Page 247 of The Mercy of Dawn

If his absent stare across the room was any indicator…too many times.

“And truthfully, Cyr,” he continued, pulling his eyes back to her, “even if I had known last night… Well, I don’t think I’m high on the list of people you’d want to keep you company.”

Cyril nodded, her lips drawn in a tight line.

They both knew he was right.

Even him being there now felt so many shades of fucked up.

Some deep-rooted part of her felt sated and safe to be around him. The child within her, maybe, that thought her uncle was an infallible, trustworthy man. But there was a larger part of her now that feared her own flesh and blood, the monster that he had become.

“I’m still sorry you had to deal with it, with me,” she said, wincing as she rubbed at the aching muscle beneath the scarred skin on her thigh. “I feel like that’s not very high on the list of things you want to be burdened with.”

Cyril raised her brow, hoping to the gods it would break some of the simmering tension in the room.

It did not.

“Taking care of you is something I will never be mad about having to do, kiddo, so please don’t apologize. You aren’t a burden, and you never have been. I—” Dion sighed, shaking his head. “I fear I owe you a great number of apologies and explanations, and I’m not sure where to start.”

That knocked the air from Cyril’s lungs.

Dion was not the sort of man to admit fault for anything, but apologies were something she was not ready to field from him. That would involve putting what he did to her—what he’s done to her—to words, giving it merit and credence and reality.

No part of her was steady enough to cross that bridge.

Not now, and maybe never.

So she took a slow breath, trying to ignore that pulling ache stirring up in her chest again, and looked Dion right in the eyes as she said, “I want explanations.”

Dion blinked at her, a current of surprise flickering in his features. Maybe relief, even. Whatever he expected from her, it wasn’t that. But Cyril wasn’t about to squander the opportunity.

“Anything,” he breathed.

“Your scar. How did you get it?”

A pained, dry laugh left Dion as he turned his eyes up at the ceiling. “Right to it then.”

“It was during your ascension, wasn’t it?”

“Yes, it was.” His gaze slid over to her, uncomfortable as all fucking hells. “I suppose you’d like to know the details of that as well?”

Cyril nodded, and Dion took a slow breath.

“I was twenty-nine when it happened—” A far cry from the it was a long time ago and I don’t remember the specifics spiel he gave her the last time she broached this subject. “—and I had just fulfilled a fairly, well…political contract for the guild that resulted in some…retribution.”

Confidence was not something Dion usually spoke without, but there was not a measure of it to be found in his words now, the slow and cautious things they were.

“The home I lived at in the city was ransacked while my…partner and I were out having an evening to ourselves, and they waited for us. My senses were…dulled, and they took us by surprise. I woke up in a barn somewhere remote, and they killed her in front of me.”

Cyril stilled.

The embroidered edge of the duvet she’d been toying with slipped through her fingers.

“Your partner?”

Rogues didn’t have dedicated partners. If a contract was deemed risky or high-profile enough, they may be assigned someone to work in tandem with, but—

“My wife,” Dion said, with the sort of defeat she was certain she never heard him speak with. Like that singular word caused him agony.