BooksBarbecue
Back We Are Blood and Thunder
Chapters (32)
  1. PROLOGUE
  2. ONE
  3. TWO
  4. THREE
  5. FOUR
  6. FIVE
  7. SIX
  8. SEVEN
  9. EIGHT
  10. NINE
  11. TEN
  12. ELEVEN
  13. TWELVE
  14. THIRTEEN
  15. FOURTEEN
  16. FIFTEEN
  17. SIXTEEN
  18. SEVENTEEN
  19. EIGHTEEN
  20. NINETEEN
  21. TWENTY
  22. TWENTY-ONE
  23. TWENTY-TWO
  24. TWENTY-THREE
  25. TWENTY-FOUR
  26. TWENTY-FIVE
  27. TWENTY-SIX
  28. TWENTY-SEVEN
  29. TWENTY-EIGHT
  30. TWENTY-NINE
  31. EPILOGUE
  32. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Winton wasn’t a suspicious person, she thought—it wasn’t in his character. But she could tell he didn’t quite believe her. If you can’t tell the whole truth, tell part of it. She stopped suddenly and turned to face him again. “Look, Winton … I am sorry about your mother. I know you loved her truly. But … she bore little affection for me. She was desperate for you to be the heir to the duchy. She hated the fact that you and I were close. And she must’ve been glad when I disappeared.”

He hung his head, knowing it was true. “So … you left because of her? But I still don’t understand. You were—you are—the heir to the Forest. In sending you away, Father severed your ties to the Ancestors … And now…” He shook his head, as if his thought were too terrible to finish.

Now I’m an outcast. Constance felt like laughing; Winton didn’t know the half of it.

He continued: “Surely nothing can be worth that?”

She paused for a moment, measuring her words carefully. “In all honesty, Winton, I never had as strong a connection to the Ancestors as I should have. Once your mother made her feelings known, I started to feel unwelcome here—to feel different, foreign.” She kept her voice low, sincere. “And I was, sort of. I may look more like Father, but inside I have always been my mother’s child—outward-facing, curious about the world and my place in it.” She paused again. “Honestly, I asked Father to send me away. I wanted to find the other half of my family. Mother died when I was very young, so I never really knew her, or them, or where they lived. I guess … I guess I wanted to find a place where I belonged.”

“But why all the secrecy? Why didn’t you say goodbye?” His voice was low, steady—but she had the sense that these were questions he’d wanted to ask for a very long time. She felt an ache in her heart: he’d only been nine. Her departure really had hurt him.

“Father couldn’t bear it, Winton. He saw the wisdom in it—but it was also a shameful thing, and painful. He said that if I was to go, I had to just go. And so he sent me off in the middle of the night.” Another half-truth. She could still feel how hard he’d grasped her arm, the desperation in his voice. Just run. Run. Before they find out.