“Who’s the father?” Orion asked quietly.I couldn’t make myself say his name.He closed his eyes.“…Lucien.”It wasn’t a question. It was the sound of a father’s heart breaking for his daughter.⸻“The spy can wait,” Orion told the guard, not even turning his head. “My daughter cannot.”The guard vanished back down the path, and my father sank onto the stone bench beneath the moon trees, waiting for me to finish what I’d barely started, his hands folded so tightly together his knuckles had gone pale.I told him everything. The crystals. The healer’s trembling hands. Not one child.Four.His face moved through disbelief, then grief, then something harder … rage that had nowhere to land … before settling into a guilt so raw it made my own chest ache to watch it settle over him, his shoulders curling inward like the weight of it was physical.“If I’d found you sooner,” he said, voice cracking down the middle, “…none of this would have happened.”I had no comfort to offer him. I wasn’t su
آخر تحديث : 2026-07-21
