Page 16 of The Crown of the Last Fae Queen (The Heartless and the Wicked #4)
Kolfinna suppressed the urge to apologize, to say, I’m sorry if I said something to offend you , or something along those lines.
She had to remind herself that they were on opposite sides of the war and that they might have even fought each other during the battle a few days ago.
She couldn’t allow this to change how she thought about them all.
“Princess.”
Kolfinna jerked her head up to find a fae male peering down at her with gleaming, sapphire eyes, so bright that they appeared unnatural. He gave a small nod to Astrid, then shifted his attention back to Kolfinna.
“Commander Alfaer wishes you to dine with him.”
She stared at him, then down at the reddish stew in her hand; she had been so focused on Astrid and her words that she’d barely tasted the beet and meat stew, nor paid any attention to the crusty bread floating on top of the oily broth.
She was halfway done, and the prospect of eating in front of Vidar—of being near him—sent a shudder down her spine.
“I’m almost done anyway,” she said after a moment of silence. She schooled her expression to indifference. “Maybe next time.”
Astrid shifted in her seat, glancing at Kolfinna sideways. “I don’t think?—”
“It was not a request,” the man said with a pursed scowl.
Sighing, Kolfinna rose up to her feet, being sure to balance the bowl in her hand so the stew didn’t slosh onto the drying grass or her blood-stained dress.
The blue-eyed fae waved her to follow him and wove through the crowds of dining fae and elves.
He kept glancing backward at her, his eyes narrowed, as if she would sprint away at any moment.
She didn’t blame him; she was half-tempted to do that anyway.
They continued through the camp until they reached a black tent that was larger than the others. The blue-eyed fae paused at the entrance and gestured her inside. “Commander Alfaer is inside.”
He didn’t need to tell her that, because she could feel it in the air. The denseness of the commander’s mana and the oppressive haze of shadows that seemed to flitter around the tent was enough for her to realize who was inside.
Kolfinna exhaled deeply, her palms growing clammy.
She was all too aware of the fae watching her closely, his thin lips twisted into a scowl, so she pushed through the flap of the tent quickly, not wanting to be under his scrutiny any longer.
She was greeted with a giant table set up in the middle of the room, and a small fire roaring in the background, the smoke curling and staining the roof of the tent.
Vidar stood over the table, his red gaze flicking quickly over the map atop it as if he was memorizing every scratched groove on the parchment.
He wasn’t wearing his helmet, and his long hair streamed over his black scaled-armor like streaks of white light.
The scar spanning over his face appeared less angry and more faded in the firelight.
But the hardness of his jaw, the sternness of his mouth, and his intense eyes made him appear just as brutal as he had days ago, when she first saw him.
When she entered, he lifted those murder-glazed eyes at her. “Kolfinna,” he said, and she could feel the disgust in the air, the repulsion of even mentioning her name. He gestured to the seat across from him. His wings flared and then tucked in over his back. “Have a seat.”
It was all too similar to a few days ago, when they had sat across from each other and he’d had Herja dragged into the room. Kolfinna shifted on her feet, glancing at the single seat across from him, and then back at the entrance of the tent.
“You cannot run every time you see me,” he said with a long sigh, and she straightened at the exhaustion in his voice, at the annoyance that was barely concealed.
“I’m not planning to run,” she said, walking stiffly to where he was. She dropped her bowl on the table and jerkily sat down. Her gaze strayed over to the map, but there were no markers indicating he had written where the fae queen was located. “You sound tired.”
He rolled up the map, watching her carefully as he sat across from her.
“Do I? Perhaps it has something to do with my only daughter trying to escape every chance she has.” Vidar folded the map and slipped it into one of the hidden pockets of his armor, and then he reached for the plate on the side of the table—meat, potatoes, and some sort of boiled vegetation.
“I’m sure once your queen is free, you’ll have more time to make more children who don’t disappoint you,” she said, hating how bitter he sounded.
She shouldn’t have felt anything, she realized, but it was hard to swallow down the fact that her father—as vicious and strange as he was—thought of her as a failure.
Vidar canted his head to the side. She stared down at her stew in response, stirring the contents with her spoon. Her feelings were too muddled—too confusing—around him.
