the first time in months, she felt a bit of happiness.
When her father found out what she had done, he stormed into her room. “Willomenia, where are your servants?” he demanded.
She was standing near the window, looking out, and turned when she heard her father’s voice. “I have no servants. They were all my nursemaids and I no longer need their services.”
Baltrasard’s face softened at the thick chestnut mane that fell between the frail contours of her shoulders. He went to her bed and sat down on its edge. “I thought I’d lost you forever.”
“I was on my way back to visit you when I was snatched.”
He turned to face her and stared at her for an unsettling moment. “You look older, and far less innocent.”
“Time with the Catchers will do that.”
“Why did you choose to stay with him?” her father asked. “You know he is my enemy. You’ve eavesdropped in the halls of Silvergard enough time to know how I hate him.”
Relieved to hear her father finally acknowledge Caleb’s existence, Willow closed her eyes and held her breath. She sat in a chair by the window and looked out. “I chose to stay with him because he’s better than all of us, Father. He’s noble.”
“Do noble men hunt people down and cut their throats whilst screaming into the air like savages?”
“The people he killed were Catchers, and I’m glad he killed them.” Her voice was riddled with sorrow and regret, and finally she looked at him, feeling the pull of his gaze. Their eyes met, the same strength flowing in each set. “I know everything,” she told him, and it was such a great relief to admit it, her shoulders fell from around her ears.
“What do you know, daughter?” His voice was so quiet she almost didn’t hear him.
“I know you killed their father, King Samuel. I know you took over the throne that belonged to his son.”
Her father’s face paled to ghostly white. He meant to bolt to his feet, but he felt too weak to stand. King Samuel’s son. Caleb was King Samuel’s son? No! “You said their father.”
She nodded. “The king’s daughter, Shauna.”
He held his hand up to his head. “I…I wanted the land. I wasn’t the only one. There was profit to be made.”
“In water and wood,” she said feeling ill that she was related to him.
“I’m not the first to do such a thing. Countries are taken all the time.”
“But you destroyed their lives.”
“I wasn’t thinking of their lives. I was thinking of yours, and your mother’s.” He blew a breath into his hands, and his daughter watched him carefully.
“Why did you trade all the water?”
Baltrasard rose to his feet and paced the room slowly. “I suppose every man has sins that come back to haunt him, but it grieves my heart that it is my daughter who brings mine back. I did not know what it would do to Predaria, Willomenia.” His eyes pleaded with her to understand. She wanted to go to him but remained in her chair.
“You don’t know the suffering you’ve caused, Father. He hates you for it.” Her voice quivered as a fleeting memory of Caleb’s face danced across her mind.
“And you, daughter?” He stopped pacing and looked at her.
“I could never hate you.”
He closed his eyes and expelled a great breath.
“You closed all the churches,” she reminded him, and for the first time, he had no reply. “Why did you do that?”
He shrugged his shoulders. “God doesn’t live in Predaria anymore.” He laughed at himself and it was a pitiful sound.
“He does live there.” His daughter informed him. “Things grow there, gardens and shrubs, and fields filled with vivid green and then glorious gold.”
“And does your Caleb live there with God?”
“Yes,” Willow told him, her eyes turning cold. “And I want to live there with him and his God.”
“Stop speaking such non—”
“I mean it. And if anything should befall him, I will leave you. You will never see my face again.”
Her father paled. “You wouldn’t.”
“I would not…could not live with the guilt of his death on my head.”
Baltrasard nodded and fell back onto the bed. He was quiet for a long time while Willow continued to look out her window at nothing in particular.
“I understand this man showed you the suffering of the masses, Willomenia,” he finally said. “Now you think you should make amends for the wrongs I’ve done, but—”
“He didn’t show me suffering. He showed me happiness and life. I learned about suffering from the Catchers.”
Baltrasard’s