“It seems you know everything,” she said with a sigh as if she alone carried the weight of the world. “If I answer your question, will you answer one of mine?” I opened my mouth on a retort, to tell her she owed me an explanation at least and I owed her nothing, but she beat me to the punch. “Just o
“I – I never –“ “I am sure you made that poison knowing who Hawke would target,” I cut her off. She bowed yet again. “Even if you say you became Hawke’s puppet to ensure he never went looking for me, I can’t believe you since you are helping him against my mate. Hurting Killian is the same as hurti
“Just – forgot I said that.” I never thought my first proper conversation with my mother would end in a screaming match. “And you don’t have to protect me anymore. Killian does a good enough job.” Her expression turned pained. “Maybe live for yourself rather than sticking to Hawke because you think
“You are hiding something,” Killian said to me that night. He returned early today of all days, a day when I wanted to think more than I wanted to talk. “What am I hiding?” I pretended to not understand what he meant. “How would I know? You are even refusing to look at me.” His words sounded like
“He hated everything about the monarchy and used to joke about running away and changing his name to Samuel. That’s why – that’s why when I heard he took – he took his life, I believed.” He covered his face with his palm. “He – He was not the type to do that and I suspected something off but he hate
We watched in silence as she gave a forced laugh and then let out a sob. “Seth – my good boy – I knew – I knew he was not happy but what did I do – I kept pushing him and, in the end – in the end, he decided he had enough.” She wiped the corner of her eyes. “If anyone killed him, I did. I pushed him
“No, that’s not what happened –“ She shook her head, her voice weak. “You believed you pushed him to suicide while trying to make sure the world saw him as my better so I am sure you hated me even more after his death. After all, if I never existed, you would have never had to push him so hard, you
To stop Hawke, we had to act fast. If priests came out to discredit Killian and his lineage, things would become more difficult to handle. Before that happened, we sent a secret message to the High Priest who would help us put in a request to see the High Priestess. Esther, Fraser’s mate came to se