I again ignored him and took a step toward my mother’s cell.
“You reap what you sow,” I said quietly, not tearing my eyes from her horrified ones. “For years, you taught me nothing but callousness and cruelty. You taught me strength was in manipulating others’ weaknesses for my gain. You taught me arrogance was a point of pride and a weapon to add to my arsenal. You taught me loyalty was to be punished. Fear was to be unrelenting. Pain was to be expected. I only hope that in the remaining years of my life I’ve got enough light in the midnight soul you shadowed inside me to burn the seed you’ve sown to cinders and plant a new one that will take root and grow. But even if that isn’t to be the case, as you’ve taught me my entire life to live my own with heartlessness and selfishness, knowing you live a life of fear and torment will suffice to see me through to my own end.”
Her hand snaked up to her throat, her eyes wide as saucers, dread wafting from her in physical ways I could not only feel, but could smell and it reeked. My father bellowed, “You’ll rue those words when we’re released, you ungrateful bitch!”
I shifted, letting go of Noc to approach my father’s cell but feeling Noc move with me, close to my back.
I tipped my head back to look up at Papa.
The wrathful, persecuted look on his face and burning from his gaze shared he had not broken. He was quite certain his position and name would change his circumstances in the near future.
He was misguided.
No.
He was a fool.
“And what, pray, Papa, should I be grateful for that you and Mother have given me?” I asked.
He tipped his head angrily toward my body. “That fur you’re wearing, for one.”
“This fur was purchased when the quarterly Drakkar stipend was forwarded to me, something that’s increased now that Frey’s brother is head of the House and managing it capably, rather than your brother running it straight into financial ruin.”
“And the Drakkar name was given to you by me,” he spat.
“Alas,” I murmured.
“The impudence,” he bit off.
I stared at him.
Without Mother’s magic, outside of retaining his handsomeness, which had nothing to do with him and everything to do with the strength of the Drakkar line, he suddenly seemed like an old, blustering buffoon.
And indeed, without Mother’s magic that was all he’d ever been.
“This is the last you’ll see of me, Papa. Any loving words you wish to say?” I invited.
“If you don’t speak to the queen on our behalf, Franka—” he began to warn.
I lifted my brows and interrupted him. “You’ll what, Papa?” I then lifted a hand and touched the bars that separated us with the tip of my index finger, reminding him of his situation. “What will you do?”
Faster than his years, which had always been the way, his hand darted up and he caught my finger in an excruciating hold, his own fingers tightening, crushing mine against the bar even as he pressed his face between them.
“I’ll break you, you revolting harlot,” he hissed.
He was able to get that out before I found my finger suddenly released.
I heard the terrible noise of bones breaking, then my father’s pained howl sounded against the stone walls, and finally Noc’s order of, “Step back, Franka.”
He’d torn my father’s fingers from mine and bent them back, using a bar to leverage his hold, a hold he still had on my father so even now I could see they were at an unnatural angle that had to be excruciating.
I felt it prudent to step back. This I did.
When I did, Noc released my father and took his own step to return to my side.
Father retreated from the bars and held his damaged hand in his other, bent over them both at his chest protectively.
“You might wish to call for a physician to set those,” Frey suggested to the guard.
“You’ll hear from our solicitor,” Papa snarled angrily, his head bent back to glower at us, but his voice betrayed his pain.
“And I’m sure whatever he says will be most amusing,” Frey drawled.
My father sent a scowl his way then asked, “Have you humiliated us enough, bringing the Winter Princess here to see our degradation? The bloody ruler of Bellebryn and his bride? The savage king and his Middlelandian queen? Have you, nephew? For if you have, I’d thank you to leave us to our ordeal further unmolested.”
Frey didn’t answer my father. He turned to me.
“Are you finished, Franka?”
I looked at Papa, pain starting to twist his face, ire still blazing in his eyes.
I then looked to my mother. She’d retreated to stand against the back wall beside her bed, both her elegant hands lifted and clasped at the base of her throat, her eyes on me.
Finally, I looked to my cousin.
“I am indeed, cousin.”
“Let us be away then,” Frey stated, sounding relieved and proving he was by moving all of us immediately to retreat.
Neither of my parents called a farewell.
I did the same, not even giving them my regard as I walked from view of their cells.
Noc took my hand and curled it at once around his elbow, bending to me and asking, “Your finger okay, sweetheart?”
“Quite all right, Noc,” I answered, my eyes straight ahead.
“You kicked ass back there, baby. Wish I had that on video. Fuckin’ brilliant,” he decreed.
I had no idea what “on video” meant, but I didn’t ask.
I also did not even try to fight back the urge to do what I next did.
I simply did it.