Page 113 of The Half King
His jaw dropped. “How did you do that?”
“The goddess wants you to hear me.”
He seemed to have forgotten his enchantment over Cole, who had freed one leg and was trying to drag himself out of the prayer room. As Father Padron shook his head in bewilderment, he noticed the motion. With no more attention than a man would pay to a fly, he waved a hand, and in response, Cole’s neck snapped in half and his body crumpled to the floor.
Cerise covered her mouth.
“It was a cleaner death than he deserved,” Father Padron mused, nudging Cole with his shoe. “If you repent, I can spare you from this, Cerise.”
The lie slid so smoothly from his lips that she almost believed him. “Did you do this to Mother Strout, too?” she asked, and as she pictured the late emissary’s black-and-white journal, she finally realized why Mother Strout had hidden the ritual for breaking the curse. She had known the priests were a threat, and she had wanted to delay their freedom from bondage to the king for as long as she could. “Did she find out the truth about you and Cole?”
Father Padron didn’t sayyes, but he didn’t deny it.
That was answer enough. He had murdered a Seer—a devoted lady of the temple, revered by all who had known her, and the former emissary to two kings. Father Padron’s crimes went beyond the unlawful torture and killing of laymen. Not even sisters of Shiera’s Order were safe from this man.
Cerise retreated a pace toward the altar. She still wore the Petros Blade on her back. She didn’t want to use it, but unless she could find a way to make him listen, she might have to.
She knew she wouldn’t reach him by contradicting his beliefs; he would only accuse her of heresy. She had to find a different approach. But before she had a chance to try, Nina came sprinting so quickly into the prayer room that her veil molded to her face.
Nina threw herself in front of Cerise and shouted, “Stay away from her!”
Tensing, Cerise prepared to defend her sister, but Nina didn’t need her help. Father Padron rocked back on his heels as if Nina had physically struck him. Then Nina threw back her veil, and he cried out in anguish, shielding his eyes like a creature of the night shrinking away from the sun.
What was happening?
All Cerise could do was volley her gaze back and forth between her sister and Father Padron for some sign as to what had brought him to his knees. She couldn’t figure it out. Nina’s heaving chest and trembling hands said she was just as terrified of him as he was of her.
Why were they so afraid of each other?
As Nina stood over him, Father Padron peeked at her from between his fingers. His glances were tentative at first, brief glimpses that turned longer and bolder until he lowered both hands and straightened to full height. A smile unfurled across his mouth, a grin so full of venom that it raised chills on the back of Cerise’s neck.
“It doesn’t work anymore,” he told Nina, who cradled her rounded belly while inching backward. “Your power over me is dead.” He spoke as if they knew each other, which didn’t make sense. Until he raised a triumphant chin and added, “You won’t seduce me again.”
The full force of realization struck Cerise with a blow that knocked her breathless. She collapsed in front of the altar, barely noticing when her knees gave out. The truth was too big to make room for her senses. She had been wrong, so very wrong. It wasn’t Mama who had caught Father Padron’s eye in Solon all those years ago.
It was Nina.
The floor seemed to tilt. Cerise gripped the tiles, but it was in vain. Her whole axis had shifted, and now she didn’t know which way was up. Mama was her grandmother. And Father was her grandfather, which meant she was a Solon after all.
And her sister…
She raised her gaze to Nina’s belly. That was where she would find her sibling. She peered at Nina’s face just long enough to see a hundred apologies written in the lines around her mouth.My mother. Cerise couldn’t reconcile it with the truth. Her brain refused to allow it. Nina shook her head in a reminder that Father Padron hadn’t made the connection. He still didn’t know that he had a child.
“You might as well hear the rest,” he said, his narrowed eyes fixed on Nina. “This is the reason for my sin. She used sorcery to seduce me.”
“No,” Nina whispered. “That’s not what happened.”
“Don’t deny it,” he snapped. “No one else has ever tempted me. Even when I met you, I was unimpressed by your face. But you kept coming back, bringing me sweet cakes and smiling and watching me with those eyes, making it harder to turn away until the sight of you consumed me. You invaded my every thought. How do you explain that if not by sorcery?”
“Love,” Cerise said, scrambling up from the floor. “It makes the Solon allure stronger. That’s why her face entranced you—because you loved her. But you don’t feel that way anymore, so the allure doesn’t work.” Cerise took another step forward, approaching him as though he were a wounded animal. She hadn’t expected him to listen to her, but when he furrowed his brow in consideration, she saw her chance and kept going. “It didn’t happen overnight, did it? The first time you met her, you thought she was beautiful but nothing more. Then, as you got to know her, she became more and more striking until you couldn’t bear it.”
His silence told her she was right.
“I know the feeling because I love her, too,” she went on. “Nina doesn’t want to hurt anyone. If she did, she would use her face as a weapon instead of hiding it behind a veil.” Cerise pulled her necklace from beneath her dress and showed him the battered pendant that had been protecting her since her arrival at the palace. Now she understood where it had come from and why Father Padron had looked so drained each time it had saved her life. He had tied it to his own energy. “You gave this to her, didn’t you? You made a ring, and then you linked your power to it to protect her. You wanted to keep her safe because you loved her. The goddess wouldn’t fault you for that.”
For two long heartbeats, she held her breath and watched him digest her words, weighing them against the certainty he had clung to for his entire life. She knew firsthand the fear of letting go, like falling backward with no safe place to land. His eyes gave her hope. There was an open window inside them, barely wide enough to admit a breeze of doubt.
But in the end, the window slammed shut, and just like that, she lost him.
