Chapter 2076: Father & Daughter

Rhys Blackwell was waiting in his study, in the old stone heart of the manor, beside a fire that had burned down to embers. Jocelynn stopped in the doorway and stared.

He’d grown so frail since the last time she saw him. The broad shoulders she remembered had shrunk beneath a heavy wool robe, and his close-cropped beard had gone from steel-grey to white. His sea-green eyes were sunken and dull. A cup of pear wine sat on the blackwood desk at his elbow, and his hands trembled when he reached for it.

But when he saw her, he smiled. And for a moment, he was her father again.

"Jocey," Rhys said warmly. "Come here, my girl, come here," he said, patting his knee as though he expected her to come sit on his lap the way she had as a little girl.

She went to him and knelt at his side before he could rise from his chair. Rhys leaned over to wrap an arm around her, and he held her as close as he could. It should have felt comforting, but the moment his arm wrapped around her, all she could think about was how thin and frail he’d become beneath the heavy wool robe.

"Elgon told me," Jocelynn whispered against his shoulder. "About Mother."

Rhys’s arm tightened around her. For a long moment, he didn’t say anything at all.

"I wrote to you," he said at last. His voice was hoarse and heavy with all the words he’d tried to say over the years. Words he’d written that had never received a reply. "When the Sisters sent word that she was failing. And again when she was gone. Twice, Jocey. I sent a rider with the second, so it couldn’t go astray."

Jocelynn drew back to look at him.

"I never got them," she said. "Father, I swear to you, I never got a single letter. I wouldn’t... I wouldn’t have stayed away if I’d known," she said, hoping he would believe her. Hoping he didn’t hate her for turning her back on her family. Again.

Rhys closed his eyes. He didn’t look surprised. That was the worst of it. He only looked tired, as though she’d confirmed something he’d suspected for a very long time.

"No," he said quietly. "I don’t suppose you did."

For several moments, he was silent, holding her close, before his sense of gallantry reasserted itself and he insisted that she help him over to a sofa that faced one of the windows in his study, overlooking the harbor.

From here, it was possible to see every ship that sailed beyond the lighthouse at Beacon Island, though the view wasn’t quite as good as it was from Jocelynn’s favorite spot atop the cliffs. He took his cup of pear wine with him, cradling it against his chest as though it were something precious.

For a moment, tears flooded her eyes, and she wondered if the old footpath was still there. If anyone still walked from the manor’s back door to the top of the towering cliff, or if it had become overgrown after twenty years without mischievous young ladies sneaking out at night.

She’d have to find out, and if it was still there, she resolved to take Ashton there to watch the ships set sail, even if she had to get up before the break of dawn to do it.

Rhys kept hold of her hands even after they’d sat down. His thumbs moved over her knuckles the way they had when she was small and had woken from a nightmare. His palms were still rough with salt and old rope calluses, but they trembled now, and they were so much colder than she remembered.

He coughed as he settled back against the cushions, a deep, rattling sound that went on longer than it should have. When it passed, his hand stayed pressed flat against his chest for a moment, until he saw her watching and waved it away.

"It’s nothing," he said. "The damp gets into my lungs these days. Your mother always said it would."

"I lit the beacon last month," Rhys said. His voice was rough. "On the Isle of the Drowned. On Ashlynn’s birthday. I light it every year." He stared out the window toward the lighthouse. "No one ever answers. But I light it anyway."

Jocelynn couldn’t speak. She didn’t know what he was talking about. A beacon on the Isle of the Drowned? The place was supposed to be cursed. Why would he go there, and on her sister’s birthday no less?

Somewhere, in the back of her mind, she thought, for a moment, that she knew the answer, but it had been so long ago that the memory faded away like smoke from a snuffed-out candle when she tried to grab hold of it.

"How is Caleb?" Rhys asked, after a long moment. "Is he well?"

"He’s... very like his father," Jocelynn said carefully. "When his father was a younger man."

Rhys’s face didn’t change, but she saw his hand tighten on the wine cup.

"He’s sworn vengeance on the Demon Lady of the Vale," Jocelynn went on, because there was no way to say it gently. "For the wounds she gave Owain. For the uncle the Crimson Knight beheaded in the High Pass. He’s been laying plans to use the silver and gold they took from Airgead Mountain to raise an army. A bigger one than his father ever had."

"Another war," Rhys said heavily. "Always another war."

"I know," Jocelynn said with a sigh. Once, the notion of knights riding to war against demons had sounded grand and heroic. She’d thought that Owain was a great man because no one could match him on the battlefield.

Now, she knew better. That was why she was so glad to have sent Ashton away to Blackwell where it was safe so long as he wasn’t hunting pirates or chasing after whales with a harpoon.

She reached up to tuck a loose strand of hair behind her ear, and her sleeve slid back from her wrist.

Rhys’s eyes went to it at once. To the faded yellow marks there, in the shape of a man’s fingers.

"Jocey," he said softly. "Is that..."

"I slipped on the stairs," she said, and tugged the sleeve back down. "You know how clumsy I am."

Her father looked at her for a long moment. He didn’t believe her. She could see that he didn’t believe her, and that he knew better than to say so.

"Father, I want to talk to you about..." she started to say, only to be interrupted by a loud crash as the door banged open.

A boy of fourteen stood in the doorway, lanky and chestnut-haired, with his father’s hazel eyes blazing in a pale, furious face.

It was the first time Jocelynn had ever seen Owain’s anger in Ashton’s gaze...