Reign of Shadows - Deborah Chester [44]
“The gods protect us because we live on the path of good,” Beva said.
“The gods protect those who stand prepared to defend themselves,” Caelan said in disgust.
Beva scowled. “I will not have disrespect in my house.”
“Fine. I plan to leave your house.”
Beva’s head snapped up. He looked at Caelan with alarm.
“That’s right. I’m going,” Caelan told him.
“But you are my son,” Beva said. “Your place is here, with me.”
Grief, anger, and disillusionment twisted inside Caelan. “When I go to sleep tonight, will you try to purify me again? Make me a mindless, obedient slave? You’ve already called me a demon. As if the insult to my mother wasn’t enough, I know you care nothing about me at all. Why should you want me?”
“You are my son.”
“Your pride be damned!” Caelan shouted at him. “I don’t want to be your son! I don’t want anything to do with you!”
Color flamed in Beva’s face. “You are not of age. You must obey me. You must take the apprenticeship I assign you. The law supports me in this. If you leave, I can summon you home. And I will do it.”
“Disown me! Forget about me! It’s Agel who wants to be a healer and work with you. Just leave me alone, because I will never give in. Never! And you won’t trick me again.”
Caelan swung away, but before he’d gone two steps his father called after him.
“You cannot go.”
“Watch me,” Caelan muttered, seething.
“You cannot go! My son, if you do not stop this rage that fills you ... if you do not learn to submit to the inward path, you will become what I most fear.”
Caelan stopped and looked back. “What?” he asked with deliberate insolence. “A free man?”
“No, a donare. An abhorrence. Son, it lies within you. It grows into a twisted evil. You must be stopped. You must be saved. If you cannot crush it within yourself, then let me sever it from you—”
“No!” Caelan said, his fear returning. He backed away from his father, fearing the fanaticism burning in Beva’s face more than anything. “Stay away from me! I don’t believe you. I don’t—trust you.”
With that break in his voice, he rushed from the ward. By the time he reached the passage connecting the infirmary to the house, he was staggering on weak, unsteady legs. Tears streamed down his face.
There was no love in Beva. There would never be.
A sob choked Caelan’s throat, but he held it down. His father had called him a monster, one of the demon-blood, all because he wouldn’t submit blindly to Beva’s wishes.
Unfair, but so was all of life. He refused to feel sorry for himself. That way led to weakness, and he might even find himself crawling back like a shivering dog, willing to take whatever abuse Beva wanted to give in exchange for acceptance.
There was no question of ever pleasing his father. He never had. He never could.
And now ... and now ... he choked again, and wiped the tears from his face. He thought his father was half afraid of him.
Fear, not love.
Control, not compassion.
Hatred, not acceptance.
Why?
The question branded him, burning deep, never to be erased from his soul.
Had he been a changeling of some kind or even an orphan of mysterious origin adopted by his parents, he might understand what was happening to him. But there had been no fateful discovery of an infant son by Beva during his travels. There had been no unexpected arrival of an infant son at the hold gates, left by the spirits. There had been no secret trade of an infant son with the Choven who migrated through the Cascades during the summer months.
Caelan had been born in the bed where his father still slept, as Lea had been. He was an E’non, able to count his ancestors back for twelve generations. There was no strange or foreign blood in his veins, nothing to support his father’s cruel accusations. No soothsayer in the towns of Meunch and Ornselag had ever decried his destiny on a street corner.
Yet he had held