And it wouldn’t be lasting long, although she wouldn’t burden her father with those details. Every moment of his time was precious, and she wouldn’t waste them on her or her curse.
“Oh? And who is this boyfriend of yours?”
“Well, I’m not sure if that’s what he is. We… we haven’t had the chance to talk about that yet.” She exhaled, running a hand down her ponytail. “We’re still working on things, you know?”
Cyrus’s eyes slowly opened. “What sort of things?”
The sort of things that meant that she could never be with anyone.
“Oh, you know,” she said, trying her best to be evasive. “The usual ones.”
His brows came together, and he looked at her sternly. “River, if he wants to be with you, then he needs to commit. You deserve someone’s full attention. End of story. If he can’t give you that?—”
“It’s not that, Daddy.” Gods, that definitely wasn’t the problem. The way Nikhail had kissed her and the things he’d said had made it clear he wasn’t seeing anyone else.
“Then what is it?”
She chewed on her bottom lip. This wasn’t really something she’d wanted to get into today, but she couldn’t see any other options. “It’s just… well, you know.”
“I don’t know. Tell me.” There was something about her father’s voice that had her feeling like she was a child again. She didn’t want to keep things from him, didn’t want to hold anything back.
“It’s my… curse,” she mumbled, averting her eyes.
The air in the room thickened, and the exhaustion that had been present in Cyrus’s gaze vanished. A growl rumbled through his chest, and for a moment, it was as if the Stillness had lost its grip on him entirely. Years melted off his face, his skin took on a livelier tone, and his cheeks flushed.
It was like she was seeing her father—really, truly seeing him for the fae he had been before the Stillness took hold of him—for the first time in two decades.
This version of Cyrus Waterborn was strong. Powerful. It was what she imagined Ryker would look like several centuries from now.
Her eyes stung once again, and she wiped her sleeve across her cheeks. These damned tears wouldn’t stop coming.
If the Stillness hadn’t struck, this was the father she could’ve had. A real one, who was present for more than just snippets of her life. She didn’t blame Cyrus for being sick—that would’ve been an awful thing to do—but she hated that this was giving her a glimpse of what she could’ve had.
“Now you listen to me, young lady.” Cyrus’s voice was firm and unwavering, so fierce that if she didn’t know he suffered from the Stillness, she’d never have guessed. “You are not, nor have you ever been, cursed.”
He spoke with so much power and conviction that her breath caught. As if he believed it. As if he thought she was normal. As if he thought her powers weren’t ruinous.
Cyrus knew of the Incident—he hadn’t been in an aware state when it happened, but they’d told him about it—but maybe he didn’t realize how bad it had been?
“Dad, my magic is?—”
“No!” he yelled.
She slammed her mouth shut, eyes widening.
“No child of mine iscursed.” He spat the last word, and thunder rumbled outside. Water formed on her father’s hands, a thin sheen that had her heart racing.
She hadn’t seen him use his magic in over a decade. The Stillness destroyed a fae’s power, eating away at their well of magic until there were only traces of it left. Cyrus must’ve pulled this up from the depths of his soul.
“Promise me you will not call yourself that again,” he snarled.
Could she do that? Could she make that promise? She’d thought of herself as the Cursed One for so long, the title was practically engraved on her soul.
“I—”
The door swung open, and Tertia entered the room in a flurry. The Representative’s usually pristine hair was frizzy and falling out of its bun, as if she’d been running her hands over it repeatedly. She tossed a light blue blazer into the corner of the room, sprinting towards the bed.
“Cy.” The word was a blubbering mess as it came out of Tertia’s lips, barely recognizable. She kneeled on the other side of the bed from River, flinging her arms over Cyrus’s upper body. “Oh, gods have mercy. I got the call and came as quickly as possible.”