Ciprian had determined long ago that he only had use for the things that might allow him to save his daughter. That included the son he never wanted, but it did not include guilt.
It also included the things he kept hidden in the abandoned village where both he and Rowan were born.
As he passed through the magical boundary he'd erected to quarantine the village he'd rather forget, he checked to make sure that dangerous emotion hadn't attempted to grow inside him. It always tried to sneak in like a weed to choke his resolve.
Every time he discovered a new shoot, he killed it without remorse, even when the source of the guilt was Loma herself. Over the years he found less and less, but after his recent conversation with Yamm, the seeds of it were everywhere.
His daughter would never forgive him if she learned what he'd kept from her and Rowan, that he actually was her brother and not just a pretend one. She would despise him for what he'd done to Rowan to save her.
