She turned away from him before he could see the tears in her eyes. Lissa put a steadying hand on her shoulder and glared at her father as if she would be perfectly happy to take a piece out of him if he said one wrong word.
"S-s-savil - I - I - " he stammered. "They said - but I didn't believe - is Vanyel - "
"One wrong word, one wrong move, and he will die, Withen," she said flatly, her eyes shut tightly as she reestablished control over herself. "One wrong thought almost killed him. He slit his wrists because he discovered that someone he trusted believed that his love was the reason Tylendel died. Are you pleased with what you made? It was certainly the honorable thing for him to do, wasn't it?"
"I - I - "
"I am very gratified to be able to tell you that he isn't yours anymore, Withen, he's mine. He's been Chosen - if he lives that long, he'll be a Herald-trainee, and as such, he is my charge. You've forfeited any claim on him. So you can have what you've always wanted - little Mekeal can be your heir-designate, and you can wash your hands of Vanyel with a clear conscience."
Withen flinched at her pitilessly accurate words, and seemed to almost shrink in size.
"Savil - I didn't mean - I didn't want - "
"You didn't?" She raised an ironic eyebrow.
He winced. "Savil, can I - see him? I won't hurt him, I - dammit, he's still my son!"
"Lissa, do you think we should?"
Lissa looked at her father as one looks at a not-particularly-trustworthy stranger. "I don't know that he can behave himself.''
Withen's face darkened. "You ungrateful little - "
Lissa shrugged, and said to Savil, "See what I mean?"
Savil nodded. "I see - but he has a point. Maybe he ought to see his handiwork." She nodded toward the door to Vanyel's room. "Follow me, Withen. And keep a rein on that mouth of yours, or I'll have you thrown out."
He stopped dead at the garden door, and pressed his hands and face against the glass in stunned disbelief. "My gods - " he gasped. "They said - but I didn't believe them. Savil, I've seen men dead a week that looked better than that!"
Lissa snorted. Savil pushed him away from the door impatiently, and opened it, flinching a bit as the cold air hit her. She looked back at him; he'd made no move to follow. "Are you coming, or not?" she asked, keeping her voice low so as not to startle Vanyel.
He swallowed, his own face set and very white, and followed her with slow, hesitant steps. She walked quickly to the patch of sheltered, sun-gilded brown grass where the boy was lying with Yfandes; he hadn't moved since she'd left. He didn't seem to notice she was there as she knelt in the harsh, dry grass that prickled her knees through the cloth of her breeches and hose.
"Van - Van, wake up a little, can you?" she said softly, not touching him at all, either with hand or mind. "Van?"
He moved his head a little, and blinked in a kind of half-dazed parody of sleepiness. "A-aunt?" he murmured.
"Your father's here - Withen - he wants to see you. Vanyel, he can't take you home, he has no power over you now that you're Chosen. You don't have to see him if you don't want to."
Vanyel blinked again, showing a little more alertness. "N-no. S'all right. 'Fandes says s'all right; says I should."
Savil rose quickly and returned to where Withen waited uncertainly on the worn path, halfway between the door and where the boy lay. "Go ahead," she said roughly. "Don't raise your voice, and speak slowly. We've got him pretty heavily drugged, so keep that in mind. You might trigger more than you want to hear if you aren't careful."
She followed a few steps behind him, with Lissa behind her, and remained within earshot as he knelt heavily in the dry grass and started to reach out to touch Vanyel's shoulder. She very nearly snapped at him, but Vanyel roused a bit more, and waved the blunt fingers away.
"Vanyel - " the man said, seeming at a complete loss for words. "Vanyel, I - I heard you were sick - "
Vanyel gave a pitiful little croak of a laugh. "You h-heard I was playin' ewe t' 'Lenden’s ram, y'mean. Don' lie t' me, Father. You lied t' me all m'life an' I couldn' prove it, but I know when people lie t'me now."
Withen flushed, but Vanyel wasn't through yet.
"Y're thinkin' now that - I - I'm perv'rt'd, unclean or somethin', an' that I - I'm just bad an' ungrateful an' I n-never p-p-pleased you an' - dammit, all I ev' wanted was f'r you t' tell me I did somethin' right! Just once, Father, j-j-just one time! An' all you ever d-d-did was let J-J-Jervis knock me flat, an' then kick me y'rself! 'Lendel loved me, an' I loved him an' you can stop thinkin' those - god - damned - rotten - things - ''
Withen pulled back and started to his feet - opened his mouth like he was about to roar at his son -
But that was as far as he got. Vanyel's eyes blazed; his face went masklike with rage. And before Withen could utter a single syllable, Vanyel surged up out of his cocoon of blankets and knocked Withen head over heels into the bushes with the untrained, half-drugged power of his mind alone.
Withen struggled up. Vanyel knocked him flat. Lissa made as if to go to one or the other of them, but Savil caught her arm.
"Look at Yfandes," she said. "She's calm, she hasn't even moved. Let them have this out. Between us I think Yfandes and I could keep the lad from killing his father, but that isn't what he wants to do."
Twice more Withen tried to get his feet, and twice more Vanyel flung him back. He was crying now, silent, unnoticed tears streaking his white cheeks. "How's it feel, Father? Am I strong enough now? How's it feel t' get knocked down an' stepped on by somethin' you can't reason with an' can't fight? You happy? I'm as big a bully as J-J-Jervis now - does that make you bloody happy?"
Withen's mouth worked, but no sound came out of it.
Vanyel stared at him, then the angry light faded from his eyes and was replaced by a disgusted bitterness. "It doesn't make me happy, Father," he said, quietly, and clearly; the last of the drug-haze gone from his speech. "Knowing I can do this to you just makes me sick. Nothing makes me happy anymore. Nothing ever will again."
He sank back down to the ground, pulled his blankets around himself, and turned his face into Yfandes' shoulder. "Go away, Father," he said, voice muffled. "Just go away.''
Withen got slowly and awkwardly to his feet. He stood; shaken and pale, looking down at his son for a long time.
"Would it make any difference if I said I was sorry?" he asked, finally; from the bewildered expression on his face, acutely troubled - and more than that, vaguely aware that he had just had his entire world knocked head-over-heels, and was entirely uncertain of what to do or say or even be next.
"Maybe - someday," came the voice, thickened with tears. "Not now. Go away, Father. Please - leave me alone."
Dear Withen: I think you are right for once in your life. The boy is not a boy anymore. He never was the boy you thought he was. If you can adapt yourself to treating him as an adult and an acquaintance rather than your offspring, I think you can come to some kind of a reconciliation with him eventually.