by David Estes
Sai’s gaze flicked to Roan, and he didn’t try to hide a look of disgust. “We’re leaving. We didn’t come here to make peace. We came to conquer the Wrath-hating nation of Phanes. That is no longer a possibility, so we shall return to the west.”
Fools! Roan wanted to shout, but he held his tongue. Over the last several months he’d learned that some people could not be reasoned with. Rhea had been one of those people. But he’d also learned that people could change, just like his sister had.
Without another word, Sai departed, his armor rattling. Wheaton frowned but followed his brother, having not said a single word during the exchange. Ennis’s eyes met Roan’s, then Gwen’s, and finally Gareth’s. Gareth looked like he wanted to say something, but only shook his head and looked away. When Ennis stood, however, Rhea moved into position to block him.
“Cousin,” she said. “I’m sorry.” A shiver ran through Roan. For Rhea’s voice had been stripped down to a single pure note of honesty. Gone was the deceit and the political maneuvering and the cruel intent. Here was a woman seeking to make amends, to gain the forgiveness of a man she obviously cared for.
“So am I,” Ennis said, stepping well clear of her and the sleeping baby in her arms as he passed by.
Eight
The Southern Empire, Phanea
Rhea Loren
Rhea trusted her brother to handle the council, and she couldn’t let Ennis walk away. Not again. Not like this.
She turned to go but then her eyes locked on those of Grey Arris—oh Wrath, how she longed to turn back the clock of her life and not fail him, not betray him, but such things were impossible and anyway, look what he’d become, how strong, how beautiful, a man worthy of a flawless woman, a woman who wasn’t her.
She tore her eyes from his and rushed from the hall, watching as Ennis turned the corner of a long corridor, his strides long, such that she would have to take three to one of his to catch up.
She hustled along, but when she turned the same corner, he was gone and she was exhausted. Her daughter was stirring, her lips smacking as she searched for a snack.
Rhea sank to her knees, her dress billowing around her legs like a canopy. Looking down at the purest face she’d ever seen, Rhea smiled. That’s when she realized what she’d become. She was not a queen, not fatemarked. Friendless. Hated by those she’d spited. Lost to those she’d found. But she was something else, something more.
I am a mother, she thought, abandoning western modesty and offering her breast to the most beautiful creature in the world. The babe sucked greedily. I will not fail you, Rhea thought. If you are the one thing I do right, it will be enough.
A cleared throat made her flinch.
Her eyes traveled up to find the most surprising person standing before her.
“Ennis,” she breathed.
“Rhea, I…” He trailed off, his shoulders sagging. “I can’t do this. Not anymore. I hope you can understand.”
She was so surprised by the emotion in his voice that she had to stifle a sob. She turned it into a small laugh, which caused him to raise an eyebrow. “You are…different,” he said.
She nodded. “Everything has changed.” She wore her ignominy around her shoulders like a cloak, but she willed it to vanish. One could not always look to the past, even if it was easier to see with clarity than the future.
“Because of her?” He motioned to her daughter, who’d fallen asleep on her breast.
“In part,” she said. “But you changed me too.”
Ennis nodded thoughtfully. “And you I.”
“Ennis, I’m so—”
“Don’t say it,” he said. “No more apologies.”
Rhea nodded. She couldn’t deny him a single wish. “I wish I could change things,” she said instead.
His eyes had become the eyes she remembered, back before she’d turned them into blades of steel. “Me too. We all have things in our past we want to forget, to change, but if we did we’d be but shadows of ourselves.”
His words surprised her almost as much as the fact that he’d returned. “Would that be worse?”
“Yes.”
“Even me?”
Ennis sighed. “Though it pains me to say it, even you.”
She almost laughed, and for a moment it felt like the past, back when they were okay, back when they trusted each other. “Even you? What would you forget?”
“That I was loyal to you without regard for the truth.”
Any mirth on her lips fell away, his words like the knives that she deserved. “Is that supposed to make me feel better?”
