, having grown too comfortable in her care,” he said.

Her expression faltered at the words. They haunted her strangely.

As if reading her confusion as surprise, he added, “Our marriage may have been arranged and our love more mission than warmth, but our bond was true.”

“You exchanged hearts,” she breathed.

Her own turned in her chest restlessly.

“As is the sacred practice of two people who have tied their fates together,” he replied. “Of her demise, I have no question, but even then I know she’s alive.” Her father turned a weathered hand toward her and for once, his voice softened and he said, “I’m looking at her now.”

Clea’s mind nearly lapsed over the thoughtful comment.

Her father must have noticed her distractedness but said nothing as she forced a smile, moving her hand into his and feeling the warmth and waning strength of his grip.

His touch brought her back from the ridiculous and frightening path his phrasing had just sent her down.

She needed a good night’s rest before considering anything about her journey again.

Her hands still trembled with tiredness.

She would wait until tomorrow before starting the heavy task of putting the past behind her.

Holding her hand in his, he started again.

“I would not share with anyone else about your journey. Do you understand? We must be discreet with the situation at hand.” The requests for discretion so soon bothered her, but she stomached her father’s behavior patiently.

She had been long convinced that he would utter orders even on his dying breath.

His mind was so busy, so engrained in strategy, she had once wondered if there was still indeed a being lost within that unending machine of his thoughts.

“Situation at hand? Father, I—”

“The discovery of the Deadlock Medallion,” he said, “should be impossible. There have been no recorded sightings of it. Your mother wasn’t expecting to find it.

The fact that you did, well, things could have been much worse for the world.

We’re arranging for its destruction and will perform the ceremony in due time, but no word of its existence should be shared until after it has been destroyed. ”

“Yes, I understand that,” she said, trying to get a sense of his urgency and why he fought so hard to control their conversation. She waited for him to finish.

“In the three years since your departure, we have finalized our treaty with Ruedom and have built a tunnel between the two cities. Share this with no one. Understood?”

“Understood,” she said, wanting to withdraw her hand as he gripped it tightly. She was thankful that she hadn’t mentioned anything about Althala’s folder, fearful that perhaps they’d burn it, uttering the words over the flames: Don’t tell anyone about this. Understood?

“And no one knows the state of my illness,” he said, pouring forth one secret after another.

“I will make an appearance with you, but my appearances have been less frequent. After you ascend to the throne and marry, I can at last retire from the public completely and can die in peace knowing our city was not aware of the circumstances. They reported to me that your ansra is very strong. That is good. It means that despite the sickness, you are fairing well, but we must act quickly. You will produce many heirs to secure our city, our bloodline. You must. Soon.”

“Father, hold on,” she said, jerking her hand away and standing up, the chair skirting back against the wood behind her.

He seemed startled by her abrupt reaction and her protest. She shook her head, angered by the wealth of information, directives and secrets.

“You,” she started and shook her head again, breaking away from the bedside and walking back and forth in front of the window.

“These things must be discussed in haste,” he pushed.

“I know,” she said, but didn’t continue the discussion.

“It’s your responsibility as a leader—”

She pushed back with another firm, “I know.”

She knew her obligations. She wasn’t ready to wear them yet.

Not yet.

She faced her father, King Calloway Hart, one of the most powerful men in the human world, with all the assertiveness and pomp of that title, and raised the questions she’d fought through the past several weeks.

The reason she’d escaped from Loda in the first place had begun with the demand of an early marriage.

They had found the start of the disease in her, the last heir of Loda, and were arranging a hasty marriage in the hope that she would produce children before she died.

Clea had been unable to stomach the obligation then, and despite it being her duty, it had felt like a death sentence.

“How did I not know?” she asked.

Her father sat there in silence until she added, “About the Venennin? About the Insednians?”

He did not answer, and he was not often a man at a loss for words. The empty space gave way to all her other questions.

“Even King Odell must have gone to some lengths to hide their existence from me. They must have known too,” she said.

“You didn’t need to know,” he replied, holding her eyes like a vice as if she were challenging his authority.

“I always needed to know,” she said sharply. “You put my life in great danger. I would have died a fool. What had the other Veilin thought? Royalty, meant to be the most well equipped to fight Venennin, and yet I didn’t even know of their existence?”

“Your answer is here,” he said simply, facing forward and averting his gaze in a rare show of contemplation as he gathered his thoughts in her presence. Her father had always had an answer prepared, as if he’d done all his thinking in secret.

She searched the room. “Where?”

“Here,” he said more quietly. He opened his palms to emphasize the word. “In this sickness. We had no real evidence of its origin, only of its terror. I took the only path I knew and traced the causes to bloodline. We’ve spoken little of it, but your mother’s father was a Venennin.”

Clea’s eyes widened. “You thought it was because of grandfather’s blood. And hiding Venennin from me, hiding that path was your best solution?” She saw now how his fixation on Kalex and bad births had poisoned his thinking.

“It was the only solution we had. We sheltered your mind, heart and body to protect your soul at all cost. Then that forest healer proclaimed that knowledge would be your death, and we couldn’t take any risks,” her father replied, sounding increasingly more defensive.

“You’ve never had to make these decisions.

We realized we were wrong not long after your journey when I fell ill. ”

His explanations didn’t dissuade her anger.

The fact that he’d apparently known about the true meaning of the golden door only angered her further.

She still wasn’t even sure she believed his excuse.

She looked out the window at the expanse of the city beyond.

It had been so long since she’d seen this view in her parents’ room.

Even as a child, she’d seldom been invited inside.

She’d only ever gotten pieces of her parents’ lives, the rest of it accountable to some greater purpose, even if it was at times misguided.

She remained there with her arms crossed, feeling out of place in her worn-down forest clothes, surprised that her father had allowed her visitation without a full cleansing and change of clothes to remove any traces of the forest from her body.