Chapter 19: Truths

THE PRESENT:

We left early the next morning, just after the sun had started to rise. I thought about trying to read further into my mother's journal as we travelled, but I decided that it would be better to keep my attention on our surroundings. After all, I reasoned, with the Magus surely looking to kill us before we could rescue Lucas, it would only benefit us if we all kept our eyes and ears open.

When I mentioned that to Val, the dark elf gave me a shrug.

"It is funny," she said, her voice thoughtful, "that we have yet to encounter any further attacks from Dred."

"What do you mean?" I asked her.

"Since the dragon killed Benthor and flew away with Lucas, we have yet to see any further sign of Dred's minions. And yet, we are closing in on the borders of the Dark Domain with every passing step. If I were him and I wanted us dead, I would have sent an army after us, not a single dragon."

"What are you saying?" I said, looking at her curiously.

"I am saying if Dred wanted us dead, he would be trying harder. I get the feeling that the bastard is keeping us alive. The questions are why and for how long."

As the sun set and night began to spread its darkness over us, we stopped and set up camp. As we sat around the fire, Val told us that we would be at the border of the Dark Domain after midday the next day.

I scarcely listened. I had my mother's diary opened before me, my eyes reading her writing in the flickering light of the campfire.

THE PAST:

"You are not to see him or that whore anymore!"

Kathia's father was furious, his face a bright crimson in his rage. She sat at the kitchen table in their farmhouse, weeping. He paced about the room, his anger filling the room like it was a physical thing.

Kathia and Bria were both pregnant, both by Maygis. Kathia and Bria hid their conditions from their respective parents and from the town for as long as they could. For a woman to be pregnant and to be unmarried caused that woman to be labeled as a certain type of person, and none of those labels were flattering. Once the two girls began to show, they had to tell their parents what had happened. Kathia was deathly afraid of how her father would react.

And her worst fears were coming true. Her father had heard about Bria's unmarried pregnancy. And when Kathia sat him down to tell him about her own condition, he reacted exactly as she feared he would.

"Poppa, please," she begged, her voice strained with sobbing. "Please just listen to me!"

"There is nothing to listen to!" he bellowed at her, smashing his fist down on the table, making the dinnerware jump. "You will not see him and you will not see her! You will not leave the farm until that bastard child is born, and then I will take it to the creek!"

"I won't let you!"

He was around the table in a heartbeat, grabbing her by the shoulders and lifting her out of the chair. He shook her as he yelled into her face, his face twisted with a rage that Kathia had never seen.

"You will let me, because I will not let my daughter be called a whore! And I will have no bastard child running around on my land!"

He let her go and she fell back into the chair. She glared at him through her teary eyes.

"This bastard child is your grandchild," she shot back at him, her voice as sharp as a sword. "And it may be the only grandchild you ever have. Do you want our family to die when we die?"

Before he could reply, she jumped out of the chair and ran out of the house, slamming the door angrily behind her. She ran into the barn before he could come after her, throwing herself down into a pile of hay. She began weeping again, letting her emotions pour out of her.

"Kathia."

The teen blinked her eyes open and looked around. She must have fallen asleep in the barn. Her father was standing at the door to the barn, the light of the setting sun silhouetting him. He was looking at her sadly, and Kathia wondered if he had been crying.

She sat up and looked at him curiously. "What is it, poppa?"

He slowly came into the barn, his eyes downcast. He fumbled at his words, his hands stuffed deep into the pockets of his pants. Kathia could tell he was nervous and felt awkward, but she couldn't imagine about what.

"Kathia, my daughter," he began, his voice slow and barely above a whisper, "I am so sorry. You are right. It will be my grandchild. And I have no wish to see our family die with us."

She started to get tears in her eyes from his honesty and his humbleness. She had never seen this side of her father before. She stood up and hugged him tightly, and he hugged her back, holding her against him like she had never been hugged by him before. He started speaking again, and this time Kathia could hear the tears in his voice, and she knew he was crying.

"I've tried to protect you, but I've protected you too much. I was so afraid that if you were to marry, you would leave me here alone. With your mother gone, you're all that I have left, Kathia. I cannot lose you. That is why I've chased away every boy who caught your eye, so that I could never lose you to one of them."

"Poppa, I'm never leaving you," she assured him, stroking the hair on the back of his head.

They hugged silently for a moment more, then we stepped back, holding her gently by the shoulders. His eyes were indeed red with tears.

"Kathia, I want you to stay here on the farm, at least until the baby is born," he told her, his voice gentle, but firm. "I don't want my daughter to get the reputation that Bria will be receiving. We will raise the child together, tell people it's your cousin whose parents were killed and we are taking care of him."

"Or her," Kathia added.

Her father nodded. "But I still don't want you to see Bria, at least until your children are born."

"And Maygis?" she asked, hopefully. "May I see him? He is the father, after all."

He shook his head. "I forbid it, Kathia. There is something about that boy I do not like. It's not just the fact that he has both you and Bria with children. There is something else about him. I do not want you seeing him ever again."

"But poppa..."

"You mind me, Kathia," he spoke up. "He frightens me, and I don't want you near him!"

It was only a few days later when Bria came by to try and sneak Kathia away from the house. And although Kathia was apologetic, she was adamant that she couldn't see Bria for a few months, and she was not to see Maygis ever again. She didn't know what her father would do to Maygis if he found out, and she couldn't stand the thought of him hurting Maygis.

Two days later, Kathia's father died in his sleep. When she woke up that morning, she found it odd that he hadn't woken her up like he always did when the sun rose. She went to his room, thinking maybe he had overslept too, and found him lying in bed, a look of fright on his face. He had died sometime that night.

Over the next couple of days, some of the townsfolk had come to pay their respects and to offer their condolences. Kathia really paid them no attention. She felt like she was lost in a void, that an all-consuming emptiness had taken over her entire body. She could barely sleep, didn't eat. She had finally started to make some sort of peace with her father, and then he was torn away from her. It was completely unfair, and Kathia was angry at herself for not settling things with him sooner, so that they would have had more time together.

And then Bria and Maygis had come to the house. Bria held her friend in a warm embrace, her eyes puffy with tears of sorrow for Kathia. Maygis stood quietly by, watching the two women who carried his unborn children. Then, when Kathia and Bria had parted, he gently hugged Kathia and whispered into her ear, "You're coming with us. There is nothing here for you, and there is no one to keep the three of us apart now."

Her mind numb with grief and her emotions in turmoil, Kathia could not argue the matter or disagree with him. She packed up her clothes and went with Bria and Maygis back to the Golden Grain Inn, where Maygis had taken up living for free in one of the rooms. When Bria had told her parents that she was pregnant and that Maygis was the father, her father was outraged and wanted him to marry her. But then, her mother managed to calm him down. Bria's mother was quite taken with Maygis, and for some inexplicable reason, she would not allow any further discussion of marriage between him and her daughter. Bria's father, who had always been henpecked, caved in, though he made no secret of his intense dislike for Maygis. In the meantime, Bria's mother allowed Maygis to stay at the inn for free, and he would help her out around the inn. Bria had a brief thought that perhaps Maygis was having sexual relations with her mother as well, but an inner voice quelled the thought, and it never came up again.