“And what of your father?” Chaol said, if only to shift conversation away from the hole in his chest. “I know your mother was kin to—to her, but what of your father’s line?” “My mother never admitted who my father was, even when she was wasting away on her sickbed,” Aedion said flatly. “I don’t know if it was from shame, or because she couldn’t even remember, or to protect me somehow. Once I was brought over here, I didn’t really care. But I’d rather have no father than your father.”
