Bonesmith (House of the Dead, #1)(116)
Wren looked at her father then. He was perched on the edge of his seat, appearing ravenous for every scrap of detail… but also slightly sick. Like each word was causing him pain, yet he wanted them all the same. Wren understood. This story was tearing her world apart the same as his.
“By then Ravenna was moving in and out of consciousness. At one point she’d bitten her lip so hard it bled. But she only smiled at me as I held her daughter, her teeth red. ‘I know you loved him,’ she said, smiling wider as she clenched her jaw through the pain. ‘So I want you to know they’re his.’ ”
His…? Wren was confused. Odile had loved her father? But Vance’s expression had shuttered, and suddenly Wren understood. Odile had loved Locke… and Locke had loved Ravenna. Or had had sex with her anyway. And these children, this bonesmith daughter…
“Maybe she wanted to wound me,” Odile said with an unconvincing shrug. “Maybe she sensed she was fading and said whatever she needed to say to guarantee I took care of them.” She darted a look at Vance, but his gaze was distant. He had asked for the truth, the unvarnished facts, and here they were. Wren’s stomach twisted with the thought that maybe he wasn’t hers… that she wasn’t his….
In a flash, she saw a very different life. Daughter of the beloved Locke Graven, adored by her grandmother and favorite of her house.
“Then came the son,” Odile continued, her voice slightly hoarse.
The vision shifted. Wren and her brother, hand in hand. They would make mischief together, neither of them ever truly alone because they had each other, their loving parents looking on. She wanted it, she yearned for it, and yet… Locke wasn’t a hero; he was a murderer. And Vance… he was her father, no matter her true parentage, while her mother was something else entirely. Was she evil? Did she want Wren because Wren was her daughter or because she carried ghostsmith blood?
The images, equal parts tantalizing and taunting, were little more than soap bubbles—beautiful and fragile and not meant to last.
“Only… he was not well. Sickly, whereas the daughter was strong. She had come out screaming, lungs heaving, while he was mewling and weak. Silent as the grave, and he never opened his eyes. The healer shook her head. He would not be long for the world. And Ravenna herself was losing too much blood. Despite that, her instructions were clear. Give the daughter to the House of Bone. Call her Wren. Birds were sacred to the ghostsmiths, representative of the soul. Finally, give her the ring so that she might know her heritage. Then we strapped that dying baby to her chest while she continued to bleed out and got her on a horse. She rode for the Haunted Territory—for the well, I assumed—and never looked back.”
Wren sniffled softly. She couldn’t take her eyes off her father—off Vance—but he was staring down at the floor.
“Should I have told you all that? Every bloody, gruesome detail? Or should I have cleaned it up, made it shine… just as we had done with Locke? I…” Odile swallowed audibly. “I wanted the child to be raised with love, so I didn’t tell you about Locke or the ghostsmith heritage. Wren was a bonesmith, so no one ever needed to know. I suspected the son would not survive, so I didn’t tell you about him, either. Honestly, Vance? I thought to spare you the pain. Years passed, and it seemed I had made the right decisions… until rumors reached me of a Corpse Queen ruling in the Haunted Territory. So I sent a messenger with the news, the ring, and what Ravenna had told me of her bloodline. I’d heard nothing of the boy, so I left him out. I left Locke out too. His name hurts us both, you know. And maybe what she said was a lie. That’s what I kept telling myself, anyway. Maybe it was a lie.”
Vance’s fingers were speared through his hair. Wren had never seen him look so shaken. Regret. That was what she saw on his face. Seventeen years’ worth of regret.
“Would it have changed things?” Odile asked softly. She sounded sincere, like she was genuinely curious. “Even without knowing all this, look how you’ve allowed your mother to treat her. How you have treated her. What if you had suspected she wasn’t truly yours?”
“A part of me did wonder, sometimes….” He lifted his head, his voice hoarse. “She looks so like Locke when she’s angry. Or excited. Something in her eyes…” He cleared his throat. “And I’ll thank you not to turn your judgment on me, Odile. Your hands are dirty, the same as mine.”
“I did what you ordered me to,” Odile said, outraged. “That is all I have ever done. When Locke murdered hundreds, you ordered me to keep my mouth shut and follow your lead, so I did. When that woman turned up here, pregnant, I handled it, just as you ordered me to. And seventeen years later, when you sent that child to me like a lamb to the slaughter, I delivered her east of the Wall, just as you ordered me to.”
“No.” Wren breathed, the word soft and silent and heavy with pain. Everything she’d heard up until now, all of it seemed to coalesce in this one final, terrible truth.
“And what of it?” he snapped, the words shattering what little faith Wren had left. “I was doing my part to ensure the future of my house—something you would both benefit from. Without an enemy east of the Wall, without the undead on our doorstep, our position in the Dominions is precarious. Rather than fade back into obscurity, we are simply giving our enemies the tools they need to dig their own graves.”