I snorted. “I see you’ve gone from threatening to kill me to threatening to have your big brother kill me. I’m not sure that’s an improvement.”
Eury nodded, unperturbed. “And kill you he will.”
“He really meant those threats?” asked Guthre. “I thought he was just threatening the way every criminal does when they’re convicted.”
“He meant every word,” Eury said. “He’s been planning it for a dozen lifetimes. I was surprised to hear him talking about it out loud, though. He must have been very angry.”
“Why do the King and Queen put up with him if he keeps rebelling?” Guthre asked.
Eury looked at me. “Ask your father. Parents put up with a lot of rebellion from their children.”
“The King and Queen are Kedessen’s parents? No wonder he thinks he’ll get out of the sentence. Does that make the King your father, too?”
“It does,” Eury said. “Which is why I know I’ll be able to kill your father sooner or later.”
“We’ll see,” I said.
We had reached a stairway, a narrow wooden stairwell that wound upward in a tight spiral to the sky.
“It doesn’t look very safe,” Guthre said. It looked like an old servants’ stair, without any handrail.
“You’ll be safe enough, at least until we arrive,” said Eury. “I want to kill you myself, not have you fall off a stairway.”
“I’m sure you’ll give it your best shot,” I said. I started up the rickety spiral without hesitating.
We didn’t talk much, given the steepness of the stairs. We had to walk single file, and as we got higher, the winds picked up. But about halfway up, Guthre called forward to me.
“How much do you know about Ketya’s mother? Did you ever meet her?”
“She died before I knew the chancellor. I saw her execute a man at Davynen before she got sick, but we didn’t speak. Why?”
“I was just thinking it would be terrible if she was anything like Ketya’s father. It would be a shame to come all this way and find out she was just as bad as him.”
“Try not to kill her, please,” I said.
“I’ll do my best. I’m not so good at relationships. But I figure even if Ketya still hates me at the end of it all when we bring her mother back, you and I will have some time to get used to being father and daughter and fighting together. And what better way is there to bond than being guided into the heart of an enemy country by an immortal-unless-you-stab-him-in-the-eyes demi-god who’s sworn to kill us both? I ran away from things for a long time, and this feels better. Even if it’s insane. I’d rather face the danger for a while. You understand what I mean?”
“I think I’m starting to,” I answered. I thought about the way I’d tried to face all the killing I’d done by running away from it, and the consequences it had caused for me and my daughter. I was about to say that I wasn’t sure it was the same as what she meant, but by then the wind on the stairs had silenced and I realized we had crossed from sky to earth again.
THE END
Acknowledgments
It takes a village to destroy an empire, and I am grateful to the many people who helped me to make life really, really difficult and unpleasant for my characters while angry gods rampaged through their homeland. I especially want to thank Cynthia Manson, who prodded me to write The Lost Daughter and pushed me to make it better at every step; Debra Doyle, who expanded my view of the story’s scope and how to tell it; and John Betancourt, who stepped up to make sure the book happened.
About the Author
A longtime editor and book developer, Leigh Grossman teaches publishing-related courses at the University of Connecticut while doing work for various publishers. The Lost Daughters is his sixteenth book. Originally from the Atlantic City area, he now lives in southern New England with his wife and daughter. Look for him online at swordsmith.com or @SwordsmithLRG on Twitter.
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