rebellion.

bellonaforged

déodat’s hands had finally stopped shaking. it did not mean that he was alright, that he had started to work through what had happened in the past few months, but it meant that he was starting to regain control. years would pass before  forgiveness  would start to be something he could consider, though he did not think he would ever be able to forgive his mother. she had killed asce and then, when there had been nowhere left to run, she had tried to kill freya, too. he would never be able to forgive his aunt either; she was nearly as bad as his mother. and marcus … déodat did not want to think about him. he was a complication, right now, and déodat was too tired to deal with that right now.

“ laelia, ” he said quietly, looking at his cousin who had never deserved any of this. none of them had, actually, but she was the youngest. if freya had been too young to live through what she had gone through, the same went for laelia, too. “ please. your father means well, i think. ”

it was not like déodat liked his uncle very much, but he had always had the impression that the man cared at least enough about his daughter to keep her out of the line of fire. it was not enough; the man had failed dimitri  and marcus  spectacularly. but it was something, it was a start. and right now, it might be  good  for laelia to be away from valley fair. the scandal would blow over as nothing that cast a bad light on the city always was erased before long, but for the moment, there were too many whispers about the murderers, whispers that were mean and cruel. déodat had been tempted to deck anyone who brought it up, because in the  small  minds of some people, there seemed to be no way that the family hated the people who had taken asce away from them.