by D. E. Morris
“We were,” Badru confirmed. “How are Rowan and Cavalon?”
“I would not be surprised if Cavalon was already perfectly fine, and Rowan is well on her way.”
That proud grin came back to the weathered old man's face. “You did very well today, Kenayde.”
His compliment made her beam. “Thank you. It felt really good, like...” She shook her head, searching for the right words. “I often feel like I have little purpose here, but today, even as frightening and chaotic as it was, I felt needed.” Her voice quieted as though she was ashamed and she looked down at the baby in her arms. “I have not felt that way for a long time.”
Elas' shoulders hunched. “Kenayde...”
Quick, she gave him a sweet smile. “Just ignore me. It has been a long day and I am exhausted.”
Badru glanced out the window at the darkness beyond. “It appears all is well now. You should get some rest. I will stay up awhile yet, just to be safe.”
A dreamy look crossed Kenayde's face. “Bed does sound lovely, though I want to check on my father one more time before retiring.”
The couple headed down the hallway together, leaving Badru behind to go his own way. Elas waited until they were alone before slipping an arm around Kenayde's waist and kissing her temple. “I need you. I'm sorry if I don't tell you that enough.” She reached up to cup the scaled side of his face, long used to the roughness against her palm, but said nothing in reply.
They were quiet as they entered Wessely's room, relieved to find him still asleep in his bed. Cailin, sitting in a chair nearby with a book in her lap and her leg propped up on a stool, looked up when the door opened. Upon seeing who it was, she offered them a warm smile. “He's been asleep since the last dose,” she told Kenayde. “I've even woken him a few times to give him water but he's mostly asleep through the whole thing and goes right back under once his head is on the pillow.”
Relief washed over the younger woman and her sigh was one of release. “I cannot tell you what a weight that lifts from my shoulders. Thank you for staying with him, Cai.”
“There isn't any other place I would rather be. You know that.”
Kenayde squeezed her arm with affection. “Killian wanted me to tell you he has the next shift covered. Cavalon and Rowan won't need to be watched through the night so he will lead patrol.”
Color flooded Cailin's cheeks, but the door opened once more, saving her from answering. Badru popped his head in with a bow of apology. “Forgive me, but may I steal you for one more moment? There is a young lady you took care of earlier who wishes to speak to you, Kenayde.”
“Oh, of course!” Kenayde handed Cailin the baby without even thinking and followed Badru out of the room.
“We'll be back,” Elas told her with a shrug. He shut the door behind them, leaving Cailin sitting there with the baby in her hands as though she were an article of clothing and not a small human child. Cailin looked at her, still asleep, little round head lolled to one side, and immediately started to sweat. Maybe if she didn't move, she could just stay like that until Kenayde and Elas got back. That way, the baby with no real name would remain asleep. It wouldn't cry, it wouldn't poop, and she couldn't break it. This would be a test of strength, stamina, and endurance possibly, but how long could it take?
Minutes passed and her arms started to shake. The baby's fat little cheeks jiggled.
From beside her, a soft chuckle broke the otherwise quiet of the room. Cailin turned her head to see Wessely awake and watching her from under heavy lids, a groggy smile on his face. “She is not made of spun glass, you know.” he whispered. “If you move, I promise you she will not shatter.”
Nervous laughter passed Cailin's lips. “How are you feeling?”
“Better.” He pushed himself up on his elbows, slow in his movements as he tried to arrange his pillows around him so they would prop him up. “The last thing I remember is thinking that I was going to die...wishing I was so that the pain would be done, then I woke up to this.” He settled again with a heavy sigh. “What happened?” Seeing Cailin unmoving, he asked a different question. “Have you ever held a baby before?”
“Not a human one.” She looked at the thing she grasped and made a face. “Snarling, snapping hatchlings scare me less than babies do.”
He chuckled again and held his arms out. “Come here.”
Lifting her brows in challenge, she looked at him once more. “Are you sure you're strong enough?”
In answer, he wiggled his fingers at her and she heaved an uncertain sigh. Still with arms held out before her, she brought the baby around to the side of the bed with slow movements. Wessely reached up, taking the child's bottom in one large hand and cradling her head in his other before bringing her down to rest in the crook of his arm. He adjusted the light clothing she wore so it wasn't twisted around her. One of the pillows that wasn't being used was set in his lap, then he placed the baby on top of the pillow, letting her unfold. Wessely smiled, running a finger over the multiple little creases in her pudgy little arms and legs before rubbing her belly. “I wonder how old she is.”
“We don't know anything about her,” Cailin admitted. “Not her age, even her real name.”
“We will find out soon enough, surely.” The baby's eyes fluttered, her thin brows wrinkling as she woke. Her lips parted to take a breath and as she turned her head, she looked up into unfamiliar faces with a blank expression, then scowled. This only made Cailin and Wessely laugh. “Hello, there,” Wessely cooed. She focused on his face, but the scowl stayed right where it was. “I know, I am not who put you to sleep. Poor thing. You have had a time of it these past few days. You probably have no idea which way is up. Nearly everyone must look like a stranger to you. I can promise you that they do not look much stranger than me.” He made a face, sticking out his tongue and crossing his eyes. The baby's scowl disappeared, but she didn't smile. Cailin, however, smirked beside him.