“No. Only you can make yourself feel better.” He ran a hand through his thick hair, looking boyish despite his age. “Your daughter. She’s beautiful.” She could sense the unspoken words on the tip of his tongue. Like you. She was glad he didn’t speak them—they would only make everything harder.
“Thank you.”
“What is her name?”
“I—I haven’t told anyone.” Nor had she told anyone about her daughter’s fatemark, the beautiful symbols painted in light across the entirety of her skin. Images of people of all races and backgrounds, a tapestry of the Four Kingdoms, each nation connected by cords of white light. Rhea had sworn her midwives to secrecy.
“Then let me be the first to hear.”
Rhea seriously considered it. Sharing her daughter’s name felt like her own form of magic. For a second she hoped it would be the spell that would finally repair their broken relationship. But there was another who needed to know first. “I’m sorry. I cannot. Not yet.”
Pain flashed across Ennis’s face at the reminder that there was another who took precedence over him, who would always come first. He turned to go.
“Wait. Ennis, please. Don’t go.”
“I must,” he said, no longer willing to meet her eyes.
“You saw the enemy we face. Our only hope is to unite ourselves against the Horde.” She was being selfish, she knew. She wanted him to stay for her.
“I know,” he said. There was sadness and resignation in his eyes. “I cannot be there for you, not the way I used to be. But as long as blood runs through my veins I will protect you and these lands.”
She nodded. “I know you will. But I also need you to do something for me.”
“Rhea, I—”
“My brother is still in Knight’s End. Leo. Keep him safe. Please. Swear it.” Rhea could hear the desperation in her own voice. She knew this man owed her no vow, no promise of loyalty. But she owed her brother the world she had taken from him.
Ennis stared at her for a moment, his lips pursed. And then he said, “I will. Farewell, Rhea.”
And then he was gone, and somewhere in the back of her mind she knew she would never see him again.
Nine
The Southern Empire, Phanea
Grey Arris
Grey peered through the cracked-open door. Though he had maintained a daily and nightly vigil outside this very room, it was the first time the door was unguarded by the two stern Phanecian midwives. During the sham of a council earlier that day, he’d been so shocked by Rhea’s sudden arrival and the whirlwind of her departure that he’d done nothing but watch, mute.
She is so beautiful, he thought now.
The thought was for both of them, mother and daughter. And yet he felt a fool for thinking it, like he was a young boy pining after a much older woman, though in truth he was older than Rhea by more than a year.
Some brave pirate captain I am. In truth, he was not a pirate any longer, if he ever was. When he’d broken things off with Kyla, she’d taken the entire crew and departed Phanea, setting off east toward the sea. Grey had watched her for a long time, but she’d never looked back. It was what he deserved for how he’d treated her. By now she would be riding the currents halfway across the Burning Sea.
In some ways, he missed it. The salt spray on his face, a stiff wind burning his eyes, the swell and fall of the powerful waves beneath his feet. On the
sea he’d been somebody. He hadn’t so much found courage as courage had found him.
But.
But.
Rhea.
He’d denied his heart for so long now, distracting himself with the adventure of a lifetime, becoming a new man, and not just in physical appearance.
A better man, or so he hoped.
A worthy man? That—that was for her to decide.
“Are you going to stand in the shadows like a creeper, or are you going to come in and meet your daughter?”
It took Grey a moment to realize Rhea was speaking to him. Fool, he thought again, pushing the door open a little wider. “I—I didn’t want to disturb you.”
Rhea’s eyes sparkled in the candlelight the way they always did, but there was something different about them too. A maturity that only comes with experience, dealing with loss, getting knocked down by one’s mistakes but getting up again to fight another day. Grey saw the same look in his own eyes when he stared in the mirror.
Who is this demure woman? he thought.
“Come closer,” she said. “She will not bite.” That twinkle in her eye. “And I won’t either.”
Grey shuffled closer, and for the first time in months he was sharply aware of his missing hand, of the blade that now replaced it. Would his disfigurement disgust her?
