Page 49 of 'Til All the Seas Run Dry

“And now?”

She didn’t need to answer. You didn’tjuststop loving someone because they hurt you. She couldn’t, anyway. The question wasn’t whether she loved him; she’d love him until the world ceased to be, be it with a bang or a sigh. But that didn’t mean she could stay.

“I see,” her father said. “You will remain here with him then?’

“No,” Jory answered, the word strong and easy. “No, I will not stay with him. I love him. But I don’t trust him. I can’t forgive him for?—”

She was torn. On the one hand, she wanted to tell her father what Callum had done, what he hadbecome. But she another part of her was protective of him, of hisguilt.

“I know what he did,” her father said.

“What?” Jory gasped. “You knew? And you never said anything? You didn’t try to stop him?”

It was her father’s turn to sigh. “I was not there. I had business in another sea. And when I returned to check on you, you were gone. But there are eyes everywhere, and they told me. They told me what he’d done. They told me that you’d gone.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I thought you knew.”

“How the hell would I know?”

Her father leaned forward, his head in his hands and his elbows on his knees, a shockinglyhumanposture. “You disappeared for five hundred years! And when you returned, you deliberately never spoke of that night. You never spoke ofhim. I assumed you wanted to forget him after such a betrayal.”

Hot tears scalded as they gathered in her eyes.

“You struggled for so long, my darling. For centuries. Running from these foolish humans. Scrapping and barely getting by. And still you never evenmentionedhim. I thought—well, it doesn’t matter what I thought. I should never have assumed. I was wrong, and I am sorry.”

She wanted to hold onto that flash of anger. It was so much easier to clutch at than her aching sadness, her regret. But she couldn’t.

“He wants me to see him four times. And then he will take me to my sealskin.”

Her father lifted his head and sat up, staring at the far horizon. “And you agreed to this?”

“Yes. But I think I’m going to go back tell him that I can’t. I shouldn’t have to give him anything. I shouldn’t have to see him four times to get what it rightfully mine. He should take me now.”

She’d expected immediate agreement from him. He continued staring at the horizon.

“You gave up eternity for this man. You sacrificed your safety, your comfort, the life you knew to be with him. You stood in front of me and told me that fate brought you to him, that your destinies were intertwined.”

Jory snorted, more tears gathering, threatening to fall. “Add it to the list of things I’ve been wrong about.”

But her father was quiet for another long moment. “I don’t think you were wrong.”

“But you said?—”

“And I was right. He did hurt you. He did keep you from us. He did bring about your misery. But that doesn’t mean that you were not also right. I think fate did bring you to him. I believe that your destinies were intertwined.”

Jory gaped at him.

“We cannot become the people we are destined to be alone.”

“I just want to go home,” she said, her voice thick with tears, and her father gathered her close, wrapping an arm tightly around her shoulders and holding her against his side.

“You will,” he said confidently. “I know you will. I feel it. You will see your mother soon and rest in the depths and find peace.”

It was on the tip of her tongue to say that she would tell Callum that she had changed her mind, that she wanted the skin now, that he had no right to hold onto it. But her father spoke first. “You have been treading water for nearly a thousand years, my love. For him. Because you said loving him was worth it. Wouldbeworth it.”

“So?”