“No smile?” Wessely gasped, his fingers wiggling over the baby's stomach. “Am I really so old that I have lost my charm on the ladies?”
“Not all of them,” Cailin promised.
He turned to her with a tender smile. Just as he was about to kiss her, the baby made a loud exclamation and kicked her legs in the air, drawing Wessely's attention back down to her. “Ah, you are the jealous type, then. I see. Is that why you feel the need to kick me?” He grabbed her feet and clapped them together, bringing a hint of a smile to her face. “Oh, you like that, do you?” He did it again, then folded her legs upward to touch her nose, which not only brought a smile to her lips, but made her laugh.
“You're a natural,” observed Cailin. The more Wessely played with the baby, the more awake he seemed and the more himself he was. She grabbed his fingers and tried to stick them in her mouth. When she drooled all over his pillow, he hardly noticed, but Cailin saw how he took it all in stride.
“I have always loved babies,” he told her, pulling his hand away to sit back when the baby found her own foot more interesting. “Even when I was a boy myself, I often wandered to the nursery to play with the children younger than me. Nir used to tease me endlessly about it. I never let it bother me, though. I would always pretend I was part of a big family with many brothers and sisters. When I got older, I imagined having more children than I could count; I always wanted a big family.”
Cailin gave a thin smile that he didn't seem to notice.
“When we learned that Emiline could not carry a child to term, I was expected to turn her out, remarry someone who could give me heirs. I suppose it was well within my right and I could have, but I had fallen too much in love with her by then. I always trusted that the Giver's plans for my life were far bigger and greater than my own. Of course, soon enough we had Ashlynn and Kenayde as our wards and we adopted them, but I never realized that by taking them in that I would gain such an eclectic extended family.”
Cailin looked down, playing with a thread of the blanket. “Were you ever sorry that you neve
r had a child of your own?”
He tilted his head to the side in a slight manner. “There were times, certainly before the girls came, but once Oceana was filled with the sounds of them, the moments of longing for my own were few and far between. Besides...” He looked down at her hands and took the one that was playing with the loose thread, weaving his fingers with hers. “...there is still a chance for me yet to have a child of my own.” Heat flooded her face and she pulled her hand away to rake it through her hair. The action brought hints of a smile to Wessely's lips. “Does that subject make you uncomfortable?”
She looked toward the door as though it might open at any moment and mumbled, “A little.”
Determined but trying to be sensitive to how she was feeling, Wessely took Cailin's hand again and squeezed it. When her head did not move, he implored, “Cailin, look at me,” before she finally turned back to face him once again. He glanced at the baby to make sure she was still secure, then gave Cailin his full attention. “A child is not a deal breaker for me.” He swept back a strand of hair that had fallen close to her face. “Oceana may never see a complete rebuild at this point for many different reasons: money, heart, motivation, none of which are easily raised at the moment, especially when there are more important things going on in our lives. An heir is not as important to me as it was twenty years ago.”
She leaned into his touch, a mixture of sadness and relief in her wrinkled brow. “Would I be a terrible person if I said that I hoped it wasn't rebuilt?”
A quiet laugh escaped his lips, but his smile was so wide that it made his eyes crinkle. “No, you would be an honest one.”
“Oceana is the first home I really remember. I mean, there are bits and pieces of my village in Ibays that I can recall from time to time...sounds, smells that bring back memories that are incomplete...but that cold and drafty castle was where I made my life. It's where I grew up. I learned how to read and write, I learned about the Giver-”
“About how to get in trouble and cover it up well.”
Her smile was impish. “Yes, that as well. I learned what love was there, what family looked like. Every important thing was taught to me within those castle walls, but...”
Wessely nodded, guessing at her thoughts. “It comes back to the base of our every disagreement: you would never be queen there.”
“Could never be queen there,” she stressed, “or anywhere. It isn't me. Just like me sitting and resting when the castle is searching for a fugitive isn't me.” He opened his mouth to speak but she held up a hand. “I don't want to talk about it right now, and I really don't want to fight.” She looked at the baby, who had moved on to sucking her fist. Swallowing heavily, she lifted her face to Wessely and felt her eyes fill. “I was...so scared.” Her words were choked and it frustrated her, curling her hands to fists. She licked her lips and fidgeted as if she didn't know what to do with herself. “For one terrifying moment, I thought I was going to lose you, and I couldn't breathe.” She pushed her lips together, inhaling through them to keep herself calm. “Killian and I have had so many conversations about how terrible it feels to love someone that we can never truly be with. It's different for us, I know, but it's the same in so many ways.” Looking down again, she wound her hands together. “I have to make a decision and figure out which sacrifice I can live with. I have to choose to let go of everything I have built here, or I have to let you go. I cannot keep doing this to myself. I can't keep doing this to you. It isn't fair to either of us.”
“I would stay for you.”
His words were meant to soften her but they only earned him an angry glower. “Don't you dare say that. Don't put that on me.”
