My Second Chance Mate is a Barbarian (Sera and Fenris) novel Chapter 445

Mina

I gave it another go. "An old house like that. One of the oldest in Ironmaw. And it ends with the girl."

He glanced over, faintly surprised, like he had thought we were done with it. "What's your point?"

I held up a hand. "No point. Seems a shame, is all."

"Things thin out over generations." Vane turned his cup again. "Families end."

"Sure." I made myself shrug. "There's not even cousins, though?"

He raised his mug. "Cousins are nothing but trouble. Not worth the land it takes to bury them."

I laughed, because it would have been rude not to.

"No," he said, once the laugh had gone out of it. "Nobody will come knocking on that girl's door when her father's in the ground. There's no one left to come."

The hairs went up on the back of my neck.

The most careful man on this council had just told me, plainly and without hesitating over it, that Kael's line ended with his daughter. That there was nobody else. Nobody anywhere.

So who was Vidar Sarn?

I gave him a loose shrug and a nod and kept my mouth shut, which is not a thing I am known for.

I could not leave it. I signalled for a refill and tossed it back, and the burn of it gave me a courage I had no business having.

"Does he have kin east?"

The words left my mouth, and I knew right away I'd made a mistake. Something in the question had rung wrong.

A heavy beat passed between us. Vane did not answer straight away. I fidgeted, suddenly aware of my racing heart, but kept my eyes trained on his weathered face.

His jaw tightened, barely. Something shifted behind that old gaze as he turned it on me.

"I don't know what you mean by east," he said. Slowly. Precisely. "The Kael line ends with the daughter. There's nobody left to come."

His tone was neutral. Underneath it was something that had not been there a moment ago.

I swallowed hard, working out how I'd misstepped and how badly. But I stayed seated, gripping my half-empty mug. Whatever suspicion had crept into Vane's eyes, he kept it to himself. For now.

"Your mother," Vane said.

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