“Closer,” she murmured, and a beautiful shiver ran down his spine.
“By the gods,” Grey said when he finally got a good view of the pink bundle wrapped in a white swaddling cloth.
Rhea’s smile might’ve been the most beautiful sunrise he’d ever laid eyes on. So genuine, stripped of all the dust and dirt of the world. He felt his own smile mirroring hers.
“Yes,” Rhea said. “She is. But not only.”
Grey leaned closer, discerning some hidden message in her cryptic words but unable to discern the meaning. “Have you chosen a name for her?” he asked. The babe had Rhea’s perfect button nose and the delicate shape of her ears. Though she was mostly bald, fuzzy golden hair sprouted from her scalp. Her chin, however, was all Grey’s, hawkish and sharp.
“Yes,” Rhea said, watching Grey as he watched the sleeping baby. “Noura.”
Grey’s heart stuttered, his eyes locking on Rhea’s. She nodded, her lips pursed. It was his mother’s name, a name he’d only shared with her once before, on the giddy night they’d first kissed in the cryptlands. “I—I don’t know what to say.”
“Do you like it?”
“I—it’s perfect. Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.”
Grey had the sudden urge to touch her, and his hand lifted, easing toward her cheek. She stiffened, but didn’t flinch away. Closer, closer. Memories flashed in his mind. Of the anger in Rhea’s eyes as she identified Grey as a thief. Of how sad she’d looked when he’d abandoned her to save his sister.
His hand dropped.
Rhea’s eyes dropped too.
“I understand,” she said.
“Understand what?”
“I am not the girl you fell for in Knight’s End. No. I will never be her again. They cut my face, the furia. They took my beauty.”
“Rhea.”
She continued as if she hadn’t heard him. “They tried to break my spirit, too, but I wouldn’t let them. I filled the void with anger. I destroyed any who got in my way. I reforged myself with fire and hate and determination to never be weak again, to be the strongest queen the world had ever seen.”
“Rhea, I—”
“I did horrible things. I led death on a string behind me like some wicked pet. I wanted to burn the Four Kingdoms to the ground because I could never be happy and I didn’t want anyone else to be either.”
Grey closed his eyes. So it was true. He’d heard stories… And when he’d battled the sea monster that had nearly killed him and his sister, that same demonic creature that had killed Captain Smithers and taken Erric’s leg…
He’d known. In his heart of hearts, he’d known it was Rhea who had unleashed the beast in the first place. When he opened his eyes, his expression was full of bitterness. This truth was the one thing that might ruin everything. So he had to ask: “Why did you do it?”
To her credit, Rhea didn’t look away, her eyes burning with truth. “I—I was drunk on the power,” she admitted. “I wanted to control everything. So I Summoned the monster and used it to save my people. But then I lost the very thing I wanted more than anything.”
Grey understood. He understood everything. And, to his surprise, he didn’t hate her—couldn’t hate her. Not ever. “Control,” he said.
She nodded slowly. “Yes. But that doesn’t excuse anything I did before or after. I am not seeking forgiveness, for I don’t deserve it. But then—”
“Rhea, please—”
She rushed on as if he hadn’t spoken. “But then I did something good. Something right. And you know what? For the first time in months I felt…happy. Confused, but happy. And I wanted that for my child too—our child. I wanted to show her how to be happy, like no one had ever taught me before. But if you don’t want to be a part of that, I understand, because of my scars, because of our past, because of—”
Grey leaned forward and kissed the rest of her words away, his lips moving against hers in a way that should’ve been awkward after all the time they’d been apart, but which wasn’t. The feel of her, the taste of her, was as familiar as if he’d never left her.
His heart was beating faster, and, as they always did with Rhea, one kiss led to two and then more, his hand greedy as it curled around her chin, moving upwards to caress her—
She recoiled suddenly and he found his lips tasting nothing but air. “I’m—was that too much?” he gasped, afraid he’d been too bold.
