I climb into her bed, tears falling faster than I can process them as I tell her what happened, I realize we both know the truth, now: Papa doesn’t love us, and he never will.
That’s what the gods took from him that second time he tried to steal their magic—his heart.
Rogan Rosenblathe truly was a heartless man.
* * *
It feels as though hours pass before Nelly breaks away with a gasp that Bastian and I echo, ending the curse at once. Even back in reality though, my mind lingers to the final parts of Nelly’s memories.
She and her mother snuck away that same week, leaving Rogan far behind. They went to live with her mother’s family in Suntosu, where Ornell changed her name and took up restoration magic at the age of twelve before later moving to Curmana for work. She never saw her papa again, and I’m glad for it.
And yet it’s not Nelly who’s at the forefront of my mind as the memories drag to an end, nor is it the fact that using this godwoken magic has a steep price I’d never known until now—to have what you most want, you must give up what you most love.
Right now, that doesn’t matter. All that matters is that Rogan Rosenblathe had successfully used the godwoken’s magic to reunite with the dead.
And if he could do it, what’s stopping me from doing the same?
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Nelly’s cheeks are soaked with tears, and there’s surprise in her wide emerald eyes.
“Sorry.” She’s quick to dab her cheek with the hem of her shirt. “I’m so sorry, I don’t know what came over me. It’s just … He’s not someone I like to think about.”
“There’s no reason to apologize.” Bastian’s expression is one of deep sympathy. “Some memories are easier left forgotten.” I don’t miss the shadows that sink into his skin, hollowing his eyes. I feel the emotion brewing within him, and though I can’t read his thoughts, his yearning is enough to tell me he’s thinking of a time long before this. A time when he was still on Zudoh with his family.
A time before his brother stole that life from him, and took my father from me.
“It was actually cathartic, in a way.” Nelly’s smile is thin as a reed, and her airy voice too sharp. “He was an awful man, and yet I spent years obsessing over him and his damn maps. I guess … I think I saw some of my father in Elias. I hadn’t been able to help my father, but I thought that maybe I could help Elias, you know? It’s hard to admit sometimes that others aren’t your responsibility. There was nothing I could have done to help either of them.”
Bastian’s eyes are all over me. Unlike Ferrick, who’d be sending me silent messages to be more sensitive, Bastian looks as intrigued as I am when I ask, “Nelly, were you ever able to find anything out from those maps?”
Nelly’s eyes darken, lips screwing tight. “Whatever my father was after, Your Majesty, you don’t want to touch. The magic he used is something that shouldn’t be part of this world. It’s something no human should ever know.”
I straighten as well as I can to look her in the eye, putting every ounce of power I have into my voice. “If you figured out where to find the godwoken, I need for you to tell me. Don’t give me a reason to make it an order.”
Though it lasts only a moment, her resolve cracks. Fresh tears spring to her eyes. “Valuka” is all she whispers for a long moment, as if struggling with the moral battle of dragging the words out of herself. “As I said, I was obsessed with him. Even when my mother and I fled, I read everything I could about the godwoken. I wasted too many years tracking them, as if finding one could make my father love me, or realize I was worth something.” She scoffs, lowering her head. “There were many rumored sightings of the godwoken, especially around Kerost. People believed that since storms are so frequent there, it must have something to do with angry godwoken living in the waters near it. But I never liked that legend. It seemed too easy.
“There was another one that stood out to me, though. About a mythical serpent that lives in the depths of Valuka’s volcanos,” Nelly continues. “The volcanos are active, so it’s challenging to confirm if such a creature