Page 160 of Sands of Atonement

“Why is she here? Why did you take her?” Ezra rasped.

“You hadn’t figured it out?” He spat blood out of his mouth, but still had a bloody grin across his face.

Ezra’s body was still in the way of my aim.

“Move away, Ezra,” I said behind him. “This kill is mine.”

The man whom I had grown to love and respect stiffened his spine at the sound of my presence and glanced over his shoulder. His brow knitted for a moment before he refocused his attention on Targon.

Targon stepped back as he took me in, his face paling. “You wouldn’t kill your own father, would you?”

Always a question, and it was getting on my last weak nerve. He drugged me for so many days and nights. I wasn’t strong enough to hold on much longer. Ezra took another step back, and this time really looked at me. It was unnerving watching the puzzle pieces fall together right before me. Ezra spun his body toward Targon.

“You,” he spat.

“Me.” Targon grinned once more at Ezra.

I took a step forward, clutching my bow and arrow in my clammy hands.

I could do this. He did this. He did this to me.

“You killed my family, you took me from my brother,” I hissed and released an arrow straight into his diaphragm.

Targon grasped the arrow that plunged into him, and his jaw dropped as he peered into me.

His eyes, deep and brown, glistened with water. Raw pain and hurt brushed across his face.

“Eshe, my… my darling, you must see. You must understand—” Targon began, “—you needed to come with me where you were safe⁠—”

“I don’t want to hear anything you have to say, Targon.” I swallowed thickly. “You have already said enough.”

A quiet blanket fell on the three of us, even the whisper of the winds above us shallowed.

“Listen—”

“Don’t say another word. Your time is over—it was over a long time ago. When you decided to hurt my family.”

“That’s ridic⁠—”

“Don’t you fucking lie.” The veins on Ezra’s neck bulged, but I could tell he was trying to contain himself. He was angry. I could feel the heat coming off him from where I stood. Even I trembled lightly from the protectiveness he had over me.

“I—I did it for her,” Targon explained, lifting himself higher. He glanced my way, “For you, Eshe.”

I saw the truth in it, no matter how much I wanted to hate him. And I did. My stomach began to churn, and suddenly there wasn’t enough air in here to breathe.

“Kavid found out something he shouldn’t have, and the next thing I know, he was attempting to kill Eshe, my daughter. Because he couldn’t stand knowing his own mother was unfaithful,” he explained as he took a step toward me. Ezra sidestepped, seemingly putting himself between Targon and me. “Kavid couldn’t stand another moment knowing the lie that was walking around the palace as the child of a great Qahl.”

I could see so much of him in me. It made me sick. My throat threatened to choke me. It felt like a thousand sand ants crawling over my arms and neck, suffocating me.

“I killed them all,” Targon admitted quietly. “I killed them all for you. I couldn’t have Kavid running his mouth when I was leading something so much greater than the Qahls. When something like that could ruin the very thing I have spent years and years building. Where I was behind the rulers, able to make the difference I’ve always wanted. Where—when I was gone—my name would remain powerful. No matter where I decided to go, my name would be in history, and I could not have my reputation marred. But your brother threatened everything because of a choice I made with your mother. I couldn’t have my position be known in the palace. When I saw the opportunity for the world to think Zyriah’s enemy had killed them on the night of the engagement between the two families, I took it.”

The world began to shift in place.

“You killed them for you,” I hissed, taking another step forward. My arrow pointed to the middle of his glistening forehead. “I never would have wanted my family dead, even when Kavid tried to kill me.”

“Yes, and that’s because you’re a woman. It’s in your nature to forgive and to love when wrong has been done to you. But if the truth came out that you were my daughter, they would have killed you,” his words were quiet. “I would have lost you.”

A cold chill ran down my spine, knowing that what he said was true.