The Witch's Retribution

Chapter 37

Lily found Isaiah waiting for her farther down the path, and far enough from her companions that she couldn't shout for help even if she wanted to. But she didn't. This was something she wanted to handle on her own. Isaiah had completely shed his facade, and now looked more like the man standing beside her mother in every family portrait that had once hung in their castle. The portraits that now gathered dust in some locked room deep inside the castle.

Lily wondered if Sage had known what had become of their father, if Bane had known. If that was why her eldest siblings had appeared to move on so quickly. She had a feeling this was a secret the three eldest had all kept. They had known this man was still alive somewhere in the land, had probably even known he was practicing Dark Magic, but no one had mentioned it to her. She put a hold on her furious rage as she stopped before her father.

"So you searched me out once more." His voice was thick with an unfamiliar accent now, so startlingly different from the lilting one she and her siblings possessed. "Come to kill me?"

Lily shook her head, a barely perceptible motion. "I wanted to ask you something."

He held out a hand, the black glove nearly masking the Dark Magic gathering in his palm. He motioned for her to go ahead. "Go on, then. Ask your questions."

She took a deep breath. "Are you truly Isaiah Emerick?"

She kept her eyes locked onto his, waiting to see if he would lie, but he only smiled. "Yes. I was married to your mother, and the father of six of her children."

"But not the seventh."

"You already knew that. I don't claim that boy."

She felt a quick burst of gratitude that Basil had never grown up with that knowledge. Though seeing what her father had become, perhaps she should feel envious instead. "My mother, Delilah," she saw him flinch at the name, "she was executed..."

"Yes."

"...with the crimes of having murdered Mercuri's queen and two princesses." Lily saw a surprising amount of guilt swimming in Isaiah's eyes, eyes two of her brothers had inherited. "That was your doing, wasn't it?"

"The one to execute her was not me, but another man who claimed to love her."

"Daimon loved Mother?" Lily whispered. She had thought as much, but to have it confirmed, and by her mother's husband of all people.

"Of course he loved her, the fool." Isaiah looked away in disgust. "How differently things would have been had he not been trapped by that arranged marriage. Perhaps Delilah would not have died at all."

"You killed Mercuri's queen and her daughters."

"You say it like an accusation." He shook his head. "That foolish woman was destined to die the moment she begged to learn magic, and to have her daughters so close while she was doing it. All I did was tamper with the spell a bit; I never knew the effects would be so disastrous."

"Why do it at all?" Lily's voice rose with outrage.

"It was unnatural! Teaching magic to people who weren't lucky enough to be born with it. It was doomed from the start, and when I told Delilah, she laughed. Laughed! Said I was being ridiculous, that Marisol was her friend, but I was right. It was dangerous, foolish--"

"And now hundreds of innocent people are dead!" Lily hissed. "Including Mother. All because you wanted to prove a point."

"You can't blame me for that. I wasn't the one who executed her!"

"No, but you were the reason! Why didn't you come forward immediately after she was accused? Why didn't you die instead of her?" Lily ignored the tears rolling down her cheeks as she glared at her father. Something inside her cracked, and her magic spiraled around her as it was set free again. She had hoped her suspicions had been wrong, that finding evidence of her mother's innocence didn't hurt so badly.