Page 36 of In Rising Tides

Baelwyn stroked his beard and looked towards the heavens, deep in thought.

“Interesting,” Ridge replied. “Now, should we get on to discussing our own plans?”

Frustration was burrowing deep within Wilder’s chest.

Their answers had only led to more questions, and he found the path in front of him unclear.

A multitude of emotions fought for priority, each more insurmountable than the last.

Otto opened his mouth to reply.

“I don’t want to know,” Wilder said sharply.

He couldn’t have this fight again.

He would choose his own path, fight his own battles.

Maelys leaned closer to the fire. “Not even if it means a better chance of rescuing Lyra?”

“I will do this on my own,” Wilder growled. “Without the intervention of fate. This is my life, my choices, and she is?—”

“She belongs to no one but herself,” Maelys interjected.

Her voice was sharp enough that the forest quieted to listen.

The words landed cold and true.

Wilder inhaled, the fight draining from him as quickly as it had come.

Maelys was right.

Lyra wasn’t his.

She belonged to no one.

Otto filled the silence that stretched taut between them. “It would help me see better if I knew whether you planned on confronting your father.”

“About what?” Wilder asked, his brow wrinkling with confusion.

Otto sat up from the log and stared at Wilder.

There was something Otto was trying to convey, but its meaning was lost on Wilder.

Otto reluctantly gave up and shook his head as if dreading what he was about to say.

“About his role in all of this?” Otto waved his hand in a circle. “About his deal with Drystan?”

“What?” Maelys shrieked.

Baelwyn grumbled something under his breath about treacherous leeches.

Wilder’s eyes slid closed. He hadn’t told any of them that part of the story.

Partly because he hadn’t been able to confront the knowledge of his father’s complicity in this deceit to himself, and partly because he didn’t even know what he would say to him.

“My father,” Wilder spat the title out like rancid food, “brokered Lyra’s kidnapping with Drystan.”

The storm inside him that he had worked so hard to dam exploded from him.