Eye of the Falcon (Psychic Visions #12)(54)

“It was scary. Some of the stuff he had to say was even more so.” She tilted her head to the side and said, “He brought up all kinds of memories from when I was little. And something I had always assumed I had done, Stefan completely flipped around to make me see I was doing something completely different. Something much more fantastic and bizarre. And that’s why I don’t really think he can be right. I told him Hadrid was sending me those images.” She shook her head at the look on Eagle’s face. “I’m sorry. I’m not making much sense.”

“Explain,” he said.

“I’m not even sure I can.” She rubbed her temples. “I assumed I was always giving Hadrid suggestions about where to go. And he flew out and let me know if anything was wrong through images he sent me.”

Eagle settled in to listen. His mind was still figuring out how she could even do that much.

She continued. “And then, when things blew up, everybody, myself included—not that I had much time to know or understand what was going on—assumed I was to blame. That I had either been making up this connection the whole time, and Hadrid and I really had no abilities, or somehow he’d been either distracted or just really hadn’t seen the enemy when they arrived.”

“By rights, no one should blame either of you,” Eagle exclaimed.

“Sure, if you didn’t understand how many times we’d done the same thing over and over again with no problem. So everyone assumed we were the perfect guardians for their illegal activities.”

Eagle didn’t want to stop the flow of her words, but he had so many questions to ask. “So, after it all happened, there was no way to prove to anyone what you had actually been doing?”

She nodded. “But what Stefan suggested was that I wasn’t sending Hadrid out into any particular direction and wasn’t showing him where to go, but that I was actually connecting with him on some level. … That I was actually seeing the world below through him—seeing the world through his eyes.”

Eagle sat back. He forcibly closed his mouth to stop his jaw from hanging open. “It’s a fine distinction,” he said awkwardly.

“But one with a very definite twist and outcome.”

He tilted his head sideways and thought about that. “Of course, because, if you were somehow connecting with this falcon, seeing the world below through his eyes, you were the one making the decision as to whether your family was safe from danger.”

“Exactly. In which case I’m the one who failed them. I always figured I had failed them, but that it was a shared responsibility between Hadrid and me. But, according to Stefan, if I’m the one up there, seeing through his eyes, then I am entirely at fault, not Hadrid. And that makes me feel shitty because, in a way, I’d been blaming Hadrid.”

“And yet that night you didn’t see anything, so how could you be responsible? You did your job.” He took a deep breath. “That anyone could put a child in that position and then blame them when they failed, … it’s beyond belief.”

“I shouldn’t have failed.” She stared at him steadily, then shook her head. In a low voice she continued, “It was my fault. … I was distracted.”

“And it was okay to be distracted. You were six years old.” He knew they were coming to something crazy. “Distracted by what?”

She gave him a shuttered glance. “By my mother having sex with one of my father’s men.”

This time his jaw did drop. “Holy shit.”

She nodded. “You see? I wasn’t out there with Hadrid when I should have been. I was supposed to be looking out for the men below, but instead I was completely confused as to why my mother was in bed with someone other than my father.”

He let out a deep breath. “Well, that changes things entirely.”

“It does, and it doesn’t,” she said. “It’s still my fault. I still was negligent in my duties. And my family paid for it.”

He grasped her free hand and whispered, “I can say, without a doubt, sweetie, the only adult in this equation at fault is your mother. She was also posted as a lookout for the family. But because you and Hadrid were so good at it, she took the opportunity—probably every damn time—to have sex with this other man. When instead she should’ve been out there looking after you and her own husband and sons. But she left that on the shoulders of a six-year-old.” He shook his head. “This was not your fault.”

She burst into tears.

He quickly snatched her up, blankets and all, and pulled her onto his lap. There he cuddled her in his arms until she quieted. But, in his mind, all he could think of was how it was a damn good thing her mother was dead. Otherwise he’d be out there making her pay for what she’d done to her daughter.

Not to mention her husband and sons who had trusted her with their lives.

*

“Shit,” Stefan roared. He stared at the beautiful painting in front of him. The one now marred by a huge owl’s eye in the corner of the canvas. Always watching him, always glaring at him, waiting for him to do something.

“Dammit, Humbug, I told you that I’m feeding you and Roash as much energy as I can, along with Issa and Tabitha. We’re moving you slowly, mile by mile, under your own power—or rather our power,” he said in exasperation. “I don’t know how else to help you two or her. I don’t dare call the authorities. That’s for them to do.”