Dark One's Daughter *Book Four*

Heroes and Villains {1}

No matter how many years I have survived in all of the lands I have been in, the yearning for a lost soul is a feeling I will never quite learn to get over. I will never be okay when a loved one passes, I will never not mourn and I will never understand how the universe chooses who can live and who can't. And I am glad about it.

If I couldn't miss those that had died and taken a part of me with them to the afterlife, what would that make me? A heartless monster who lacks the ability to care? I wish I could say I didn't know what it would make me but my past is proof otherwise. The darkness isn't something that I can avoid and I know it is wrong to wish that I was that heartless monster that is incapable of caring because at least then I wouldn't know what it was like to feel empty and cold inside. At least then I wouldn't have to know what it was like to smile and tell someone that I am fine when in reality I am dying inside. I wouldn't have to keep living my life just as I had before, knowing that I will never see them again.

And that's the worst part. As I forced myself out of bed this morning I constantly needed to remind myself that she was gone and it was different this time. Unlike before when she was simply in another land, Ingrid is now dead. There is no such thing as spirits living among us, watching us and helping us. She is dead and never coming back, not in any form. There are so many things that I wish I had told her and no matter how many times I write them down and fold them, she won't see them so the truth is that this is all pointless. Wishing better things for her is pointless, thinking about how I could have done things differently is pointless, hoping to see her again is pointless. And that is what I have to live with.

Staring blankly at the full coffee mug in front of me, I heard the front door to my apartment open but I didn't look up; the rhythmical tapping on the floor of a cane was enough for me to know who it was. I didn't care why Papa was here but I needed him here. Yes, Papa can be a complete ass who only does things for his own benefit sometimes but he is the only person who has been there throughout my life – with a few exceptions, of course.

"I can make you a new coffee if you like," Papa offered, gently taking the cold coffee from my hands. He was silent for a few moments before he leaned his cane against the island in the middle of my kitchen. "Or something stronger if that's what you need."

Lifting my gaze from the spot in front of me, I watched Papa begin to rummage through my cupboards before pulling out two empty glasses and a bottle of rum that Killian had left there. At the thought of Killian, my heart began to break even further as I struggled to think back to the last time that I had actually sat and conversed with him before the Spell of Shattered Vision. I'd been so caught up in my own world and my own problems from the past that I barely even looked at him.

Papa poured out some rum into both of the glasses before he placed one of them in front of me.

"It's not even noon," I said, glancing down at the glass before looking back up at him.

"There's no law against having a drink beforehand, Amie," Papa replied, limping over to the seat opposite me and sitting down in it.

I stared at the glass for a few moments before I pushed it away and leaned over the counter, resting my chin on my crossed arms. Papa was silent as he placed his glass back next to mine and shrugged his coat off.

"I can't do this again," I admitted quietly, making Papa stop his shuffling as he looked back at me. I barely made it through the darkness last time. The pain and the suffering was almost too much, the only light in my life being my unborn daughter but now ... now I don't even have her. She is back in the Enchanted Forest, cursing out my name every chance she gets, not wanting a single thing to do with me but I can't blame her for it. I still held a grudge against my late mother for abandoning Bae and me when we were younger and I knew Papa would forever hate his own father for abandoning him. Our entire family was cursed to constantly suffer and there was nothing I could do to stop it.