Blood warning. Potentially depressing topics. Contains spoilers for WoF.
The corridor was dark, but my father's claw brushed against a small lever on the wall. Lanterns lit the hallway, illuminating the strange marbled stone walls of the passageway. Father briskly started down the hall, not saying a word, expecting me to follow.
I carefully walked after him, wondering at the ancient-looking carving on the stone. What looked like NightWings fighting IceWings make me think they were before the Darkstalker Rebellion, but I spotted a few anomalies. Queen Glory grafting a cutting of the Moon Globe Tree, a view of Jade Mountain Academy with the crater from Darkstalker grown over and smoothed- aged, like it was now.
The pieces didn't add up. It even had a carving of the signing of the Two Continents Treaty, with all nine queens, plus the non-criminal HiveWing leaders. Perhaps the carvings had been upheld by servants over the years, recording important events for some reason.
As I focused on the deep groves of woven SilkWing webs at the Jewel Hive, my father seemed to speed up. His rigged claws scratched against the floor. He didn't want to see the carvings- or maybe, he didn't want me to study them too well.
We soon came to another door, with a circular keyhole. Father lifted his talons... and stuck his first claw in the keyhole. It clicked open.
I had often wondered about the notches in his talon. When I was young, I thought perhaps he had fought in the Darkstalker Rebellion. Seemed ancient enough. As I got older, I tried to come up with more plausible explanations but I couldn't think of anything that would make cuts like that. Maybe he was captured, and those precise marks were a brand of sorts? That made about as much sense as me eating my own tail.
But now, in this feverish dissociation, it made sense. He must have carved his own talon to be a key. But... it didn't make sense at the same time. We weren't royalty. Sure, we had a say in pretty much everything that went in and out of the Ice Kingdom, but the Delta Ice family wasn't even the highest noble family. I'd bed this was more security than the animus trove rumored to be in the Diamond Palace. What would need hiding in here that was so important?
The door swung open, and I shielded my eyes from the sudden glare. IceWing or not, I was still pretty vulnerable to sudden bright lights. Father did no such thing. He didn't even squint.
Pastel lights flooded from a stained glass window high above us. The ceiling was so tall, I wasn't sure how deep underground we were. We only traveled, maybe five minutes? And it wasn't a steep enough decline to lead to this. No way I had missed a giant tower twenty steps away from the manor, either. The stained glass depicted a golden dragon that looked maybe like a SilkWing. It was massive compared to the smaller ones, one from every tribe. Including a SilkWing. What was this picturing? The Great Ice Dragon? An animus? An old myth?
"Long ago, I sponsored a journey to the oceans south of the Guardian Isles," Father said, not breaking his gaze with the stained glass. "We found a rather small continent. We named it Elatull, and set up camp. I ventured into the forest one day, this uninhabited opportunity, to find a beautiful dragon."
I looked at him again, and I saw something I would never believe.
My father was crying.
"Her name was Sol, and her scales were the color of morning dew on a spiderweb. I learned the continent was called Arashia, and was populated by what they called themselves Wishes. After a localization, they christened WishWings. I... fell in love with her. When the time came to leave, she begged to come with me. She had to leave her people."
He cast his eyes down.
"On the flight back, she... she got sick. She left me. But not before she had you."
He gruffly wiped away his tears.
"I come here every night, to honor this cursed little crush I had. No wonder about her name- everything around her broke, in the worst way. The sticks propping my tent dissolved into sawdust when she touched them."
"She was- she was the worst thing to ever happen to me."
I stood, in shock. Starstruck. Dumbstruck.
My mother was a species that I never knew existed.
An eleventh tribe.
I refused to believe it. It was another of Father's snaketounged lies. "Stop trying to fool me. Why do this?" I asked, but I knew my father wouldn't ever cry unless it was a serious as the plague.
"I thought you would be smarter than this, Vigilance. Have I ever jested with you? I raised you to be-"
Something internally snapped. "You didn't raise me at all! I was raised by my chambermaids more than-"
"Please. Do you think I didn't want to spend more time with my son if I-"
"I think you hate me for my mother."
This stunned him.
I stunned me.
This was the first time I had spoken up to him. He shortly recovered, and stared at me. His eyes paralyzed me, freezing me in place. "Is that what you think? Fine, you're right. You're half WishWing, and I wish you weren't a savage. I wish your mother passed before she had you. I wish-" he took a deep breath- "I wish you didn't exist."
He snapped his claws, and I felt a strong wind against me. It grew stronger, stronger, until it swept me off my talons- and into a cell made of marble. The cage door slammed shut, and the lock clicked. I tried to scream, but my mouth gripped shut. "I wish you never got that sketchbook." Father simply said, as he threw my papers- was it there before? -into a fireplace. As he walked out the door, he didn't look back once.
