Page 52 of A Thief to Die For

I lean in harder. How has he not sold me out to the Commander yet? ‘Keep going. How did you get that scar? The truth!’

‘A woman.’ He grits his teeth. ‘Your mother, Samantha.’

I knew it. ‘You killed my father,’ I whisper.

He stills beneath me. ‘No.’ He squints. ‘I didn’t kill anyone. Ryland, I am your father.’

‘Liar,’ I spit. That’s the most ridiculous, impossible thing he could have said.

And yet …

He knew my mother’s name.

I shove off him, breathing hard. ‘Explain everything. Now.’

Rufus stretches his neck from where I was choking him. ‘I was a trader when I met your mother at the gates of Kingsland.’

Gates. Another piece not just anyone would know. My chest feels like it’s caving in. Truth or not, Rufus already knows too much.

‘I was a trader, except Kingsland wouldn’t deal with me. They only used their own.’

Also true.

‘But my foot was injured, so I asked the soldiers if I could at least get some stitches before I went on my way. Your mother was my nurse.’

A storm builds inside me. He’s a conman. This is what he does – sells things. Stories. Lies. Whatever he has to.

But my mother was a nurse.

‘I’ll be straight with you – she was real pretty.’ He nods. ‘So I started coming around again, and we met outside the gates, in the forest. Luckily, she had a soldier friend who would help her slip out on his shift. We met quite a few times.’ His head bows. ‘And, well … then she told me she was pregnant.’

I shake my head. I know my parents never married, but that’s not how the story goes. We were a family until the attack. Dad was just gone a lot on the road.

Being a trader.

Just like Rufus. I wince. The details have aways been foggy, so Mum filled in the rest. But I know for a fact my dad died that day.

‘I’m telling you the truth, man.’ He exhales, then laughs. ‘I panicked and left. Then years later, I heard a rumour about how Kingsland has something special about it. A magic. This connection deal if you get married.’

I think I’m going to be sick.

‘They said, you marry somebody there, you can heal each other. Talk in your heads and all these crazy things. And by then, I was needing some fixing, and I was sick of fighting all the time, trying to survive. So I came back to see if it was true. Talk to her, you know?’ He looks off into the distance. ‘I remember her bringing you.’

I’m sure he does, because he isn’t my father. He’s the murderer.

‘You stay over here while I talk to your daddy,’ Mum said. We were outside the gate.

I rear back at the faint memory that comes out of nowhere. One I’ve never seen before.

Rufus sneers. ‘Her nose was all out of joint right from the start, but I almost won her back … until I mentioned the connection. Then she got angry. Drew her knife. Started screaming about how I just wanted to use her. Again.’ He pauses. ‘She pushed me. I returned the favour.’

Mum falling to the ground flashes in my head. She screamed and launched herself back at Rufus, clawing his face. But in my memory, there’s a third person. I don’t understand.

‘She scratched my face up good. I’m not proud of it, but I punched her. Next thing, she’s swinging her big old knife with everything she’s got, and my hand was lying on the ground.’

No. The attacker was missing a hand from the start. That’s been consistent in all my nightmares. But then I hear it echoing in my mind – the hair-raising scream. The moment my father was stabbed.

I scrub my forehead. Could the scream have come from another cause? I try to dredge up something to fill the infuriating gaps in my memory, but there’s no fixing the recollection of a four-year-old standing dozens of feet away. Still, I try, and what I remember plays out in hazy, broken flickers in my mind. I feel myself being scooped up. Then we’re running. There’s blood on Mum’s dress and face.