Broken But Unburnt

Chapter 10 - Calliope

Chapter 10: Calliope

Delosian City of Vroifburg

Calliope had more to think about than she ever thought a visit to Vroifburg could possibly give her. The words that the Sahira, Lillibet, had spoken to her the night before were reverberating throughout her mind, even now, throughout her dreams. Take them off...

"Calli?" someone asked, interrupting her thoughts and she glanced up to find Sebastian watching her, a concerned look on her face. Gabriel was looking up from his meal as well and Calliope knew in an instant that this was not the first time her friend had tried to get her attention. "The sugar? Could you pass it?"

"Oh, yeah," she muttered, reaching for the sugar bowl and handing it to Sebastian, watching him shovel spoonfuls of the sweet substance into his cold porridge. She felt her father's eyes boring into her but she ignored him. If he had something to say, he could say it. She wasn't going to broach the subject herself. Not after the tremendous scolding she got last night and the silent treatment she'd been given all morning.

Sebastian set the sugar bowl aside. The loud clink of the porcelain against the wooden table was the only noise in the dining room at all. They had come late to breakfast, exhausted from a night spent on festivities and fighting. Everyone else in the inn had already eaten and gone. Only the three of them remained making the painful silence that much louder.

"Did she read your future?" Gabriel asked suddenly and Calliope's eyes snapped to him before she could help it. Of all the things she had expected him to say to her when he finally spoke, this was not one of them.

"What?" she asked, playing dumb. Gabriel leaned back in his chair, crossing his arms across his broad chest, and narrowed his gaze.

"You know what she is," he said simply. "Answer the question."

"I know she was your lover."

Sebastian choked on his porridge. Gabriel's eyes narrowed to slits.

"A lifetime ago, perhaps," he admitted through gritted teeth. Sebastian gazed between them, wide eyed.

"Is she my mother?" Calliope asked. Gabriel raised a brow and Calliope's shoulders slumped. She knew Lillibet wasn't her mother. Calliope had darker skin than her father which meant her mother must have been dark skinned as well. Lillibet's skin was as white as a morning snow. "She told me to take them off."

Calliope's eyes were downcast, firmly on the fabric covering every inch of skin on her hands save her fingertips.

"That makes no sense," Gabriel remarked in that gruff way of his and Calli sighed. "They are skin welded on."

"Why?"

Calliope's question hung suspended in the air for a beat. She had never asked this question before. Any mention of her gloves or her mother always seemed to make Gabriel uneasy, as it did now. He uncrossed his arms, crossed them again, shifted in his seat, and frowned. With every minute that ticked by without an answer, her courage waned. She had always tried to be the good little soldier, training every day, trying twice as hard as anyone else. She had only ever wanted to live up to her father's expectations of her, to become the Ysuelt hunter that he dreamed of her being. She had never wanted to make him uncomfortable or anger him so she had avoided these questions, avoided prying. But this was her life, not his. These were her gloves, attached forever to her hands. She had a right to know why at least.

"Your mother had it done," he spoke finally and she noticed the disgust in his tone, as though he still couldn't believe what had happened after all these years.

"And you didn't agree, I presume?" Calliope pressed.

"I wasn't consulted."

"But why–"