“Is it kneeling if we are forced to do it?” Harlyn asked. “I recognize one ruler only, king of the Halderians, Simon Hatch.”
“Do not say his name here!” I had it in mind to crush her heart for her words, but instead, her words were already crushing mine. I’d tried desperately to seal my heart against pain, against any further wounds, but if simply hearing his name hurt this way, then all my efforts had been in vain. With such scattered emotions, I could not collect the magic within me to punish her properly. So instead, I said, “Do you think that because I spared your life the last time you were in this room that I will do so again? You’d be
wrong to think so. You were only the trick I needed to finish my task. I warned you to leave before, and I promise that your life will be measured in minutes if you do not leave now, and stay gone.”
“She has come with me.” Darrow rose to his feet and walked closer to the dais where I stood. “Kestra, I must speak to you.”
I arched a brow. Yes, perhaps I was his daughter, but I was also his queen. He could not demand anything of me.
Still … I was curious.
“What do you want?”
“I need to see for myself if you are well. If you are … yourself.” There was more to this conversation than that. Sadness and disappointment were etched deeply into his face.
“I’m better than I was before. I succeeded in my quest—Endrick is dead.”
“Yes, I know.”
“Then why do you look as if I’ve just told you I failed? Endrick is dead, Darrow!”
“Is he?” My father took one step closer to me. “Or does he remain alive in you?”
“I am not Endrick!” I shouted, descending the steps, heat building the closer I came to him. “Endrick has no possession of me, no influence on me, nothing! I am your daughter, as I always was!”
Darrow shook his head. “No, Kestra, you are not.”
“You call me by the same name I’ve always used.”
“And yet you answer with a different voice. There is an edge to it now, anger.”
I brushed past him to gaze out the vast windows at the side of the throne room. Here, we were high above the ground and able to see the outskirts of Highwyn, areas of farmland and travel routes to and from the city. These roads were usually full and purposeful, and I wondered if they’d be empty tomorrow. I stared at them and said, “Should I not be angry? Where are the crowds to greet their new queen? Where are the midnight parades to celebrate that I have freed them from Endrick’s grasp?”
“Where is the daughter who risked herself to save two servants from the Coracks? The girl who defined her freedom by the miles she could run each day, the distance she could explore in the waning sunset? Where is my daughter, Kestra?”
“Leave me.” Anger flared within my chest. “That girl was a child, but now she has seen too much to be that naïve again. Your daughter is gone.”
“My daughter is still here, beneath layers of powerful magic, laced with tragedy.” Darrow stood at my side to stare out the window, and finally turned to me. “Nothing in this room will make you happy. Come back to us, to those who love you and care for you.”
“Joth loves me.” Didn’t he?
“No, Kestra. Pain and doubt and fear sometimes wear fine gilded masks that pretend to be love, but they are lies. Joth’s heart has become numb to anything but his own wishes, and he cannot love. Please, walk away from this.”
I shook my head. “This is the reason I’ve sacrificed all that I have. Why else was I chosen as the Infidante if not for this?”
“You were tasked with killing Endrick, not replacing him. You sacrificed to save others from what he could do, and you did so with immense courage. But none of what you did was ever meant to bring you to this place.”
“There is no other place for me. If I do not sit at the top of Antora, I will be crushed by those who climb over me to reach the throne.”
“Then come away with me.” Darrow stretched out his hand, earnest in his expression. “If there is nowhere else, we can return to the Lava Fields, and there you can start over.”
For a brief moment, I wanted to take his hand, to be the girl I once was, in a time that seemed ages ago. But I clutched my hand into a fist and backed away from him. “I have work to do here. I must build a new army, control my enemies, and create a circle of loyalists around me. That’s where I will start, right here in this room. With my father by my side, I hope.”
Slowly, Darrow exhaled, and his shoulders hunched. “I will not be a loyalist to you, Kestra. I cannot.”
Incredulous at his words, I stopped to stare at him. “What do you mean?”
“I will not kneel to this person you are now, not willingly. I will love you always, as a father, but I will not serve you, nor heed your orders, nor acknowledge you as anyone with authority over me.”