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Adolin noticed that his father wasn’t facing the door, as he went into a meeting room with him. Dalinar looked at the mountains surrounding Urithiru, the snowy peaks reflecting a golden sunset pouring in from the floor-to-ceiling windows.
“Father, you wanted to meet me.”
“Yes, Adolin, come in.”
The guards closed the doors behind him in a thud, leaving the two of them alone.
Adolin’s mind was elsewhere at the moment. He had just showered after a long sparring match, and adrenaline still pumped in his veins. He felt as if his mind had been washed clean of all his stress.
Perhaps if he wasn't distracted, he would've noticed. The furrow in his father’s brows. The stroking of his chin. His eyes aren't meeting Adolin's.
“This is something I should have told you a long time ago, Adolin, and I had no strength to do so until very recently.” Dalinar’s eyes wandered again to the window. “In my youth, I have been a terrible father to you two. No matter what I will do, that fact will not change.”
“Reminiscing on the olden days, Father? I have better things to do, if you don't mind.”
“Adolin, let me tell you the story.”
He nodded his head, he’ll listen to his father, as he did many times before.
“Twelve years ago I made a terrible choice, Adolin. It was our very last campaign in our conquest.”
“In the Rift?” Adolin touched the hem of his shirt, tracing it along with his fingers.
“It happened in the Rift. I wanted to burn the place to the ground, leave no person behind. I saw a messenger escaping from the rubble, and I gave my archers an order to kill him.”
Merciless Blackthorn. Adolin was impressed by those stories when he was younger, tried to look to them instead of the mess he had been the years following the death of his mother, but no more was he starstruck by them.
“I was…” Dalinar paused for a brief moment, “glad, when I realised that setting the safehouse ablaze didn’t kill Tanalan, because I got to finish him off myself. Then he told me that they had turned the safehouse into a prison long ago. The messenger I had killed? He came to tell me that Evi was imprisoned there.
“I killed your mother, Adolin.”
The air chilled, the expression on the Highprince’s face darkened.
“No.”
“No, no, no, NO, NO, NO, NO!”
Adolin threw his hands to his head, pulling on his blond hair.
“She surrendered herself so I won't kill the villagers, Adolin. It was noble of her.”
His mother. Golden and forever lively in his memory. She… she died in the flames lit by her own husband.
Tears burned in the corners of his eyes. Deep breaths soon became shallower, then turned into wailing as the dam broke down.
Adolin's knees wobbled, he knelt to the floor, his hands reached for his father as he did when he was a child. “Why? Why?”
“I was young, Adolin, and I-”
“WHY DID YOU TELL ME?!”
Adolin stifled a sob before continuing, “Why did you wait twelve miserable years to tell me?”
“I couldn't, Adolin, I wasn't strong enough. I had to go through what I went through to become a better person.”
“What did you go through? Saying no to a god? Oh, did you have to say goodbye to our parshmen slaves?”
“Don't mock me, Adolin.”
But the boy continued on crying. The last rays of sunshine disappeared as Adolin's wails grew louder. He remained at his father's shoes.
Dalinar felt a sudden tinge of regret, “Adolin…”
“You don't get to tell me to calm down. Nor to quiet down.”
“I didn't say anything yet.”
Adolin sniffled, “Tone said enough.”
“I-”
“Leave me alone, Father.”
Dalinar accepted Adolin's verdict. He turned to the door, yet by the time he's at the lintel, the boy catches up to him again.
“Don't go! I need… You can't…” Adolin doesn't finish either sentence, he only throws his arms around his father and plants his face in his shoulder blades, and grabs with shaking hands the Kholin blue coat.
Dalinar’s stomach can't handle this touch. He loves his son so much, yet why does he feel like he needs the boy to get away from him as soon as possible?
He doesn't know.
He knocks on the door, and calls for the guards to take Adolin away.