“You’re right, Elore,” I hear him say while I blink away the rest of the pain. “This has to do with you…and him.”
In my next breath, my father has shoved Mother away and gripped Jak by the throat. Jak tries to fight back, but it’s no use. He’s not a retired, wealthy warrior. He’s an Orean servant, skin tanned from all his time outside, body lean instead of the bulk of muscle my father has from all his years in the army. Jak might be a strong Orean, but he’s no match against the force of my father.
My father’s voice drops dangerously low. “I brought you into my home, allowed you to live in Annwyn and sustain long life. Yet you deign to seek what does not belong to you?”
Jak’s weathered hands scrabble, though he can’t even get a single finger off his throat. His face starts to go unnaturally red, his lips gasping for air he can’t take in.
“Stanton, stop it!” My mother tries to yank at my father’s arm, but he shoves her away. She would’ve gone sprawling, but I catch her before she can fall.
“I want to know how long this has been going on,” he says, releasing Jak’s throat just enough for him to suck in a breath of air and squeeze out hoarse words. “Was this the first time?”
Jak’s eyes flick to my mother, but that only enrages my father more. He shakes Jak like a rag doll. “Was this the first time?”
The entire room feels swollen. Like the air right before a torrent, inflated with a downpour ready to burst and flood us all.
The crack of thunder is Jak’s hoarse answer. “No.”
My father throws him so hard and so far, tossing Jak across the room, making him smash into one of the windows. The glass shatters, the first of the torrent raining down.
He falls into a heap, and my mother screams and tries to run to him, but my father holds her back. “How long, Elore?”
She tries and fails to rip from his grasp. His expression might be enraged, but hers is one I’ve never seen before either. Hers is pure, open hate. And that hate is like the wind that blows this storm around us, whipping it into a frenzy.
Her chin tips up, green eyes unfaltering. “For eleven years.”
“Eleven years?” Utter shock consumes my father. A surprised gasp even falls out of me. How did she keep that secret for so long?
But then I realize not a single servant gasped, none of them looked shocked, and that’s my answer.
They helped them.
My father’s black eyes glitter with something ruthless. “You will regret that, Elore,” he grounds out, like the rumble of an angry cloud.
I don’t know whether I want to thank them for helping give my mother a sliver of happiness or tell them off for not making her be more careful.
Right now, my mother seems to be well past the point of caring about being careful.
“I have loved him for much longer. The only thing I regret is not allowing myself to have that love far sooner.”
My father’s temper explodes.
In the next instant, he’s across the room, boots crunching over the broken glass. Jak has gotten to his feet, but before he can do anything, my father snaps his fingers, just as he snaps Jak’s leg.
The crack makes me jolt, and then an agonizing scream tears from Jak’s throat. My mother goes running over, but with another snap, my father breaks the entire room.
Everyone on either side stumbles from the shake, my own knees slamming down onto the marble tile as the house shifts.
The noise is deafening.
The whole estate breaks right down the middle. Everyone is screaming, falling, debris crashing down on our heads. When the walls split, the ceiling clefts, dirt spraying from the fissure in the floor. I have to scramble back when the crack spreads so wide I nearly fall into it.
When the shaking stops, I manage to stand up again and pull my mother up with me. The servants all get to their feet again too, everyone giving the broken floor a wide berth. Mother looks down at the massive crevice now between her and Jak, the gap too far to jump.
The two of them look across at each other, and the expression on their faces makes my whole chest hurt.
“Jak…” my mother says, voice cracking, eyes wet.
He swallows hard from his spot on the floor, face now covered in sweat and visible pain. “It’s alright, Elore.”
“Don’t say her name!” my father screams, and then his power breaks Jak’s arm next, snapping it so hard that the bone pierces through his skin.
“No!” My mother’s scream rends the air, and she tries to jump across, but I grab her at the last second. “You won’t make it! You’ll fall,” I tell her over and over again as she tries to get away.