Page 91 of Light Locked
She felt the faintest ping of longing as the weight of responsibilities she could hardly muster settled onto her shoulders. Her heart turned in her chest, reaching for the woods, and she steeled herself for what was to come.Her mind flickered briefly to the dark figures that she and Ryson had seen in the castle, enemies lurking in a foreign land, targeting the royal families. She wondered briefly if her father knew about those too, but quickly pushed the thought from her mind. She’d save those deliberations for later.
“I’m a healer,” she breathed, looking out at the city, seeing its strong walls, and streets filled with warriors. Loda was a powerful beast that required powerful reigns, and there was so much at risk in mishandling it.
“Then heal the world,” her father replied with simple acceptance.
Arms still crossed, she looked over at him over her shoulder. “Before I left, you thought me little more than breeding stock.” She spoke without malice. She’d thought through it too much to have any anger left, and so she delivered it like a fact.
“Before you left, you were,” he replied. There was no apology, only the simplicity of his truth. He too, spoke without derision. She’d once been unable to suffer a protest under his gaze. The unfeeling nature of his logic, the sharp swing of his demands had been too much to battle in her ignorance of the world. She wondered if she’d become a healer to be the farthest thing from what ruling had made him.
“If I rule,” she said, “I will not be shaped into you, nor everything you expect.”
“You could not rule if you did,” he replied, “and you will rule.”
“You’re so certain,” she shot back firmly with an edge of warning in her voice.
“Clea Hart,” he said. “You traveled weeks through the dark forests with the Deadlock Medallion, and a diseased body, facing peril and turmoil to bring it to our doorstep despite your own life. You act surprised when I wonder if you came for the throne, but what else do you expect?”
Her brows furrowed as she faced him. She disagreed with the grandness of his proclamations. If only he knew her doubts and failures along the way, he would not be so intent to praise the accomplishment, but she could not hide the seeds of truth in it.
“You are much more ambitious to change this world than you realize,” her father said. “When we tried to shape you, you divorced from the world, telling your secrets to plants and escaping into meditations. When the disease came to claim your siblings and yourself, you practiced healing against all urging, popularity and recommendations. When we tried to marry you off, you escaped. We never hid the truth from you because of your weakness. We hid the truth from you because of your strength. You have my stubbornness and your mother’s compassion, our greatest faults and most severe qualities. Your potential for devastation is profound.”
She steeled herself against his words, words he spoke with severity and honesty.
“You were always unfit to be a princess,” he confessed, at last delivering the line that reshaped the lens of her past, “but you very well may have the makings of a queen.”
Clea digested the words in silence, looking a final time beyond the windows, beyond her city, beyond the walls.
Her responsibilities were clear.
She imagined that girl in the castle, lying out upon the altar, and knew she must leave her there forever.
