ARIA'S POV
Kael went still the second he heard the voice.
I felt it before I saw it, the way his hand tightened around mine, the way his shoulders pulled back slightly, like something in him had just locked into place.
I looked up at him and his face had changed.
I turned back to Ewan.
The man in the wheelchair looked smaller than I expected.
That was the first thing I noticed. I'd built Ewan Roman into something large in my head over the months, this cold, immovable force who had spent years making his own son feel like he wasn't worth the effort of being loved.
The way Kael talked about him, or more accurately the way Kael never talked about him, had filled in a picture of someone almost untouchable.
But the man being pushed slowly along the garden path didn't look untouchable. He looked old. Tired. The kind of tired that had settled into his bones and decided to stay.
