Page 46 of The Midnight Arrow

“Where I grew up,” he murmured quietly after a brief silence lapsed, “is much different from Rolara. And my father was a very strict male. He had a strong sense of morality, of good and bad. For someone like him, there was no in-between. He couldn’t see the differing shades of both, the spectrum of it, even how it can change from one moment to the next. Once you wronged him, you wronged him forever. And he never forgot it, even for his children.”

I listened with almost bated breath, fearing that if I made a single move he would get skittish and stop speaking.

“I don’t want to be like that,” he admitted. “That severe. There is no room for mistakes with someone like that. And all people make mistakes. Even if they think they’re right, someone else will think they’re wrong.”

The back of my neck prickled with something I heard in his voice. Almost like…an apology.

“I imagine that must’ve been difficult growing up,” I said quietly, wishing I could see his face, but he kept me tucked intohis front and we both stared at the wall as our words drifted around us. Maybe it was better like this.

“There was very little time to grow up” was what he replied.

“You said you knew you had a purpose. You always knew what you would become,” I commented.

“Yes, because of my family’s legacy. My father was what I am now. My duty was once his. As was my grandmother’s, my grandfather’s, and even before them. The line stretches back far. One of us had to take on the duty of it.”

“One of us?” I asked quietly.

“My sister. Or my brother at one time,” he said. “But it was not what my sister wanted, or even what she was suited for. And my brother…he died long ago.”

“I’m sorry,” I whispered. “I didn’t realize you had lost a sibling as well.”

“My father takes on most of the grief these days. He died on a hunt with my father, tracking down a rogue Shade in the north. My brother and I were both trained for the hunts. I just think my father expected it would be Denon to take his position, not me.”

I filed away his brother’s name in my mind. Denon.

“You want to know the worst part?” he murmured into my ear. “I think my father wishes it was me, not Denon, who had died that day.”

“Don’t say that,” I whispered, not caring that Lorik held me in place for a reason. I struggled to turn in his arms, not caring that there was very little room and that my back ached as I twisted to meet his eyes. “Lorik, don’t say that.”

“If you ever met my father, you might think differently,” he pointed out.

His eyes were glowingvibrantly. I could never understand why they did that, if Lorik was simply strumming with magic, if it had to me with me—he’d told me how easily he felt his magicwith me—or the cottage—he’d also said that he could feel the magic in the earth of my land.

“I think he hates how good I am at it,” Lorik continued, that gaze burning into mine, and I witnessed a side of him I’d never experienced before. His anger. His vulnerability. His hurt. “But I also think he hates himself for it.”

“What?”

“I told you…he is only guided by what is right and what is wrong. The code he lives by, the code he’s sworn his entire life to. His morals tell him that he cannot wish death on his other son. What kind of father would he be, then? And he struggles.”

“And…and your sister?”

“Thela,” he whispered. There was sadness in his tone. “We all would do anything for Thela. She is the good in us all. The best of us all.”

There was something I was missing. I could hear it. His tone almost sounded like he was grieving for her.

“Is she…she’s not dead, is she?”

Lorik’s eyes met mine. Back and forth they flit between them. His brow was furrowed. The sudden change of him was jarring. Even his features seemed sharper, reminding me of that mirage I’d seen when we’d first made love. Gone was the relaxed man who stroked my body gently or whose smile came easy.Thiswas Lorik too. The side he hid. Because he didn’t want me to see?

But didn’t he understand? I wanted to know all of him. I wanted to know every little thing about him, about his upbringing, about his family, about everything that made him smile or what made him angry.

“No,” he whispered. “She’s not dead.”

I pressed my hand to his chest and was surprised when I felt his heart pumping hard beneath it.

“Lorik?” I asked quietly. “What is it? You can tell me—you know that, don’t you?”

His eyes closed, and the blue glow from his eyes faded, sinking us further into darkness. I hadn’t realized that the sunset’s light had gradually begun to fade. Now the washroom was entirely too dark without his eyes.