Ever the Hunted (Clash of Kingdoms #1)(49)

“No.” The word comes out before I realize I’ve spoken. Even if I cannot discern her lie, my internal gauge doesn’t need to tell me she’s wrong. I knew Papa. He’d never take part in black magic.

“He needed someone to break a curse.” She places her elbows on the table and leans toward me.

“You’re wrong,” I tell her. “My father didn’t know anything about spells or magic or Channelers.” Papa’s stance on magic was clear. I won’t judge what I don’t understand, Britta, and I won’t ever get involved in something I cannot control, and that includes magic. The words he spoke about Channelers are ingrained on my memory.

Enat is wrong. She must be.

Her ocean-colored irises sharpen. “It’s the truth. Your father wrote letters and left them in a hollowed trunk that was charmed so no one else could take them except a certain courier.”

Duff Baron.

“After his first couple letters, when the seriousness of the situation was cause to fear someone might intercept them, I left a charm for your father. Sprinkled on each letter, the charm cloaked the messages. So any intercepted would appear blank.”

If I hadn’t just walked through a tree where no path had been visible earlier, I’d think she was a loon. Still, her claim blindsides me like the day one of the king’s guards informed me of Papa’s death.

My eyes are riveted to her as she pries open the bottom drawer of a knotty dresser beside the table and withdraws a box. Reddish wood shows beneath the cracked yellow paint with the remnants of tiny white flowers. The feminine touches on the box don’t seem to fit with Enat’s gnarled hands and gruffness.

After producing a tiny iron key and opening the lock, Enat withdraws a pile of folded letters.

“The answers you want are here,” she says, more subdued now, as if she can tell she’s shaken my world, and I need a moment to find balance. She offers a sad smile. It’s mixed with other emotions I cannot name. “All your father wrote in the few months before he passed is in this box.”

Any hope I was holding that Enat was wrong about Papa vanishes the moment my fingers graze Papa’s signature.

Oh, Papa.

Cohen’s arm rests on my chair, lending comfort. Enat pushes away from the table and stands. “Take your time” is all she says before she’s out the door with her bow in hand.

I’m dazed like walking through a dream as I sift through the correspondences. I read one dated five months ago.

I’ve checked out the cities that were attacked, and all evidence and accounts from the locals tell me the murders were at the hands of our own men. Shaerdan’s kinsmen aren’t attacking us—?we’re attacking ourselves.

Someone in the king’s inner circle is lying to him, manipulating him into calling up more troops.

Cohen taps the letter. “I’ve spent the last year and a half around the king’s inner circle. I cannot think of a single man who’d betray the king and go to these lengths to start a war.”

Just as Enat said, the letters span three months. Some claim a turn in King Aodren’s behavior, that it’s become erratic. That his decisions make little sense. Papa thought King Aodren’s health was declining due to some kind of magic. He had dropped weight, no longer spoke at court, and spent long hours in his private chambers. Mentions of the war scatter the pages, as well as the king’s brash decision to call on boys as young as fourteen to serve in the army.

As I browse the stack, following the familiar curve of Papa’s scrawled handwriting, Cohen’s statement rings in my head—?We all have our secrets.

Rage surges through me, a sickle cutting me to the core, sharp and swift. I can hardly stand to read the letters, let alone hold the truth of Papa’s lies to me in my hands.

How could he have kept so many secrets? I’m overcome with the urge to rip the letters to hundreds of little pieces. To shred them until they’re unreadable.

Anger burns hotly in the backs of my eyes and threatens to spill down my face, but I hold it back.

“Britt.” Cohen’s hand rubs my back, coming to rest between my shoulder blades. “You don’t have to read them all right now.”

“The captain is on his way to Celize.” I force myself to open another letter, but I have to pause and bat a traitor tear off my cheek. “Maybe he’s already reached the city. We don’t have the luxury of more time.”

I want to ask him why he isn’t shocked by Papa’s mounting pile of secrets. Just thinking the question pricks me with such ugly, uncomfortable feelings, it’s better to push them away.

“Cohen, did you know Papa was writing to Enat?” I wonder aloud.

His face twists with confusion. “If I knew that, we wouldn’t have come all the way to Celize. Why?”

“No reason. I’m sorry.” I rub my arms, which have chilled from the gentle rainstorm echoing outside the cottage. “Papa never mentioned a thing to me.” My throat clogs. “It’s overwhelming to read it all now. I don’t understand why he didn’t . . .” trust me.

When I had no one else, after Cohen left, I always believed I had Papa. And now this discovery takes that truth and taints it, making me feel like I only ever had a ghost of my father.

Cohen’s hand moves to cover mine. His thumb traces my fingers, then dips and rises over my knuckles. “He trusted and loved you more than anyone in this world. Don’t do that. Don’t think you were anything less.”