“What a strange reaction,” he said after a moment, picking up his knife and slicing into the slab of meat. “I thought you were more than happy to see me as someone unrelated to you. Have you finally accepted me as your father?”
Her eyebrows involuntarily drew together. “If it wasn’t for my magic, would you even consider me your daughter? If I didn’t have the means to free your queen, would you even want anything to do with me?”
Vidar blinked slowly.
Kolfinna squirmed in her seat, and turned back to her stew. Poking at the shredded beets, she quickly slurped the contents. He was the enemy. He was evil. And he was a terrifying monster that would ruin this country.
But he was also her father, and she had thorny feelings about it all, and she hated it.
“You are my daughter,” Vidar answered, red eyes narrowing. “You will always be my flesh and blood. Do you think me cruel enough to abandon my own child?”
“You don’t know me.”
“And whose fault do you think that is?” His voice hardened and the fire dimmed as his eyes grew dark.
He breathed out deeply, and his mana stirred the air, thickening it and reminding her of an approaching storm.
“Aesileif and I were forced to seal you away to protect you. Do you think I enjoy returning after all these years to find that you are not—” He clamped his mouth shut, his fingers flexing like he wanted to grab something and crush it. “That you are not who I left behind?”
“I’m disappointing, I understand that—” she started, voice wobbling.
“You were stolen from me,” he hissed, and she flinched back at the vitriol in his voice, but it wasn’t aimed at her.
“We were supposed to raise you. We were supposed to teach you about our ways. We were supposed to be … to be parents for you, Kolfinna. And that was stolen from us.” His lips curled back.
“My own daughter, my own flesh and blood, had to endure so much cruelty at the hands of those cursed humans. To the point that you now love them. It sickens me that you wish to become one of them.”
“I don’t want to become one of them?—”
“I have heard about you from others. You joined their royal guard, and then their military. You wished that you could blend in with them. Tell me, have you never wished to become like them? To be human, so that you could live among them?”
She remained silent. She didn’t have the words, because deep down, she had wanted that at some point.
When it was too hard to be fae in a world that hated fae, she’d sometimes wished that she’d been born like them, that she could enjoy life and live freely.
“I love being fae,” she whispered, but it sounded weak even to her own ears.
“I have fought for all these years for our people, for our empire, and for you . I wanted a better life for you,” Vidar said, spearing the meat on his plate.
He didn’t eat it, though, only moved it around on his plate.
“I left behind a child and now you are a woman. I have been robbed of having a life with you, and it angers me that humans have caused this all.”
“You and your queen are the ones who sealed me away.” Kolfinna’s eyes stung as she glared at him.
She wasn’t even sure what she felt in that moment—anger, guilt, confusion, hatred—but it pulled at her chest, tightening it.
“You chose to lock me away—and yourselves. You should have just fought to the bitter end with your queen. There is no fault in dying for your cause.”
He slammed his fist on the table. “And allowed them to kill you? What do you think Harald and his people would have done to my child—to you ? They would have put you on a stake and paraded your corpse around to the masses. They would have celebrated your death. I did what I had to do to protect you and your mother. I never thought a thousand years would pass before I was awakened. It was only supposed to be a few months, a few years perhaps, to buy us some time. We had no idea that our council would be killed before they could awaken us.”
“There was only one condition for your armies to be awakened,” she said, remembering Revna’s words. “Your condition was that once I wielded the D?d Svaerd, you and your armies would awake. You wanted me to grow up and avenge our people. You always had it set up that way, didn’t you?”
“That is not true.”
“Then—”
“You were the backup plan,” he said. “Our council was supposed to free us, but they were killed.”
“So you wanted me to be a part of this all? For me to grow up to fight the humans?”
“You are our heir,” Vidar gritted out. “Of course you would fight. In an ideal world, I would have ended the war so you could reign as queen during your time, without interruption from the humans . You would have taken our position naturally once your time came. But that is not what happened.”
“You …” Her throat thickened with emotion. “You cannot play the part of a loving father.”
“Why not?” Vidar’s eyes narrowed again. “Are you afraid because you thought me a cruel monster?”