Page 28 of The King has Fallen
“You will take the orders you are given and deliver on them, Gall,” Melek snapped.
Gall stiffened, then nodded quickly. “Yes, yes, I will. Of course. Thank you, Sir.”
Melek sighed as his son hurriedly gathered the dirty dishes, then darted out of the tent, almost at a run before he’d even reached the flap.
He slumped when Gall was outside and rubbed his eyes with the heels of his hands. His weariness and care for his son was apparent and thawed my frigid heart—only slightly.
“He is a good man,” I said quietly.
Melek dropped his hands from his face and turned on me, suspicion written all over his face. “You could not possibly—”
“Did you not hear me? My sister is the same way. I know their hearts. They are beautiful and soft, and they do not deserve the harshness with which others deal with them, either as bullies, or in impatience. You’re doing well with him. The fact that he can actually function as a soldier at all is a testament to how hard you’ve worked with him.”
Melek’s gaze went dark. “I haven’t had nearly enough time with him. And his… lack in comparison to his peers is becoming more and more apparent every day.”
He looked towards the tent flap, and all that steel strength and arrogance left him as if it had drained off his skin like water from a bath.
He was slumped, looking weary, and miserable.
“I knew you were not the sharpest blade in the drawer,” I teased carefully. “But I am surprised that he is yours. Was he deprived of air during birth like my sister?”
Melek didn’t move or respond at all for a few moments, and when he did, it was to turn and look at me, his eyes narrowed as if he were measuring me.
But then, as if he gave up, he sighed and just shook his head. “He is not my son by blood. But he is every bit my child. I rescued him from… from a refuse heap as a toddler, where he’d been scavenging for food. He had been left to die, and I couldn’t watch that happen. So I took him in. I hired women to watch over him when I worked and hid him from his true father as best I could. Hid him long enough that they never laid eyes on each other until Gall was several years older. I don’t even know if hisfather recognized him by then. If he did, he has ignored the boy ever since.”
I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. I knew that in some societies—especially among nobles—it was considered shaming to have family with these kinds of issues, but… “Does Gall remember him?”
Melek’s jaw tightened. “I don’t know. I think so. He seems to do what he can to avoid him.” Then his eyes snapped back to mine and his face went fierce. “But no matter how he came to be here, I would die to protect him, and I willnothear anyone suggest anything other than that he is mine. Not a word. Do you understand?”
I nodded, but I was stunned.
The General had adopted a son… who waslacking?
He had to have a soul. There was no other explanation—
Gall hurried back into the tent then, carrying another waterskin and brought it straight to the cage, beaming at me even with his thick lip and swelling on his jaw.
“Drink up, it will help fill your stomach,” he said quietly as he pushed the waterskin between the bars.
I waited until he’d stepped back before inching forward to grab the skin, then scuttling to the back of the cage and guzzling the water straight from the skin, pausing only to breathe.
When I’d swallowed most of it—my stomach now distended and threatening to throw it back up—I sat back, breathing deeply and slowly.
When the nausea passed, I met Gall’s eyes and smiled. “Thank you,” I said.
He gave a strange smile. “You are nothing like what I thought a Fetch would be,” he said.
“What did you think I would be?” I asked him, genuinely curious.
“I don’t know, but… not so…lovely.”
I blinked, touched and slightly moved by the incredible compliment. “Gall,thank—”
Melek growled. “I told you, don’t let an enemy deceive you. They can be lovely—until they suddenly aren’t.”
Gall turned to look at him, opening a palm towards me. “But sheislovely.”
“You are the lovely one, Gall,” I said.
