Draconus had grown so large in Arathan’s eyes. Now he grew small again. His father broke the women he loved, and yet feared that Mother Dark would break him. He was but a Consort; resented by the highborn and feared in the Citadel. He had forged an army out of his Houseblades and so earned the suspicions of Urusander’s Legion. He stood as a man beset on all sides.

Yet he leaves her, seeking out not a gift of love, but one of power. He thinks love is a toy. He thinks it shines like a bauble, and he makes every gesture a demand seeking love in return. Therefore, each and every thing that he does must be a thing of many meanings.

But he does not understand that this is his private language, this game of bargaining and the amassing of debts no one else comprehends.

I begin to understand the many lives of my father, and in each guise new flaws are revealed. I once vowed to hurt him if I could. A foolish conceit. Draconus knows nothing but hurts.

Did you love Karish once? Tell me, Father, will the blood of one lover feed the next? Is this the precedent Errastas spoke of? Or did he speak as a god, flush with the lifeblood of a mortal?

Arathan fixed his eyes on his father, who still rode ahead. In days past he would have spurred his mount until he was at his side, and they would converse like a father and son in search of each other, and every wound would be small and every truth would weave its way into the skein between them. He would think this both precious and natural, and value the moments all the more for their unfamiliarity.

Now he chose to remain alone, riding in a reluctant wake, on a path he no longer desired. His thoughts reached back to his memories of Feren – not the bitterness of their departure, but those times when he had shared her warmth. He wished he could surrender to her again. Night after night, if only to show his father a love that worked.

In the months to come, she would swell with the child they had made, and in her village she would fend off the questions and turn away from all the cruel comments stalking her. Her brother would come to blows defending her honour. And all of this would play out in Arathan’s absence, and he would be judged accordingly. Such venom never lost its virulence.

If he had been older, he would have fought for her. If he’d had any other father – not Lord Draconus, Consort and Suzerain of Night – he would have found the courage to defy him. Instead, the father made himself anew in his son. And I bow to it. Again and again, I bow to it.

None of this armour he wore made him strong. It but revealed the weakness of flesh.