by AE Watson
Sitting in the tub, soaking and kissing and holding one another, I felt it. Another little piece of my heart found its way back to the right place. The rubble and ruin in my chest would one day be gone and my patched up heart would again be whole. The cracks and imperfections would belong to the people we lost, ensuring I never forgot the value of love or what the price of freedom was.
Chapter 35
Two years later
“The end of the journey is always a moment that is burned into your mind forever. Nothing about the journey is fair or just, and only when you step away from it, down the road where the injuries no longer hurt quite so much, can you see what the intentions of everyone involved were. Only distance can offer you clarity to see all the important moments you missed. And once you see the moment for what it might have been, you let it go.” I turned to Artan, who was sitting next to me on the rooftop of the Black Keep.
He grunted and I nodded.
“Yes, it is time to let it go.”
“Can you really understand him?” Thomas asked from where he was lying next to Artan.
“I can. I speak him and he speaks me.”
“When did you get him?”
“Once upon a time, in the autumn when the air was warm from summer, on the day I turned ten years old, the greatest gift in the world was given to me.” I began and told the story of the beginning. It had been the beginning of the end for my family.
Thomas listened with bated breath as I finished the story, though he knew the ending already. He’d been there for some of it.
When I finished I kissed Artan’s snout. “It’s dinner time. I’ll meet you on the balcony with your meal.” He grumbled and lifted off, flying to the balcony to wait.
“Are there others like him?” Thomas asked as we climbed down onto the roof below to make our way to my room.
“There are. But they stay in the unknown lands now. Away from the world of man. That’s a story for another night.”
“Do you think we could ever go see them?”
“I don’t know. I’ve asked Artan but he doesn’t seem interested.” I tousled Thomas’ hair, something that annoyed him. “He’s only ever known this place.”
“Of course, being an egg.” He nodded along as we made our way to the dining hall. “He’s like me. I don’t really remember the others as clearly anymore.” He glanced at me, there was no emotion in the statement. It was just the facts with him. He was forgetting his family and the tragedy that befell them. It made me sad.
When we arrived, Ed offered as stern look as everyone else was already seated and waiting.
“Sorry,” I muttered and sat next to Ed. I refused to sit at the head of their table in their home, something we argued over a lot, but tonight they hadn’t bothered.
Erick grinned at me, loving seeing me get into trouble. Egar nudged him and shook his head.
Maddox winked at me as I sat. His wife Lian offered me her sweet smile. She was a tough one to dislike. All happiness and roses and beauty.
Keanna stood, holding her glass. “On this special night, the one year birthday of our sweet little Michael, I want to say thank you for coming. I know it’s been a busy year and our dinners are getting fewer as we all find our stride in our respective kingdoms. But we love you all.”
“And if I might add,” Ed stood as well. “That though we are missing some people from the table, they are in our hearts. Every day.” His voice cracked just a little. “Happy birthday, son.”
My heart swelled as I lifted my glass and toasted the tiny boy. He looked so much like mother at times I found myself staring at him in awe. He was perfect.
Katy clinked her glass against mine, her eyes sparkling with delight.
“And now, let’s eat!” Ed sat and the meals were carried out. A feast of roasted meats and stewed vegetables and potatoes roasted in lard until they were crisp on the outside and fluffy in the middle.
We ate and laughed and glowed with delight.
My family.
Our hearts and bellies were full by the time we arrived back at Baltole castle. Katy tucked Thomas into bed and I kissed Artan goodnight. He made his happy dragon noises as I rubbed his snout. He curled up and I lie on his back and stared up at the sky as the stars shone down on us.
I knew she was there. Just as she said she would be. Looking down on me, guiding me from the sky.
A knock at the door to my bedchamber drew my gaze. I got up and looked back at Artan. “I love you,” I whispered and kissed him goodnight.
I left the doors open to the massive balcony he slept on, as the spring breeze was beginning to smell of flowers finally.
When I opened my bedroom door I found Katy standing next to an enormous mirror in the hall. “This is unexpected.”
“I made you something.” Her smile widened as she lifted her finger and the mirror rose from the ground and floated after her as she walked into my room. She placed it down, grinning into it. “I’ve already delivered Grayson his.”
“What?” I was lost.
She took my hand in hers. “Come on.” She walked to the mirror and I let her pull me into it. After all this time I’d learned to go with whatever she wanted. The air around us sparkled for a moment and I realized we had stepped from a mirror into Grayson’s bedchamber.
Katy beamed with pride. “I used the neck collar Clarabelle gave you. The magic inside of it was quite something.” She pointed at the tiny pieces of the collar imbedded in the frame of the mirror. “Now your rooms are one. You can even see into yours if you wish it.” She waved her hand over the mirror and it showed my bedroom.
I gasped. “Impressive.”
“And now you have to be careful what you’re doing in your bedchamber,” Grayson said as he walked to me, kissing my cheek and wrapping his arm over my shoulders.
Katy wrinkled her nose. “I don’t want to be here for this part.” She walked back into the mirror and out of my room.