Rhea’s eyes were wide and piercing. “No. I’m sorry. I just didn’t expect, and when you tried to touch my face…”
“I love your face,” Grey said. “Scars or not, I find you beautiful.”
Rhea shook her head. “You don’t have to say that. Just because we have a daughter together…”
“You think that’s what this is about? Rhea, not a day has passed that I haven’t thought of you. Even when I was with…Kyla…I couldn’t get you out of my head. It wasn’t fair to her, I know, but it’s true. I thought I could love her, or I thought I wanted to. But I never stopped loving you, even if I didn’t want to admit it to myself.”
Rhea looked away and he felt his heart twist. He could see the disbelief in her eyes. Wait. No. It was something else. Something he couldn’t quite identify.
As she looked at Noura, she said, “I want to be an empty canvas again, to start over, to paint the picture of the life I want. Do you think that’s possible?”
He knew what she wanted him to say, and he wanted so very much to say it. But he’d lied to her before, and he never would again. “No,” he said, and her eyes jerked up to meet his. They sparkled with unshed tears now. He could see the strength of her will holding them at bay, refusing to let them fall. She was so strong, like a sailor clinging to a mast in a raging storm, and he knew she could bear the truth now. Perhaps she always could. “You have to live with your choices, become better because of or in spite of them. You don’t have to wipe the canvas clean, but you can paint over what’s already there.”
“What if I can’t?” He could sense the true fear in the question, the honesty.
“What if you can?”
A single tear trickled from her eye and he longed to brush it away, but he would not touch her again until she was ready. “I fear I’ve changed too much. The things I’ve done…”
“I’ve changed too. And I’ve also done horrible things. Not the least what I did to you.”
Rhea knuckled the tear from her own cheek, and Grey wondered why he’d ever thought he should do it for her. “I forgive you for everything,” she said.
“Gods, Rhea, I forgive you too.”
“What about Noura?” she asked. He followed her gaze to the perfect, sleeping child.
“What do you mean?”
“How can we—how can we be worthy of her?”
And that was the truth he’d seen in Rhea’s expression from the moment he laid eyes on her in the Bloody Canyons. Self-doubt. Fear of being an unworthy parent. He’d felt it too. Hell, he didn’t even know what to do with a baby, much less how to care for it.
Despite all that, however, a thought struck him, and it was filled with more truth than a lightning strike. “Maybe a child is what makes us worthy of being a mother and father.”
Rhea surprised him with a laugh. His own laugh followed shortly after. “You have changed, Grey Arris. And I like it.”
She leaned forward for another kiss, short and sweet, before Noura awoke with a yawn. Grey wrinkled his nose at the pungent smell that arose from the bundled babe.
“Ah,” Rhea said. “Changing Noura’s soiled napkin is what will make you worthy of being a father.”
Grey groaned, but resigned himself to the task. “Fine. But you shall have to show me or it may end up on her head.”
It was a moment of lightness in a world about to be beset by a great storm.
Ten
The Northern Kingdom, near Walburg
Tarin Sheary
Something isn’t right, Tarin thought as he scanned the edge of the forest. It had been three days since he’d led a small force of a hundred stalwart soldiers away from the main body of refugees. Given the reported speed of their pursuers, they should’ve run into the Horde two days ago.
A knife of fear pricked at Tarin’s spine. What if they’d missed them somehow? What if the Horde had already fallen upon Annise and her people? What if, even now, they were feasting on—
Get a grip, the monster hissed.
Tarin clamped his teeth together and pushed the whirlwind of thoughts away. He hated that he’d lost control, allowing the thing inside him to breach his defenses. More than that, he hated that it was the monster who’d been the one to calm him.
You can hate me, but it doesn’t change our reliance on each other.
It was true, now more than ever. Tarin knew the monster could not live without a host. He’d even tried, with Fay’s help, to dispel the monster by having great pain inflicted on him, but in the end he’d backed out of it. Why?