Chapter 64: Lyros.

I lock the doors behind me and she says nothing. The light in my study is dim so I walk over to the curtains and open them.

Adelaide stands as still as a statue, even the quivering in her lips has stopped. There's an air of beauty that she has to her, one that makes me want to see her cry for a totally different reason.

I know she's crying for Cain, for the punishment she just saw me doling out. I know she's horrified by it.

But no one disobeys me. Not even Cain.

What did I ask for that was too hard to get? I have watched over him ever since he was a child, a mercy I showed knowing fully well that I ought to have killed him and thrown his little infant body into a stream. I should have done that and forgotten about his existence, but I let him live.

I let him into my fold. I gave him strength, I gave him power, I made him what he is today and he will be whatever he will be because of me. I gave him a family!

A place to call his own and a roof over his head. And what did I ask for in