“You can sleep in my bed?” I asked, a bit excited. While I could walk in and out of the two rooms with only a thought, he had to have me or Katy to take him home right away. This way we could see our rooms. If someone entered, calling for us we could walk to them in a few steps.
“I was thinking you could sleep here.” He kissed me again.
“No.” I grabbed his hand and walked to the mirror and through it. “I like my bed better. It’s bigger.”
“That’s fine, I missed a certain someone anyway.” He walked out onto the balcony to Artan. They shared a moment of near brotherly love before he came back into the room. “Katy worked some impressive magic.”
“This is perfect.” I pulled him back out to the balcony to lie under the stars.
We curled into each other with Artan and stared at the sky.
“Now if we can get a mirror that leads right into the old inn in Marana. We’ll be set.”
“Card night with the lads,” I said with a laugh.
He leaned over and kissed me under the stars, our ancestors.
I hoped they were watching and smiling, knowing the mistakes of the past could be changed in the future.
Every story had a possibility for a happy ending.
Sometimes you just had to wait for an age to pass before the story finished. Before the debt was paid.
Ours was an ancient tale of mistakes and betrayals that had cost two continents their peace. But the blood that flowed in our veins was the same as those who came before us. Their debt was ours too. And the moment had finally come for us to find bliss and peace in the world we’d mended over the generations, each one creeping closer to a resolution.
I found that resolution through fire and blood and death and loss.
My heart had been broken and my soul shattered, but I found it.
A man once told me, “There are infinite places love will take you, but revenge is the business of hate, and there is only one place hate will take you—the end. The end of you and the end of everything you once stood for.”
He is my teacher and the bravest man I know. But his words no longer echo in my mind with the images of the places I might have gone. I reached my end and was reborn.
Reborn into a new beginning.
One with unlimited possibilities.
The End
Thank you so much for loving these characters.
If you liked this, try Sword of Mist
Here is a sample chapter of this already completed series.
A sacrifice made.
A soul taken.
A stone returned.
A heart broken.
What was once legend comes again.
Chapter One
Blockley
The girl’s fingers were dark, stained bluish black at the tips, and even the nails were discolored. The calm expression on her face made it easy to mistake her for sleeping, but the pallor of her skin did not. She was nearly as pale as the white caps on the sea from which she’d come.
Her naked body was nestled in the frothy waves of the shore enough to sway back and forth as though she were cradled in someone’s arms.
“Did she drown?” Alek Ailling asked. He was the owner of the shipyard and boatbuilding business, Quays, where the body had washed up on the banks of downtown Blockley.
“I don't know.” Master Barnes, the local blacksmith, scratched his head. “Had she been making pies before she died? Blueberry or black raspberry perhaps.” His eyes lingered on her ashen fingers with their blackened tips.
“Must have been,” Alek agreed. “Abnormal thing to do at sea.”
“Indeed,” Master Barnes agreed.
“And no news of sunken ships?” Alek asked. The girl was no older than one of his nieces, maybe eighteen, and as far as he could tell, he didn't know her. A stranger, a strange girl, washing ashore was peculiar, yet they lived in a sheltered harbor that oftentimes had odd things wash ashore, and this wasn't the first body. But it was the first naked girl.
“I haven’t heard of a single sinking, nor a storm. I’ll fetch the magistrate,” Master Barnes said and walked away from the sight he wished he hadn’t seen. She was someone’s daughter. Someone perhaps unaware she had died.
To the east of downtown Blockley, through a path no bigger than a single cart, sat a farm surrounded by forest. The Ailling farm where the Ailling family had lived for hundreds of years.
In the middle of a field, as far from the house as one could get on the farm, lay two sisters on a blanket, cloud watching, oblivious to the death landing on their town’s doorstep.
“That cloud looks like a ship. Isn’t that a good omen, Lenny? Doesn't Father say that’s a sign of a great bounty for all the boats at sea now?” the middle sister, Amaya Ailling, asked softly. Staring up at the clouds had become an early summer tradition for the girls. The grass was lush and soft from the spring rains, though that would change once the warm summer air dried it out.
“It looks like a shark to me,” Lenny Ailling, the youngest, said with a wide grin, knowing it would provoke her sister to no end.
“You always see sharks.” Amaya nudged her. “Truly though, isn’t a ship a good sign?”
“’Tis, but don't worry your pretty head, Sister. No one expects a lady like you to recall the cloud lore of the southern shipyards.” Lenny’s smile softened as she sighed contently, enjoying the feel of the summer sun on her face after such an unusually wet spring.
“I do, though. I care,” Amaya turned her head, her tone growing serious. She hated the way everyone thought she was nothing more than a pretty face. “I care about Blockley. I love it here.”
“I’m only teasing.” Lenny turned to her. “You really are too serious.”
“I’m serious about never leaving Blockley.” Amaya added a little harshness to her words, “Because I love it here.”
“Amaya, you must remember you’re marrying a gentleman with an estate near the city. He may not want to stay here.” Though it was pointless to tell Amaya anything, Lenny said it anyway. Their mother and eldest sister, Hilde, had been trying to explain to Amaya she would be at her husband’s mercy once married, but she refused to listen. “And he may well have to do what his father says,” she added.
