Real Family

I wasn't sure how I found myself back in my room, but I was now sitting, curled up on the bed with my back against the wall and my hands tightly hugging my knees, pressing them against my chest. The scorching trails of salt on my cheeks were all that was left of the tears I had shed.

I had long to stop treating Erebus Jordart as my father. Throughout my childhood, he had been merely the man who graciously allowed me to stay in his house in exchange for becoming his servant. He had left me with various women at first. Those had taught me house chores before I could properly talk. It was Ellaria who had taught me how to read and write, and I had learned everything else from the books she had often brought for me.

I had been treated as a slave in the house I'd lived in, and I had never known why until now. The lost pieces completed the picture I had failed to see before. The realization triggered a bubble of bitter laughter. How many times had I tried to please the man I called my father