Wessely blinked his confusion. “Put what on you? I am saying that I would give Oceana up for you. Is that not what you want to hear?”
“Of course it isn't! Wessely, I don't want to be the reason why you give up your crown and your castle! They are what you have known your entire adult life. They are what you love.”
“I love you,” he insisted. “I love my daughters, and my grandson, who are also here. I love that I can walk down the hall and play a game of chess with either of the brilliant men they have chosen to marry. I love seeing them growing, even as adults, into amazing, strong, capable people who still manage to surprise me with the things that they can handle when I think, at their age, I likely would have crumbled under the pressure.” Despite her curled fingers, Wessely covered her fists with his hands. “I would be giving up Oceana for you, yes, but for so much more as well. Cailin, after Emiline died, before Oceana was attacked and we were forced to come here, I wandered the halls like a ghost. I was a shell of the person I once was. Here, with you, with my family, I am alive again. Do you think I am so ready to leave that? And for what? A ring of metal encircling my head that means I have rule over a small fishing village that will also take years to rebuild?”
“But you and I both know it isn't as simple as that. There's so much more to it. Wessely, you have to really think about what you would be giving up.”
The baby started to fuss but neither of them moved right away. It felt as though they had come to some sort of an impasse and Cailin had her defenses raised. If he had said the wrong thing, he wasn't sure if anything could fix it in the moment or if more words would make it worse. It was with reluctance that he withdrew his hands from atop hers and turned back to the child to scoop her up, speaking to her in gentle tones and cradling her to his shoulder. Cailin watched him talk to the baby and cuddle her against him in a detached manner.
They were silent for a time before Wessely asked, “If I was not in the picture, would you marry Killian?” He didn't know what made him ask it, but the question was out before he could even process the words. For Cailin's part, she gave little more reaction than a thoughtful frown.
“I don't know. I could do worse than marry a good friend, and that is what he is. There is no one I trust to have my back in battle more than him, and it might finally put to rest all those ridiculous rumors about him and Ashlynn.”
Wessely shifted the baby back to the pillow as she settled. “In time, I am certain you would find love between you.”
“Maybe.” The baby looked at her and she forced a smile onto her face, reaching out to stroke her belly. “She is quite sweet, isn't she?”
“She is.” Wessely tickled the bottoms of her feet to make her giggle again, though his heart wasn't as invested as it had been before.
“I suppose children aren't completely out of the picture.” He wasn't sure if he'd heard her correctly and was slow to turn his head in her direction. When he did, he saw the small upturn to one corner of her lips and the bit of hope in her eyes. “If that is what the Giver has in store for us.”
With one hand on the baby's stomach, he placed his free hand on Cailin's and mirrored her small smile with a nod. “That is good to know.”
Chapter Eighteen
Jaryn woke to sunlight pouring in from the window across the room and the covers on Ashlynn's side of the bed tossed back. He sucked in a groggy breath and turned his head, squinting in the light, and pulled his face up from his pillow so he could look around the room. His head was pounding so hard that he was certain there were little creatures somewhere in his skull with hammers. He rolled over onto his back with a pained groan, taking all of the blankets with him. It had been a long time since he'd awoken feeling like this, since long before he'd been married, but Jaryn knew a hangover when he felt one. The confusing thing was that he hadn't had anything to drink since the midday meal.
Had it been any other time, the morning after any other day, he could have justified staying in bed and sleeping just a bit longer, but there were things to do. It would only be a matter of time before people began coming to him for answers and as of yet, no one had any. Hiding in his room, letting Ashlynn take the brunt of it wouldn't do, no matter how he was feeling. It took a great deal of effort, but he eventually dragged himself to an upright position. He staggered to his feet to
pull on some clothes and call for the servants to help him dress and fetch him some strong coffee.
As he was being readied for the morning, Killian entered to fill him in on the many things that had transpired during the night. Thirty miles north, in a village that bordered a mountain range, the townspeople had awoken to find three small dragons strung up in their square. They'd been gutted and left to attract carrion birds like hooks of meat at a butcher. Neighboring towns reported similar scenarios.
“Our neighbors?” Jaryn asked, sitting on the bed to lace his boots up, “or the town's neighbors?”
Killian frowned. “Yes.”
“Well that's grand. All this happened overnight?”
“There is more.”
Jaryn stood and wiggled his toes before starting for the hallway, Killian falling into step beside him. “Of course there's more. Let's hear it.”
“Three lesser kingdoms in Siness had their wine laced with Rabia powder as well.”
“What?” Jaryn gasped.
Cailin joined them on the other side of Jaryn as they passed an intersection in the hallway. “I have the information right here.” She handed Jaryn three thick pieces of parchment that had been folded and sealed but had already been opened. “Kaema, Gwilinnor, Oniew. All three of them were hit around midnight last night, though they suffered far less than we did. Ashlynn already has Kenayde making up some more of the antidote to send to them, as well as extra just to be safe.”
Killian bent forward to look at her around Jaryn. “Has anyone come forward yet to claim responsibility for the dragon slayings?”
“Not so far as I've heard, but the message is pretty clear to me.”