Page 104 of Tarnished Crown
Besides, if my father really was there, he would probably kill Evander on sight. And if he wasn’t, there was no need to drag Evander into whatever trap I was walking into.
Either way, I couldn’t risk leaving my father waiting. I at least needed to go see him. To talk to him and know that he was real, that he was truly here. Then I could explain things to Evander.
If I woke Evander now, he would never let me go alone.
Decision made, I followed Taisiya out onto the balcony, though I didn’t drop my weapon. She shut the door behind us gently and handed me the dress. Evander still didn’t stir, and a suspicion entered my mind.
“Did you drug him?”
“It was only a root to help him fall asleep faster, but it won’t keep him that way. We don’t have much time.” The slight accent she had been using slipped, pure Lochlannian common tongue shining through.
“How?” I asked.
“You didn’t think Socair was the only one with informants on the other side, did you?” she chided in a low tone. “I am loyal to Lochlann, Your Highness.”
I hadn’t thought about that, but it made sense. A lot of her actions made sense, actually, and her disapproval.
Besides, women made the perfect spies in a land that largely refused to see them.
Quickly, I slipped into the dress, wiping the frozen snow from the balcony off on Evander’s shirt before sliding into the fur-lined boots. She wrapped my cloak around my shoulders, and I slipped Evander’s black shirt into the deep pockets, unable to bring myself to leave it behind.
We climbed onto the roof, over to a small, secluded balcony, and back through the house and down into the kitchens without incident. She navigated our way through, pausing me a few times if a guard was making rounds.
We didn’t stop, though, until we had passed the stables, finally tucking into a shadow behind them.
There was no one here.
I turned to her, ready to accuse her of making the entire thing up, but she had disappeared. Then, I heard a voice that nearly brought me to my knees.
“Rowan.” Even in that single broken, whispered word, my father’s brogue was evident.
I spun slowly, hardly daring to hope. “Da’?”
He was wearing a hat over his hair and a fur cloak that covered his towering, broad form, but I would recognize him anywhere.
I froze, blurting out the first thing that came to mind. “As it turns out, I could not go five minutes without doing something stupid.”
I had only seen my father cry twice, once when the babe died and once when Mac did. But he barked out something that felt like a mix between a laugh and a sob, closing the distance between us and cocooning his arms around me. He was gentle enough that I suspected he knew about the flogging.
I didn’t move, just soaked in his familiar forest scent and the safety of arms that had held me so many times before for such smaller reasons. Tears spilled down my cheeks, soaking his cloak, but still, neither of us moved.
“Da’. You came for me.” I tried to stifle my sobs.
“Nothin’ in this world could have stopped me from coming for ye, Rowan.” His voice held nothing but resolution now, underlined with pure steel. “Y’er my daughter.”
“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry I left.”
He ran a hand over my hair, meeting my eyes with his.
“It doesna matter now. Y’er here, and y’er alive, and now we can go home and put this all be--” My father cut off abruptly, his attention abruptly fixed on something over my head.
I stiffened, twisting around to see what had startled him, and my heart dropped into the pit of my stomach.
Evander.
CHAPTER68
“Lemmikki, when I said you were an escape risk, I’ll admit, I didn’t actually think it was true.” His voice was cold, but there was an undertone there. Hurt? Betrayal?