“No.” Amaya furrowed her fair brow and began the same speech she had repeated for months since their engagement, “Josu wants to stay and run his parents’ market. He likes the sea and the quaintness of life here. We have agreed; we want to raise our family here. And when you and Hilde each get married and have children, they can all play together, as we did.” Her dreams reminded Lenny of the shapes in the clouds, open to the interpretation of the beholder, but Amaya was too stubborn to see it. “However, I suppose Hilde will only visit us, not live here full time like you and me.” Amaya lost some of her fervor at that thought.
“Of course,” Lenny agreed, rather than arguing the many flaws in this daydream. The largest being that Lenny would never have children or marry. Her dreams were nothing like those of her sisters. She might fancy young men as any other lady did, but she had no desire to be tied to one. In fact, she was determined not to be.
When she was younger, she wanted to emulate their father, sailing the seas in her own ship, traveling far from Blockley Harbor, fishing and running her boat. Perhaps, she might retire from the sea one day, older and weathered, the way captains always did. Hands bent from gripping the wheel, lips thin from pressing them with worry, and eyes haunted by the waves that had chased them with murderous rage.
That was until last summer when a man aboard a fancy foreign ship, changed her dreams. She recalled being mesmerized by the glint in his eyes and the twitch of his grin as he told her a story, the likes of which she had never heard before, and had enchanted her. He spoke of far-off places and wondrous sights. Of traveling the world, seeing ancient ruins in the middle of dense jungles and hiking to the tops of mountains with icy peaks, places she had never known.
Since then, Lenny’s dreams lay out there, in the wild. She would become a trader or an explorer, maybe the first woman to do so.
One day.
Until then, she would save all her coin that didn’t go to the dogs. And when she did have enough, she would take her hounds and travel everywhere the wind blew. It was going to be an amazing experience.
A plan she kept to herself.
Everyone in Blockley had an idea of what Lenny should do with her life.
And not one of those ideas matched what she wanted.
Not even her sisters’. Though they had shared a womb and were born on the same day, the similarities ended there.
Amaya was the homebody.
Lenny, the adventurer.
And Hilde was something different altogether. She was considered the county prize, though Lenny felt sorry for her sister, being known for something as silly as a fine face. Not to mention, her beauty would have been a curse to Lenny as it guaranteed a husband.
But Hilde didn’t see it like that, she was obedient to a fault. She knew her fate and accepted it. She did not bat so much as one eyelash when she discovered her betrothed was from the city. An important man who would likely be too busy to come here and meet her before the wedding, so their engagement remained a secret. A scandalous notion to Lenny.
Their mother had refused to offer any details of the marriage agreement. She had made up a story, a lie, and refused to budge.
“The announcement must not happen before the bride and groom meet. It’s bad luck!” was all she had given them, and it had been delivered in that tone ensuring all three left well enough alone.
The only detail they had managed to find out by sneaking peeks at correspondence their mother received was that he was from Waterly City. The royal capital and an eight-day ride from Blockley, the reason Amaya wouldn't see her eldest sister often, or at all. But Amaya was convinced the moment Hilde’s mysterious betrothed saw Blockley, he would fall hopelessly in love and wish to stay. A notion Lenny couldn’t disagree with more.
A noise drew Amaya’s and Lenny’s eyes up fro
m the blanket. Someone was crossing the field toward them. Lenny prepared for it to be someone delivering orders sent from their dreaded aunt who was always at their house, although she had a perfectly fine house of her own and her boys were young men who required constant tending to. Neither of them had married, a sore spot with their mother, who Lenny assumed avoided the house and them as punishment for their refusal to court anyone. Instead, she spent her time at the farm, bossing Lenny around.
“Sisters,” Hilde Ailling, their eldest sister, called to them, waving as she strolled, her hair lightly billowing in the breeze. She carried a ball of orange fluff in her hands as Lenny’s two giant hounds traipsed behind her, eyes darting from Lenny to the kitten. “Someone was looking for you, Amaya.”
Hilde sat delicately on the blanket and let the struggling kitten down. He ran straight for Amaya, nestling in her side and chewing his shaking foot as if confused on how to scratch with it. He was the runt but was making up for it quickly.
“What are you two doing all the way over here?” Hilde asked.
“Enjoying the sun and the silence,” Lenny warned her. “Mother didn't see you coming this way, did she?”
“I don't believe so. Why? What have you done now?” Hilde took a tone.
“Nothing,” Lenny replied, offering the same attitude her sister had. “Aunt Mildred is visiting and I’d prefer not to see her. She really is the worst relative.”
“Lenny!” Hilde gasped, but there was a smile on her lips when she said it.
“Don't deny it!” Lenny pointed at her.
“Surely, I don't know what you mean. Nevertheless, if I were forced to choose one, I would say Uncle Cyril was twice as hideous.” Hilde sniffed.
“Indeed,” Amaya agreed. “Mildred might be unbearable, but she keeps her hands to herself and stays sober the whole day.”